podcast episode 46 2014 - paleo magazine · podcast episode 46! ! 2014 {music} ! host: ... host of...

Paleo Magazine Podcast Episode 46

2014 Page !1

Podcast Episode 46 !2014 !

{Music}

!Host: Welcome to PMR, Paleo Magazine Radio, where we bring you Paleo

nutrition, exercise, and lifestyle perspectives from both the experts and the

everyday. PMR is brought to you by Paleo Magazine, the first and only print

magazine dedicated to the Paleo lifestyle, and is hosted by Tony Federico.

! {Music}

!Tony Federico: As a child of the ’80s and early ’90s, I grew up on a steady diet of Marvel

superheroes, professional wrestlers, He-Man and GI Joe. In every case the

male physique is depicted in heroic proportions: bulging biceps, ginormous

pecs, and of course a rippling six-pack. Understandably, these images became

etched into my mind. I became ab-sessed, if you will, and eventually

discovered how I too could own a four-, six- or even an eight-pack.

Unfortunately, I also became emaciated, unhealthy and mentally wrecked in

the process.

! Recently, however, I learned that I wasn’t alone in this experience, as I had the

pleasure of speaking with Clark Danger, host of the PaleoHacks Podcast.

Clark is a super-cool guy, he’s an evolved male, if you will, and he shared

with me his own experience with ab-session and how he overcame it to

become, ultimately, more healthy and well-rounded as a human being.

!


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It’s also worth noting that in this conversation we make some mentions of

Paleo Grilling, which obviously is my book; but at the time I hadn’t

announced it, so there might be some outdated references here and there.

Obviously I’m perfectly happy talking about my book, now that it’s done and

it’s available. I’m even going to share with you an excerpt from it today. It’s

going to be a journey of epic proportions. I’m going to be discussing why you

should meet your meat. So, stick around. Paleo Magazine Radio starts now.

! {Music}

!Tony Federico: All right, everybody. Welcome to Paleo Magazine Radio. I’m here with

Clark Danger of the PaleoHacks Podcast. Clark, welcome to the show, man.

!Clark Danger: Hey, Tony. We were just talking. You came on my show, so this is a back-to-

back (inaudible).

! {Crosstalk}

!Tony Federico: We were. We were. So, if people want to listen to that, they need to head

over to your website the PaleoHacks Podcast. But today it’s all about you, my

friend. I’m no longer interesting. Let’s talk about Clark.

! {Crosstalk}

!Clark Danger: {Laughter}. I was joking before the call. I’m sure all your listeners know, but

I have Bobby Flay on the other line. I can’t believe it. He’s the Paleo grilling

master, Bobby Flay.

!


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Tony Federico: Oh, man. Well, like I said in your podcast, I am the king of marketing, and I

don’t think I’ve actually mentioned it on my own podcast, so…

!Clark Danger: Oh, man, am I dropping the…

!Tony Federico: You – spoil alert.

!Clark Danger: Okay. Disregard that last comment.

!Tony Federico: Nobody heard anything.

!Clark Danger: {Laughter}. Well, cool, buddy. Thanks for having me on. This should be

fun.

!Tony Federico: I’ve had the chance to talk to you, obviously, before. You know, just, like,

looking at your website and everything like that, I like what you’re about.

You really kind of take a big, kind of, holistic approach to things. You know,

it’s a little bit of hacking; a little bit of tweaking; a little bit of mindset. You

know, obviously, food.

! So, let’s kind of get back to the beginning and let’s talk a little bit about the

origins of Clark Danger. First and foremost, is that your real name?

!Clark Danger: Oh, absolutely. Driver’s license, birth certificate—everything.

!Tony Federico: Nice.

!Clark Danger: You know. Yes. It’s pretty cool. {Laughter}. No…


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!Tony Federico: So, growing up…

!Clark Danger: No, it’s not. It’s not. It’s Kegley, actually. Yes. I’m pretty open with it. I

like Danger. It rings, and it’s easy to remember.

!Tony Federico: I think you should have stuck with Kegley, man.

!Clark Danger: Well, it kind of stems back to my childhood when I grew up watching the

WWE. You know, of course, now, the secret’s out, that thing is a fake and a

flop. But…

!Tony Federico: No.

!Clark Danger: …back then it was so cool, and they had all these nicknames. So I just kind of

had one, and it stuck.

!Tony Federico: So, were you Clark Danger as a kid?

!Clark Danger: Probably more middle school, actually, is when I really…

!Tony Federico: Nice.

!Clark Danger: …started to get dangerous on – {laughter} getting my pro wrestling out. Yes.

!Tony Federico: Oh, yes, man. So, imitating some of the moves – who was your favorite

wrestler back then?

!


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Clark Danger: I think it was the dude who wore the mask, Rey Mysterio.

!Tony Federico: Oh, nice. So, you were all into the luchadors.

!Clark Danger: Yes {laughter}, I guess.

!Tony Federico: See, I think me and my friends were more, like, nWo – like, little Scotty

Steiner, and Kevin Nash, and stuff like that.

!Clark Danger: {Laughter}. Oh, yes. It’s a throwback when you start talking about wrestlers,

isn’t?

!Tony Federico: Oh, yes. It’s such a huge thing. You know, for any child of the ’80s and the

’90s, I mean, it was big. I mean, everybody was watching wrestling back

then.

!Clark Danger: So, check this out. I went to a WWE event with – and for anyone who’s not

familiar with that, that’s, like, the big wrestling – you know, it’s pretty much

as much acting as it is wrestling. But, you know, I went to it about two years

ago as a throwback with my brother.

!Tony Federico: Oh, wow.

!Clark Danger: And I have never seen so many mullets in my life. {Laughter}. The entire

arena was full of people with mullets, who smelt like the most disgusting mix

of cheap beer and urine. It was disgusting, but it was…

!Tony Federico: Oh, man.


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!Clark Danger: …entertaining.

!Tony Federico: Sounds fabulous, actually. I’m super-jealous. Who’s even doing this stuff

these days?

!Clark Danger: Absolutely no clue. But maybe I could with my name alone, so…

!Tony Federico: Clark Danger.

!Clark Danger: So, that’s it for the show. You know. We talked about wrestling. Now, we’re

pretty much done.

!Tony Federico: All right. Thank you – everybody, thank you for tuning in. So, yes, man.

Let’s talk a little bit, you know, how you got into this whole, like, health thing.

You were dangerous as a teenager. What kind of stuff kind of got you

interested in exercise and health? Was that something that you were doing as,

like, an athlete, or did you kind of come to it a little bit later as an adult?

!Clark Danger: Absolutely, man. So, you were just on my show, and you told the story about

how you, kind of, got into this kick through fitness and, you know, ADD, and

that really calmed it down. And I totally relate to that. That pretty much

mimics my story, as I started getting into it, and – just like yourself, you know,

I didn’t have the size 30 pants, or 300 pounds – where I was 300 pounds and,

you know, before-and-after photos; or miraculously, I couldn’t walk, and then

I did Paleo and now I can walk, and go on water, and whatever.

!


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It was more mental, and it was – definitely took place with the fitness aspect.

I fell in love with Tony Horton and everything he did on P90X. And I

thought, bam – you know, if that guy can do it, I can do it. And so, that was

my gateway drug to fitness, if you will. And I became—I joked on our show

—ab-sessed, and all I cared about was the exterior. Recently, it’s morphed

into more of an interior. And that can be a cliché for some people, but that’s

how I got on the health kick where I am now.

!Tony Federico: So, what kind of stuff were you doing before? What was your professional,

personal life, prior to getting ab-sessed, and starting to P90X and do all that

stuff?

!Clark Danger: {Laughter}. It wasn’t terrible. It wasn’t awful. I was just straight, by-the-

book average. Did some sports that I sucked at, and joined the swim team.

!Tony Federico: {Laughter}.

!Clark Danger: Not too crazy. But I think more recently I’ve had more of a story develop

than in my past. You know, I’ve been kind of in the Paleo community with

PaleoHacks Podcasts for the past year.

!Tony Federico: How did that come about?

!Clark Danger: I was running my own podcast, “DUDE! Where’s My Health?!” And I just

really loved listening to podcasts, and I found they’re really grab-and-go,

drag-and-drop, and people had great stories and great tips and great advice.

And I learned more in my four years of college through podcasts, than I did

through the classes that you take. Right? You know, it’s crazy. I wanted to be


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a part of that. Got contacted by PaleoHacks to do their show, and we’ve been

grooving ever since.

!Tony Federico: Were you into Paleo at that time, just kind of with your own deal?

!Clark Danger: You know, I still don’t really consider myself – I know this is heresy coming

out of my mouth, but I still don’t really consider myself hardcore, boxed

Paleo. I mean, we could get into, do we even know what that is, like we did

on our show; but I would almost struggle to take more of a real food approach,

or organic, holistic health approach. I really feel like the people I work with –

they can get put off, depending on how you pitch the Paleo diet to them. Most

of the time, people don’t want to follow a diet in general, let alone one that

has them eliminate everything.

! I – in fact, I take a different approach with people I work with, where we don’t

eliminate anything. Instead, we start adding stuff in. It’s kind of subtraction

through addition approach. So, if someone out there is eating three meals of

grains and soy and dairy a day, me telling them to get rid of it and throw it the

window, and strip their cupboards—yes, that might work on TV that we see;

or it might work on the crazy, one-hit-kill for a week.

! But my approach – I love the long term, man. I doesn’t even matter if you do

that c--p [expletive] for a week; but I’m worried about what you do for a year.

So, if I can go in there, and you were drinking Coca-Cola and coffee, and I

can say, hey, drink half your body weight in ounces of water for a day, and

then do that for a week, and so on and so on; and I come back a year later and

they’re still hydrating—that, to me, is way better than that little one-week

burnout of intensity.


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!Tony Federico: Yes. I mean, it’s sort of this idea of not allowing perfect to be the enemy of

good. You know.

!Clark Danger: Yes.

!Tony Federico: And I think that if a whole bunch of people follow a perfect Paleo diet, like

you said, for a week, that doesn’t really make a difference. That’s not really a

win. But if a lot of people incorporate some aspect of it, you know, whether

it’s the exercise, it’s the diet, it’s some lifestyle factor, but they do that for the

rest of their life—I mean, that’s a huge win, man. That kind of seems like

that’s what you’re saying.

!Clark Danger: Absolutely, man. Is it better to do 100% for one day, or 1% for 100 days, or

10% for ten days? I’d argue 10% for ten days, because you’re more likely to

stick at it and you – instead of getting 100%, you’re going to get 1,000. You

know what I mean? Over time. And maybe you’re the person listening right

now, at home, or driving, or working out in a gym, and you’ve gone on those

get-rich-quick infomercial schemes, as I like to call it; except they’re for

fitness. Right? 90-day challenge. Or they’re for nutrition—30-day

challenges.

! And those aren’t necessarily bad. I’ve just found in myself, and people I work

with, that a majority of the people aren’t really the all-or-nothing kind of guys.

There’s more of a shade of gray in there. And how do we work with that

shade of gray to eventually tint it to a – where it’s looking more black than it

is white? You know.

!


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Tony Federico: So, what would you say to somebody who’s just kind of coming in off the

street – maybe they’re like, hey, dude, I need some help. I want to take

advantage of some of the coaching that you offer. I’ve heard you on the

podcast. Just, like, average Joe, eating pretty c--ppy [expletive], maybe low-

fat here and there, or whatever. You know, I think, like, the average person,

you know, they’re probably doing some exercise; they’re probably, quote-

unquote, trying to eat a better diet; or they say, I don’t eat that bad.

!Clark Danger: Yes. First off, some people are healthy enough to take on the challenges and

kind of go all out. But you’ve got to assess the person and see, are they even

in the right state of mind to even begin, kind of, a new lifestyle or a new

fitness approach, or a new “X,” “Y” and “Z”? I know you know this as a

trainer. But some people just need to do some healing. You know? So,

they’re not really ready for a coach, or somebody to really push them.

Because what I do is, I work with healthy people and I push them to be better

than they are. You know. I like to view coaching as taking successes and

making them bigger; whereas counseling and therapy is more taking problems

and making them smaller.

!Tony Federico: I think that’s commendable, too. You know, it’s really important to recognize

the scope of your professional practice. And I’m hearing that’s what you’re

saying with regards to – yes, if someone’s got some deep underlying issues,

you know, there’s definitely resources out there that are maybe more

appropriate.

!Clark Danger: Yes. Totally. And that’s what happened for me. I’m sure people can relate. I

had a ton of food addictions and body image issues, where I would literally –

it sounds funny to say, but I would literally mirror-check myself 50 times a


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day and then, like, grab onto my lower belly fat, because I wanted six-pack

abs. And it totally, completely took over my life. So, you can’t tell me that

back then I was healthy. You know, regardless of how I looked. Because I

wasn’t.

! And so, now I’ve gotten over that mirror-checking and belly-grabbing. But

that’s not to say it doesn’t come back, or it’s not permanently gone. And so,

now I’m eating more towards how I feel versus how I look. Because I know

when I did how I look, I wasn’t really feeling all too hot.

!Tony Federico: Kind of a misplaced focus.

!Clark Danger: Absolutely.

!Tony Federico: And not to say that you can’t feel really good, and that promotes a certain

esthetic. You know, I think being really healthy looks good. You know, being

healthy; being fit. One thing that you mentioned, though, is the mirror-

checking. I think that’s interesting. I don’t really hear a lot of people talking

about that, but I feel like that can definitely be sort of a slippery slope, where

you’re constantly, like, scrutinizing and constantly criticizing yourself,

second-guessing every meal decision. You’re like, oh, man, my six-pack’s

gone. I blew it. I don’t think mirrors were Paleo. Did paleolithic humans

have mirrors?

!Clark Danger: I think I was listening to a show once where a woman was on there talking

about body image, and how she went camping. And then she came back and

she looked in the mirror for the first time, and she actually thought she looked

good. And that was really powerful, and stuck out to me. So, what I actually


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did last year is – and there’s a stigma that guys don’t struggle with body image

issues either, which is complete, you know, bulls--t [expletive], if we’re being

honest. Because…

!Tony Federico: Hey, man. We were just talking about growing up with, like, WWE and, like,

action figures and superheroes. Pretty unrealistic expectations there, if I do

say so myself.

!Clark Danger: {Laughter}. I saw a post – kind of a meme, you know, floating around the

Internet. And it said – on the top it had, like, a lingerie model, and on the

bottom it had a fitness model. It was kind of getting at the double standards

for men and women. And it said – the top said, if you don’t look like her – the

bottom said, then don’t expect us to look like him.

! There’s almost this stigma floating around that we have, you know, the Dove

true beauty commercials out there. And I think we don’t have that for guys.

You know, for men especially, it’s, suck it up; you’re bigger than that; just be a

man and don’t show your emotions, or don’t show your struggles, because

that’s weakness. I think it takes more of a man to really say, “No, man; like,

this isn’t working, and this needs to change, and how do I change it?” than to

drag yourself through the day just to get by.

!Tony Federico: So, what did that process look like for you? Like, when did you gut check

yourself and say, all right, I’ve got to get my mind right. I need to start really

focusing on what is going to make me feel good; is going to make me feel

satisfied; is going to make me feel more connected as a human being?

!


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Clark Danger: So, the first thing I did was, I completely covered the mirrors. I just took a

bunch of 8 x 11 pieces of paper, taped them over the mirrors, and had a little

corner where I could brush my teeth in, because other – doesn’t really work

too well if you can’t see where you’re flossing. That was it. That was it. No

mirror-checking. Totally ditched that. And I did that for a week. Ended up

liking it so much, I did it for a month. Ended up liking it so much, I took

down the mirrors and…

!Tony Federico: Oh, wow.

!Clark Danger: …I have very few in my house now. Yes. That was a really big process for

me, and one that might not work for everyone. But if you’re a dude struggling

with maybe some body image issues, or even a woman struggling with body

image issues, that’s a really cool place to start, and just makes you kind of

take a step back and become conscious of the fact that life, and your health, is

so much bigger than the last ten pounds on your belly.

!Tony Federico: Yes, man. Absolutely. And I think that that’s a great point, you know, that

having a six-pack doesn’t make you happy. You know, I think that that’s kind

of the bottom line there. What makes you happy is working on being happy.

!Clark Danger: Well put. And, you know, I was reading in a book that happiness is kind of

like a guiding star, not a distant shore. So, it’s that, if you’re on a journey, you

can use those stars to guide you in the right direction; but don’t expect to ever

reach the shore. Health is the exact same way. We have this idea that one day

we’re going to wake up, have no problems, have tons of energy, and feel like

we are 120% healthy.

!


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Tony Federico: Like, I have arrived.

!Clark Danger: I have arrived. This is it. Tony is the most healthy person in the world right

now. Like, what is this? Some sort of competition? It’s not. And I feel like

health is really the guiding star, not the distant shore that you’re going to end

up on, and everything’s going to be pink fuzzy clouds and rainbows.

!Tony Federico: Yes, man. I think that’s so important too, because if we have this idea that it is

a destination and that you eventually are going to reach – you know, there’s

always going to be that lingering sense of disappointment or frustration.

Because we’re never actually getting there. And then, you know, something

happens; something comes up, and you’re like, oh, why? You know. Why is

this always the case? Rather than accepting that as a factor of being alive—of

being a human—we’re kind of resenting this. But it’s because we’ve created

this sort of false expectation.

!Clark Danger: Oh, that’s so true, man. And what’s even worse than that is the feeling –

anyone who’s ever set a goal and reached it, and they get there, and what do

they say? You know. Is this all there is? The worst feeling ever.

! And I find a lot of guys I work with – a lot of men, they have that feeling on

the goals that they set, that are all exterior—the stuff they want to go after and

get. And us as men—you know, we kind of grow up in the WWE, we were

joking about; but, where things are broken and we need to go fix it. You

know. And, how can I fix it? Fix, fix, fix. Do, do, do. To-do lists “X”

through “A.” You know.

!


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And we never have that sense of accomplishment where we can step back and

say, you know, last week went really good. What did I do well, and how do I

do more of that? And that is really where a lot of the fulfillment comes in, I

think. And that’s what we’re missing.

!Tony Federico: Yes, absolutely. Just being able to kind of sit back and appreciate, like you

said, what’s going well. You know, just don’t have this constant, I guess, little

monkey on your back, for having to be productive all the time; for always

setting a goal. And then, all right, you hit that goal; now what’s the next goal?

Sort of this treadmill.

!Clark Danger: So, there’s an interesting psychology study on that. And the developing

research in the field is now saying that there’s not just goals, but there’s

actually two kinds of attainment within the goals. There’s post-goal

attainment. There’s that feeling that you get on Christmas Day when you’re

opening presents, right? And that feels really good, and it’s really high. But

then you also have that feeling after Christmas, you know, of, man, Christmas

is over. All that buildup for that.

! But what we forget to realize in our life is that there’s also pre-goal

attainment. That’s the going shopping for your best friends for Christmas.

That’s the writing your Mom a card. That’s the whole buildup of December to

Christmas Day. That’s the pre-goal attainment. That’s still happiness. That’s

what really makes us come alive. It’s not the finish line as much as it is the

entire race.

!Tony Federico: And, you know, it’s funny you mentioned Christmas. I remember this past

year, my little niece and nephew – them tearing into presents. I was like,


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dude, these kids are hitting the hard stuff. You know, they had the highs; then

there’s the crash; then they’re in the withdraws. It like – it’s intense. You

know, there’s a lot just around, you know, some of these things—you know,

some of these external goals. I kind of see, like, a present or a physical object

as, sort of, the manifestation of that.

! But, you know, your physical appearance—that’s an external goal. How do

you, I guess, reframe your goals from some of those external things – how do

you work with your clients who maybe have some physical goals? How do

you start getting them to kind of tune into more, like, the intrinsic stuff, like

the process stuff? Like, getting more in touch with, all right, what are we

really working for when we kind of peel back all the layers?

!Clark Danger: So, the reflection is what you’re getting at; and how do we know where to go,

if we didn’t know what we did, and what really works? And that’s a really

good question, Tony. Because I’ve found one of the most impactful practices

—and I’ll give it to everyone listening—has been something I do with a lot of

guys I work with. And that is just – as simple as it is, it’s writing down every

week—as little as every week, but maybe two, three times a week—five

things that you’re really grateful for.

! And that’s not some “don’t worry, be happy” kind of thing. No; that takes

hard work, to sit down, calm yourself down, take 10, 15, 20 minutes, 5

minutes—I don’t really care—and make a list of one, two, three, four, five.

And don’t just write down the thing, but write down why it means something

to you, and why you’re grateful for it.

!


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And they’ve done that in labs and analyzed people, and it boosts their

happiness significantly. You know, we’re not just talking 10, 20%; we’re

talking 30, 40. So, that alone is amazing. That’s amazing. And you can do

that for health. You can do that for relationships. You can do that for goals.

Whatever area in your life, if you can just implement gratitude when you get

off this call, and take time and write that down – make it a commitment once a

week: okay, on Sunday at 5:00, that’s when I do my five things I’m grateful

for. I think that really helps solidify what worked in the past; how do you

incorporate more of that; and more so, what really matters to you? What are

you grateful for?

!Tony Federico: Yes. That’s really awesome, man, and I appreciate you sharing that. You

know, just listening to you talk, I kind of, you know, drifted off for a few

moments, thinking about some of the things in my life that are really

blessings, and that I am truly thankful for; but how easy it is to totally lose

sight of that. I mean, one little bad thing throughout the course of the day, or

one kind of mild annoyance, and you totally get obsessed on that little speck

of grit in this overall really kind of wondrous opportunity to kind of be here

and doing our thing, and living life, and all that stuff.

!Clark Danger: So, here we are. You know, Tony’s on the other end. I’m here. You’re in

Florida. I’m in Seattle. We’re having a conversation online. It’s amazing, the

stuff we can do now, that we couldn’t do 20 years ago. Yet whenever a

technology issue happens, like when you were coming on my show and my

call recorder’s gone – you know, and that just drove me crazy.

!Tony Federico: {Laughter}.

!


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Clark Danger: But I forget to realize that I’m really grateful that I have a podcast, you know,

and we have an audience that we’re able to connect with, and we can meet

people from all around the globe at different time zones and everything.

That’s really crazy. You know?

!Tony Federico: There’s so much good going on all the time that I think that it just becomes

easy to overlook it, and take our eye off of that, and focus on – sort of like the

idea of, you know, are you looking at the speck of dirt on your windshield, or

are you looking through it?

!Clark Danger: So, that’s really good. And you mentioned earlier, you know, when someone

comes to me for coaching, or for consulting, or what have you, what do I do

with them? We’ve been talking about gratitude. And that can come off as, be

okay with where you are. And that’s half the story.

! The other half of the story is, how do you get to where you want to go? What

direction do you want to head in? And the way I go into that – do you want

me to give you another one?

!Tony Federico: Yes, man. Hit me.

!Clark Danger: Okay. I’ll hit you on this. So, for the person listening at home, you can

actually do this right now. And it’s something I do with a lot of people. I’ve

done it in groups, or I’ve done it individually. It’s an exercise. And so, this is

going to be the three questions exercise.

! So, I want you to think right now, either if you’re driving, at home, or working

out in the gym, or you have a piece of paper – great; but if not, just think


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mentally about three areas in your life. This can be health. This can be

physical. This can be spiritual. It can be finances. It can be relationships. It

can be school, if you’re a student. It doesn’t matter, the three areas. Okay?

! Now, once you have those three areas, you’re going to write down for each

area one thing that you’re currently not doing. So, you go three areas. One

thing you’re currently not doing. After that, below it, you’re going to write

down your excuse for not doing that.

! And then now you’re going to take a look. And this is going really fast, so it’s

kind of killing some momentum here. But you’re going to look at all those

things, and you’re going to say, what’s your excuse? What’s your excuse for

not doing that?

! And then you look and you see, how similar are those excuses? And you start

to realize, man. And I’m willing to bet that if any of you did it at home right

now, for 99% of you, it was time, or some form of that. It was priorities.

Time. You know. I didn’t have the resources. I didn’t have the knowledge,

maybe came up too. But, for 90% of the people I do that with, it’s always

time.

! And really, if you want to incorporate fitness or health, and you say I don’t

have the time—well, I’m going to be the hard-a-- [expletive] for a second and

say, we all only have 24 hours a day. And no matter how rich, poor,

socioeconomic class you’re in, what race, where you live in the world, you

have 24 hours of that. And it’s not lack of time that you have, more as it is

lack of priorities. So, how do you rearrange your life—how do you re-


2014 Page !20

prioritize your life—to where you can now delegate it to the things that fill

you up, and minimize the things that suck your time?

!Tony Federico: Absolutely. Because I know, for myself in particular, endless hours can be

squandered with no sort of tangible result, thanks to the wonders of

smartphones and the Internet. So, I don’t lack time. I’m lacking a little

prioritization there. So, thank you for the gut check, Clark. I feel…

!Clark Danger: {Laughter}.

!Tony Federico: …now I’ve been chastened. But, hey, man, we’re actually kind of running out

of time. But I do want you to give us a little bit of info about specifically the

PaleoHacks Podcast, and then just any projects you might be working on—

any stuff that you want to kind of shout out here while we have our listeners’

attention.

!Clark Danger: Okay. Absolutely. So, since they’re on a podcast right now, I take it, you can

come on over and, if you want, check out the PaleoHacks Podcast. That’s my

show where I interview a weekly guest. And we do all the health – the Paleo

field – kind of mindset too. And you might your man Tony on there in about

two weeks.

!Tony Federico: Sweet.

!Clark Danger: And then, i f you want , super-act ive on YouTube, actual ly.

ClarkDangerFitness is the channel tag. But mostly, if you want to go to my

homepage, that’s just clarkdanger.com. Posted all my lectures up there, and

other projects I’m doing.


2014 Page !21

!Tony Federico: I’m looking at your website right now. You’ve got some really cool

information. It looks like you kind of break it down in real, kind of,

actionable ways. If somebody wants to dive in and just sort of skim through,

they’re going to be able to take some stuff away from it. If they want to go a

little bit deeper, you let them do that as well. You know, how to get a six-pack

with the wheel of pain…

!Clark Danger: {Laughter}.

!Tony Federico: …how to get whiter teeth in three days. I mean, good stuff, man. So, I

definitely recommend people check it out. And the videos look great. I have

a jar of coconut oil in my pantry that’s going to be getting swished around for

15 minutes every morning, so hopefully I’ll have whiter teeth and can attest to

your recommendations.

!Clark Danger: Hey, thanks for the blog support there. You know, you were talking about

action steps, and that’s always the thing I try and leave people with. Because

we can talk about the stuff all day, but end up feeling maybe kind of lost. And

so, if people are looking for the – I guess the how-to, not necessarily the what-

to, hopefully that points them in the right direction.

!Tony Federico: Yes. It’s good stuff, man. And I appreciate the work that you’re doing, and I

appreciate the time you took to talk to me today, having me on your podcast

and then coming on our show as well. So, wish you the best of luck with

everything, man. Thanks a lot.

!Clark Danger: Anytime, brother. Hey, thanks for – all of you listening at home, best of luck.


2014 Page !22

! {Music}

!Tony Federico: Paleo Grilling: A Modern Caveman’s Guide to Cooking With Fire by Tony

Federico and James Phelan. Introduction. Part two. Meet your meat. “If it

has four legs and it’s not a table, eat it”—Cantonese saying.

! There are few foods as contentious as meat. News headlines frequently flash

warnings that eating meat is dangerous, it’s toxic, and will kill you quicker

than a saber-toothed tiger bite. Others cite the abhorrent conditions of factory

farms and the inhumane treatment of livestock. For years, we have been told

that meat has too much cholesterol and too much saturated fat, it’s

carcinogenic, and contributes to high blood pressure. Plant-based diets are

touted as both healthier and more sustainable. Critics of carnivory argue that

meat production uses up too much of our natural resources, and cow farts are

responsible for global warming. If what the critics say is true—that meat is

bad for our health and bad for the planet—why does the Paleo community

support meat but not wheat? Is meat-eating healthy?

! On an intuitive level, we all crave meat. Even devout vegetarians and vegans

have been known to cheat when confronted with a sizzling slice of bacon.

Frankly, meat is delicious. There are few foods that inspire such passion,

dedication and affection, as meat.

! We can be certain that our prehistoric ancestors ate meat. We have the marks

on ancient animal bones to prove it. Eating other animals provided early

humans with a rich source of usable calories that may have allowed us to

become the big-brained, clever creatures we are today. But the question of


2014 Page !23

whether or not something is quote-unquote Paleo, should really take a back

seat to whether or not a food is healthful, causing a minimal amount of harm

for a maximum amount of benefit.

! What the Paleo perspective does is help us to understand how food has

influenced humanity from a historical, ecological and evolutionary

perspective. You don’t have to be a scientist to see the changes that are taking

place in our society. The average American’s diet is vastly different than it

was only a generation ago. Processed foods and packaged foods have

displaced whole fruits, vegetables and meats, and as a result we are fatter and

sicker than ever before. Healthcare costs are skyrocketing, hospitals and

pharmaceutical companies are booming, and many of us are suffering from

chronic diseases. Looking at the way ancient peoples ate, gives us the perfect

framework for determining what we can do better.

! Defining meat. If you were to take a peek at the plate of an average

American, what is called meat would likely be a piece of skeletal muscle.

This muscle meat typically comes free of bones and skin, trimmed of excess

fat, tidily contained in a clear plastic wrapper, and “hunted” from your grocery

store’s meat aisle.

! To a prehistoric human, however, hunting for meat was a matter of survival.

A successful hunt would have been celebrated, and not even the smallest scrap

would have been wasted. Bones could be fashioned into weapons, tools and

jewelry, or smashed open for the rich marrow; skins could have been made

into clothing; and everything else would have been eaten.

!


2014 Page !24

We don’t even have to travel all the way back to the paleolithic era to find

cultures that embrace whole-animal eating as a way of life. In contemporary

Mexican cuisine you’ll find menudo soup made with tripe—beef stomach—

and tacos de lengua, made from braised beef tongue. In the Philippines you

might be served bopis, sauteed pig lung, as part of a tapas-style meal. The

Scottish are fond of haggis, a boiled sheep’s stomach stuffed with pluck—

sheep’s heart, liver and lungs. And the English have black pudding, which

isn’t a pudding but rather a sausage filled with congealed blood. Even here in

American, liver and onions was until very recently a dinnertime staple.

! The nutrients provided by organ meats, known collectively as offal, include

high concentrations of fat-soluble vitamins, minerals and cofactors that aren’t

present in muscle tissue. Eating things like skin, tendon and cartilage

provides the amino acids glycine and proline, which support the body’s own

ability to generate connective tissue. From a dietary perspective, eating from

the whole animal provides a tremendous diversity of nutrients that you’ll

never get if you only eat lean muscle meat.

! In addition to having a limited definition of meat, most consumers are limited

in terms of the types of animals they eat, sticking to a few familiar species.

According to the American Meat Institute, in 2011 US meat producers

generated 26.3 billion pounds of beef, 22.8 billion pounds of pork, 5.8 billion

pounds of turkey, and an astonishing 37.7 billion pounds of chicken. In a

distant fourth place with a combined total of 291 million pounds were veal,

lamb and mutton that went to market. This represents a grand total of five

species.

!


2014 Page !25

To get an idea of how this stacks up to our paleolithic ancestors, we can look

at coprolites—a fancy term for fossilized poop—to see exactly what they were

eating. In a study of coprolites found in Texas caves occupied between the

years of 7,000 BCE to about 1,000 CE, researchers found the following bones:

ring-tailed cat, coyote or possibly dog, beaver, kangaroo, rat, porcupine,

painted turtle, ground squirrel, pocket gopher, garfish, suckerfish, marmot,

wood rat, deer, elk, jackrabbit, bighorn sheep, horned lizard, raccoon, catfish,

frog, spiny lizard, spotted skunk, softshell turtle, dove, fox, and insects.

! There are even more animals on the list, but I think you get the point.

Although the exact animals featured on an ancient hunter-gatherer’s menu

would have varied, if the environment allowed they would have dined upon

dozens if not hundreds of species.

! The wild species that prehistoric man hunted, fished, speared and seared over

open flames weren’t docile farm animals. These creatures were highly-trained

athletes. They were on the move. They were hunting and they were hunted.

They were predators and prey. Even the ancestral equivalents of cows,

chickens and pigs were a far cry from the fat, feedlot-raised steers, big-

breasted broiler chickens, and penned-up porkers that make up much of the

American meat market. They didn’t require constant dosing with antibiotics,

and they certainly weren’t pumped full of growth hormones, steroids and

antibiotics. It was also pretty unlikely that they would dine on genetically

modified corn, soybean meal and plastic pellets.

! The bottom line is that meat-eating in the paleolithic era meant nose-to-tail

consumption of a wide variety of wild animals. By comparison, meat-eating

today often means eating only a few parts from a small number of sick,


2014 Page !26

chemically-enhanced animals. When discussing the advantages and

disadvantages of eating meat, we should take this fundamental difference into

consideration. Yet, studies of meat consumption that seemingly prove that

meat is unhealthy, rarely do this.

! The China Study. If you’ve ever talked to a vegan or seen the movie Forks

Over Knives, you’ve probably heard of The China Study, a book by Cornell

University professor T. Colin Campbell. In The China Study, Campbell

concludes that the consumption of animal-based foods increases the risk for

numerous cancers and chronic diseases. At first glance it seems like an open-

and-shut case. If you eat meat, you’ll raise your cholesterol levels and

increase your chance of getting cancer.

! But, digging deeper, the story becomes much less convincing. Nutrition

researcher Chris Masterjohn dissected the data presented in The China Study

and found that sugar, soluble carbohydrates and fiber all have correlations

with cancer mortality about seven times the magnitude of that with animal

protein, and total fat and fat as a percentage of calories were both negatively

correlated with cancer mortality.

! In other words, the real conclusion that Campbell should have presented is to

avoid eating too much refined sugars and carbohydrates. Masterjohn also

identifies how Campbell demonstrates a clear bias against animal foods,

implicating milk proteins in the development of autoimmune diseases such as

diabetes, but ignoring the possible contribution of the problematic proteins

found in wheat.

!


2014 Page !27

Separate studies that seem to indict meat-eating as a cause of cancer typically

grab headlines, but these hastily-produced news stories tend to leave out some

important facts. The highest risk of cancer seems to be related to eating

processed meats, and fresh meat consumption poses a much lower risk. None

of these studies has focused on an ancestral diet, where many different

animals are consumed in a nose-to-tail fashion along with whole plant foods.

The meat-eaters in these studies are also consuming large amounts of refined

grains, sugars and other foods that are known to directly contribute to

metabolic disease, and could likely make meat-eating more risky than it would

be in the ancestral model.

! Although long-term studies of modern people following the Paleo approach

have not been conducted, there’s ample evidence that suggests that eating like

our ancestors did will not promote diseases like cancer and diabetes. This

evidence comes from the study of modern hunter-gatherer groups that retain to

their cultural traditions well into the 20th century. Their diets of wild game

and uncultivated vegetables were likely very similar to that of our prehistoric

ancestors, and it is precisely this sort of diet that is advocated by the Paleo

approach. Most hunter-gatherer societies derived more than 50% of their

daily calories from animal products, with higher daily protein intakes and

higher cholesterol intakes than that of modern Americans.

! Despite what people like T. Colin Campbell claim, the meat-heavy diets of

hunter-gatherers did not lead to epidemics of cardiovascular disease, cancer,

diabetes, and other related conditions. In fact, even in groups that subsisted

almost entirely on animal products, like the Inuit, these diseases were almost

nonexistent. It was only after sugar and white flour displaced traditional

foods that indigenous peoples began to suffer from Western diseases.


2014 Page !28

! There are some who suggest that hunter-gatherers have special genetic traits

that protect them from the “damaging” effects of meat consumption, and this

may be part of the story. But a much simpler explanation is that fresh, whole

meat products from wild animals are perfectly healthy, and along with

nutrient-dense plants, represent the perfect diet for humans.

! Unfortunately, most of us neither have the skill nor the time to hunt and gather

all of our food. The good news is that you can still derive most of the benefits

of eating wild without learning how to throw a spear. Although you probably

should learn how to throw a spear, because that would be pretty cool.

! Small local farms. “Shake the hand that feeds you”—Michael Pollan.

Although a diet of wild animals and uncultivated plants represents the ideal,

the next best thing is to find sources of responsibly-raised domesticated

animals. Looking at the packages in your local supermarket, you’ll see

pictures that suggest that all the cows, chickens and pigs are living together on

cute farms with red barns.

! But the truth, as you know, is much different. The food industry uses

deceptive marketing to hide the fact that their animals live in factories rather

than fields, and even labels such as organic and free range have been

corrupted.

! The solution, then, is to meet your meat—literally. A simple Internet search

will likely reveal that right outside of your city or town there are small

producers who are in dire need of customers. If you live in an area where


2014 Page !29

there aren’t any options for responsibly-raised local meat, there are excellent

mail-order vendors that ship good meat across the country.

! The little family farms that currently make up only a fraction of the modern

meat industry, lack the marketing and infrastructure of multinational

conglomerates such as ConAgra and Archer Daniels Midland. But what they

lack in market share, they make up for in passion and care for what they do.

Granted, there are local farms that feed their animals GMO grains, use

antibiotics, or treat their animals poorly; but they have less to gain and more

to lose from those practices. Most small farmers live right on their land, so it

is in their own best interests to use practices that keep the land healthy.

! They raise smaller numbers of animals so that they are motivated to take good

care of each and every one. They can’t afford to simply write off downer

cows as a cost of doing business, like a concentrated animal feeding operation

—CAFO—can. Small farmers also frequently interact with their customers,

either directly at farmers’ markets or by phone and email. So, they have a

personal relationship and accountability to the people who eat their products.

! A farm with an open-door policy that welcomes visitors, invites press, and

participates in its community, is a farm that is likely doing things right and

deserves your support. To be healthy, eat meat, nose-to-tail, of all different

types, harvested by hand or by someone you know.

! {Music}

!


2014 Page !30

Tony Federico: That’s going to do it for today’s show. I hope you enjoyed my conversation

with Clark, and maybe I inspired you to go local and grass fed listening to

“Meet Your Meat” from Paleo Grilling.

! In the next episode of the podcast I’ll be chatting with a lovely and talented

young lady. Maybe you’ve heard of her before. Her name’s Stefani Ruper.

She’s the author of Sexy by Nature, a new book that you definitely want to

pick up – get a copy. It’s great. And she’s also the creator of “Paleo for

Women.” It’s a blog that speaks to women’s health issues in a Paleo, ancestral

health light. She’s going to be joining us here at Paleo Magazine Radio, and

it’s a great conversation. You’re not going to want to miss it. So, I hope you

definitely tune in.

! We’re also going to get into part three of this little Paleo Grilling series. This

is the third and final part, and we’re going to actually break down what you

need to get your grill on. So, I hope you all have an awesome day. I’m Tony

Federico, and on behalf of everyone at Paleo Magazine, thank you for

listening.

!Host: If you would like to share your story on PMR, please visit our Facebook page

at facebook.com/PaleoMagazine. For full transcripts of the show as well as

exclusive online content, go to our webpage, paleomagonline.com. You can

also talk to us on Twitter at #PMRadio.

! {Music}

!THE END

podcast episode 46 2014 - paleo magazine · podcast episode 46! ! 2014 {music} ! host: ... host of...

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