Transcript of Episode 234: The GAPS DIET- Explaining the GAPS Protocol and Vegetarianism
With Dr. Daniel Pompa and Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride
Ashley:
Hello, everyone. Welcome to Cellular Healing TV. I’m Ashley Smith, and today joining us all the way from the UK is the very special Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride. One of our favorite topics here at CHTV is the gut-brain connection, so today’s episode will not disappoint. Dr. Pompa and Dr. Natasha are breaking down some of the major reasons for our modern epidemics of both mental and physical degenerative diseases, and they discuss how to reverse many chronic illnesses through diet and lifestyle, most notably with Dr. Natasha’s own GAPS diet.
GAPS stands for gut and psychology syndrome, and Dr. Natasha will share what it entails and what illnesses it can target. They will also cover today’s popular plant-based lifestyle where problems may arise with that and how to address them. If you or someone you know is affected by mental and degenerative diseases, allergies, or even strict vegetarianism or veganism, you cannot miss this episode.
Before we join in, let me tell you a little bit more about Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride. Dr. Natasha graduated with honors as a medical doctor in 1984 from Bashkir Medical University in Russia. She earned a post-graduate degree in both neurology and human nutrition at Sheffield University in the UK. Dr. Campbell-McBride is known for her book, Gut and Psychology Syndrome. The book explores the GAPS nutritional protocol, which is highly successful in naturally treating patients with learning disabilities, autism, ADHD, depression, and other mental problems.
In her clinic, Dr. Campbell-McBride sees a lot of young people who have become very ill from eating a plant-based diet. Her studies and experiences have led to two more books, Put Your Heart in Your Mouth and Vegetarianism Explained. Dr. Campbell-McBride is also a board member of the Weston A. Price Foundation. Let’s welcome Dr. Pompa and Dr. Campbell-McBride and get right into it. This is Cellular Healing TV.
Hey, health practitioners, are you looking for tools to discover the deeper health issues that need to be addressed with your clients? Do you want to truly understand cellular toxicity so that you can integrate Dr. Pompa’s true cellular detox program into your practice? I’m sure you’ve heard all about true cellular detox here on CHTV, and we welcome you to learn more.
You are invited to attend one of our live training events. Our next event is in Newport Beach, California on September 8. To attend this event or to check out other future events, please visit tcdEvent.com. We will provide for you the tools to help you successfully implement true cellular detox into your practice. You don’t want to miss this or one of our future training events. Again, tcdEvent is where you can register or find out more information. We’d love to see you there.
Dr. Pompa:
I think some of my readers are familiar. At least people go, “Yeah, I’ve heard of this GAPS diet that works amazing for brain conditions.” That's the acronym, right, gut and—
Dr. Natasha:
-inaudible-
Dr. Pompa:
I almost said something different than psychological issues, but it is great for autism, even schizophrenia, depression. I could go down a list. Of course, I have many clients who have been very successful with the GAPS diet with their autistic children. That book I think you wrote in 2004. Am I correct?
Dr. Natasha:
That’s right, a long time ago. Since then, GAP became a global phenomenon, more than a million people following it. The book has been translated into 18 languages. It has become a known phenomenon all over the world. GAPS nutritional protocol works not only for mental problems; it works for many physical conditions. The whole list of both immune conditions, allergies, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, and chronic cystitis, and skin conditions, and of course the whole spectrum of digestive disorders. It is a diet—a program of choice for many, many people.
Dr. Pompa:
Let’s back up. What's the premise behind the diet? Then we can get into some specifics after that. Why does it work? What’s the premise behind it?
Dr. Natasha:
It works because it fixes the gut. All diseases begin in the gut. That’s what the father of modern medicine, Hippocrates, said more than 2,000 years ago. The more we learn with our modern scientific tools, the more we realize just how correct he was. Indeed, every disease, whether it’s physical or mental, begins in the digestive system. The GAPS nutritional protocol fixes the digestive system. It changes the gut flora. It heals and seals the leaky, damaged gut wall. It normalizes the whole environment in there.
The rules of pretty much every chronic illness, whether it is physical or mental, are in the digestive system no matter how far away from the digestive system the disease might manifest itself. Once you fix those rules with the GAPS nutritional protocol, the symptoms start melting away whether it's rheumatoid arthritis, or asthma, or psoriasis, or schizophrenia, or depression, or autism.
Dr. Pompa:
What’s the premises behind the diet? As quickly as you can, explain what is the GAP diet? There’s many diets out there, which we’re going to talk about, at least one of them like the vegetarian diet. Your new book, I can’t wait to talk about—2017, last year—talks about some of the pitfalls, if you will, with a vegetarian diet. We’re going to get there. What’s the premise behind the GAPS diet?
Dr. Natasha:
The GAPS diet removes all the foods that feed pathogenic microbes in the gut because people with all chronic illnesses have abnormal gut flora, abnormal balance of microbes in their digestive system. The GAPS diet feeds beneficial microbes and starves off the pathogens. At the same time, it provides concentrated nutrient-dense foods, concentrated nutrition, to rebuild the gut lining and to rebuild the joints, which rebuild many, many other tissues in the body. Human body doesn’t waste an effort on healing sick cells or sick tissues.
Dr. Pompa:
I agree.
Dr. Natasha:
It destroys them and removes them. At the same time, it gives birth to trillions of new baby cells to replace the dead ones, to replace the damaged ones, the poisoned ones, the diseased ones. It just kills the diseased ones, removes them, and replaces them with newly born cells. GAPS diet piles in huge amounts of proper building materials for the body to give birth to those trillions of cells, to make them from something.
Dr. Pompa:
-inaudible-
Dr. Natasha:
At the same time, it feeds the digestive system so they—and the digestive system is the major source of toxicity in the human body. There’s a river of toxins flowing in these people from the gut, into the blood stream, and gets distributed around the body. That's what the GAPS nutritional protocol removes. It stops that river of toxicity, and it rebalances the immune system in the person. Lots of different things happen. That’s recovering.
Dr. Pompa:
-inaudible- people can order the book on Amazon. I think in 2010, you actually had a rewrite of the book, correct?
Dr. Natasha:
It’s a second edition.
Dr. Pompa:
People could get the specifics, obviously, in the book on Amazon. You can tell them more specifically how to do that. I don’t need a full list because they can get the specifics there in the book, but give us some ideas of the foods allowed on the GAPS diet and foods not allowed on the GAPS diet.
Dr. Natasha:
We remove all the foods which are difficult to digest, which feed pathogenic microbes in the got, and which challenge the gut lining. That is all grains and everything made out of them. All starch has to be out because starch is a huge molecule under the microscope. Very difficult to digest even for people with cast iron digestive systems. Starch has to be out for a long period of time for the gut to allow itself to heal itself. We remove all processed and refined foods, which really are unknown foods, and they should not be in the diet of anybody. We remove all chemicals, and additives, and preservatives, and other things like that.
The important thing in the GAPS nutritional protocol is not what we remove, but what we actually eat. We focus on the high-quality whole foods that are cooked at home from scratch from natural ingredients. The beauty of it is that in many people, once the gut has healed, people can come off the GAPS diet and can introduce many, many foods, which they could not eat during the GAPS diet.
Once the gut is healed—but for some people with particularly severe conditions such as schizophrenia, for example, or Crohn’s disease, or let’s say multiple sclerosis, or fibromyalgia, once they’re on the GAPS nutritional protocol and once they've recovered, they usually have to continue staying on the GAPS diet, which is very easy, actually. Once it becomes your habit and becomes your life, it’s very easy to follow. It's very delicious and nutrient-dense.
As I was working with these patients, I started getting large numbers of anorexic girls in my clinic a few years ago. What I’ve discovered, that majority of these girls became anorexic because of misguided vegetarianism. That spurred a very intense study into the subject. The result of that study is my new book, which came out last year, called Vegetarianism Explained.
What I discovered in my study, that there isn’t any science into vegetarianism we can really rely on. Vast majority of studies that are published on this subject are skewed because they were funded by people who are interested in vegetarianism. They cannot be trusted. They’re either incorrectly designed, or incorrectly conducted, or the data has been incorrectly analyzed. I had to go look back at the basic physiology, and basic biochemistry, and clinical experience.
Based on these three major sciences, the clinical experience, the biochemistry, and the physiology, I’ve explained how animal foods work in the human body and how plant foods work in the human body. These two groups of foods coming from Mother Nature work very, very differently for us humans because of the way our digestive system has been designed. They have a very, very different effect.
Based on that, I explain to people all the science behind it. I’ve done it in an easy-to-understand form. I've put some nice pictures there for the youngsters because usually, majority of people who go into this lifestyle are usually young people, quite often teenagers because they watched a film, maybe, about industrial farming or the industrial farming keeps birds and animals, which is appalling and should not be done. Based on that emotion, then they decide to become vegetarians or even vegans. Very often, they damage their health irreparably.
It is very easy to damage your health, and it’s very difficult to regain it. It takes much, much longer to regain your health than to damage it. I have seen so many tragedies in my clinic where young people who used to be perfectly healthy before they decided to become a vegetarian ruin their lives, ruin their health, put themselves on just complete slipping slide into mental illness and physical illness. It’s very difficult to help these people.
Dr. Pompa:
I agree with your point. -inaudible- Scientific American, the July 2018, this month, they have an article in here. Basically, because of new science—they call it food prints—they’re able to look at teeth. We used to look at someone's teeth and say, “Oh, this group of people or animals should eat this.” They would look at, basically, structure affecting function, and they would make arguments—maybe some of the vegetarians would make arguments that we should be vegetable eaters.
According to this, that we actually even—all cultures they look at were varied eaters, meaning there might have been short times where they were using vegetables because they couldn't get meat. As soon as the environment changed or this changed, they would be using meat again and this. No doubt that we were forced into dietary changes. No culture, to your point, in the history of man has ever just eaten a vegetarian diet. Tell us why. Why does it lead to disease eventually?
Dr. Natasha:
Weston A. Price, one of the wonderful, very truthful scientists who, in the 1930s, traveled all over the world studying the diets of traditional, original cultures, people to whom our western civilization hasn’t arrived yet. What he found out in every case, these people were beautifully healthy and had no diseases of the western civilization, no mental illnesses, no physical illnesses. Their childbirth was easy. They lived long lives, and they were happy people.
What he found out in every environment, because he went all the way from Eskimos down to Pacific Islands and all over the place—so depending where people lived and what was available to them, people ate very different diets, and yet they were all healthy. He was specifically looking for a purely vegetarian culture all over the world. He didn’t find one. He came to the conclusion that it isn’t possible, and it isn’t something that, traditionally, people did.
Many people in the West, particularly vegans, they all point to India, saying, “Oh, well, in India, they’re vegans or vegetarians, and they’re fine.” Why do you think in India the cow is a sacred animal? She gives them something without what they cannot survive. She gives them an animal food, milk, ghee, butter, cheese, cream. They know that without this animal food, they simply would perish. They would eat lots and lots, whatever’s available.
Also, these vegetarian cultures in India, they eat a lot of eggs. They all have chickens and ducks, and they would have lots of eggs and add eggs into their rice and vegetables. They also have goats and value their milk very much. These vegetarian cultures in India are not vegetarian by choice. They’re vegetarian out of poverty because India has always been a very over-populated country. I went to India. I don’t know how many people went to India. People are everywhere. It is the most populated country in the world. It has the largest population in the world.
If they start eating their animals, they probably will eat the lot in two weeks. That is why they have to make this choice. However, it’s only in isolated areas in India that they have this choice. People who live along the coasts of the seas, and oceans, and rivers, and lakes, they have fish for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. That is their staple. That is what they—the large bulk of the nutrition comes from this. They have the dairy, and they have the eggs. Even the vegetarian people who live inland and don’t have access to seafood or fish from lakes and rivers, even those people, when they have a chance to eat meat or fish will eat it without any questions. That is -inaudible-.
Dr. Pompa:
I think another one that they hold onto is the China study where—it’s really a big plant-based diet. I think when you examine that closer, it’s not what people think. Talk about that because again, I think vegetarians, at least plant-based diet people, they really hold onto the China study or even the Okinawan diet.
Dr. Natasha:
The China study is a big fraud. There are books written about this study and how the data’s been collected, how it’s been analyzed, what kind of statistical analysis has been used, and so on. It is a fraud from the beginning to the end. Not a word from this study can be trusted.
Dr. Pompa:
No doubt about it. Again, when you really look at that culture, you look at—some of the hardcore meats are actually a staple even in the Okinawan diet. Talk a little bit about that because that also is held up with the plant-based people as being the perfect diet, so to speak.
Dr. Natasha:
What people don’t understand is the basic physiology of the human digestive system. If you look at how life works on our planet, all energy on our planet gets recycled, and new energy comes from the sun. In order for that energy to be captured and converted into solid matter that we can touch and we can eat, Mother Nature created plants. They have photosynthesis. They can capture the sunlight and convert it into chlorophyll, which are green -inaudible-.
In order then for something else to consume the sunlight in the form of plants, Mother Nature created herbivorous animals. In order for these animals to be able to digest plant matter, Mother Nature equipped them with a very special digestive system called rumen. A cow has four stomachs, enormous stomachs full of microbes. She has enormous microbial community in those four stomachs, bacteria, viruses, protozoa, worms, flukes, all kinds of thing living in the community together.
The clear scientific fact is that no creature on this planet can digest plants apart from microbes. Only microbes can really digest plant matter. That’s the fact that Mother Nature used in creating the rumen of herbivorous animals, cows, goats, giraffes, elephants, deer, antelope, and the rest of them.
In order then for something else to be able to consume the sunlight in the form of herbivorous animals, Mother Nature created the next group of creatures on the planet, and these are omnivores and predators. Human beings belong in that group. We don’t have a rumen. We have a small stomach, and if it is healthy, it’s virtually sterile. It virtually has no microbes in it because it produces hydrochloric acid, and pH, when we’re hungry, can go below 2, sometimes even below 1, which is an extremely hostile environment for any kind of microbe.
The only things that hydrochloric acid, and pepsin, and other substances that stomach produces, human stomach, that they can really unravel and digest, meat, fish, eggs, and milk, only these four foods, the animal foods that can really digest properly in the human stomach. Plants are indigestible for the human stomach. They sit in the stomach, and they wait for their turn to move on further down. Whatever we manage to chew and break down with amylase in the mouth, that’s what finishes up in the stomach. Then it goes through the absorptive part of the digestive system of the human beings, the three meters of the intestines where all the absorption of food happens.
Again, we can’t break the plant down to any large degree there. We only absorb a few vitamins, minerals, a bit of starch, a bit of sugar, but the bulk of the plant, the fiber and the starch, go through all of those meters undigested and unused. Then they land in the bowel, which is the -inaudible- of the rumen in the human digestive system. That’s where the bulk of our gut flora lives. All those microbes that work on the fiber, work on the starch, and do the same thing they do in the rumen of the cow, but they break down the majority of the carbohydrates. About 70% of the sugars get converted into short-chain fatty acids, which are really saturated fat. That sustains us between meals.
The problem is that in the cow, her rumen is at the beginning of her digestive system before the absorption begins. In the human being, it’s at the end. When the absorption already happened higher up, it is too late for it to happen. The truly feeding, building foods for the human body are meat, fish, eggs, and dairy because they are properly digested in the human stomach, and then they move into the intestines where all the digested mass can be absorbed. In order to absorb, we have to digest it. Plants are indigestible for the human digestive system.
Human body renews itself all the time. All cells in our body die—live a short life, and they die, and they get shed off and replaced by newly-born baby cells. In order to give birth to trillions of cells, building materials are required. If you look at the structure of the human body, we remove the 70% water—human body, about 70% is water. The rest of it is dry weight, and the dry weight is about 50/50 protein and fat.
When we analyze the structure, biochemical structure of that protein that we are made of, its amino acid composition is very similar to the amino acid composition of proteins in meat, fish, eggs, and dairy. These foods feed very well. They convert to our own protein, our own materials that we build from very easily and very quickly.
The same goes with the fats. When we analyze the structure of the human fat in our bodies, in its biochemical structure, it’s very similar to the fats of lamb, and beef, and cream, and butter, and goose, and duck, and chicken, animal foods, and fish. When we analyze the plant matter, plants have got lots of proteins in them, but the amino acid composition of those proteins is inappropriate for building our own proteins. Many amino acids are missing. Other amino acids are in excess. On top of that, the proteins from plant matter are indigestible in the human digestive system and in many cases, very damaging.
Take gluten, for example, the major protein in plants. The more we’re researching gluten, the more we are realizing that no human being on this planet can actually digest gluten, and it’s actually damaging everybody whether you get symptoms from it or not. Many people have celiac disease. Many people have non-celiac gluten intolerance. The more we’re researching it, the more we’re realizing that it’s damaging many, many people, gluten.
Then we’ll look at secalin in rye. We’ll look at avenin in oats. We’ll look at other proteins in plants. They’re all indigestible. They have inappropriate amino acid composition, and they damage many tissues in the human body, and they trigger autoimmune diseases in the human body. The same with fats in the plants. Plants have a lot of fats, and these fats are usually poorly unsaturated. When we look at their biochemical composition, it is inappropriate for the human physiology.
The best and the most appropriate fat for building our own bodies—and fat is a structural element of the human body. It’s essential for us to have fat at every meal. The only appropriate fats come from animal foods to rebuild our bodies and to feed that cell regeneration process, giving birth to trillions of new cells. As it happens, these are the very foods that digest properly in our stomach before moving into the three meters of intestines where the absorption happens, and they absorb very well, while plants are indigestible. They do not absorb. What’s the role of the plants for the human body? Animal fat builds -inaudible-.
Dr. Pompa:
That’s right. -inaudible- you can eat some, but what is the role?
Dr. Natasha:
Exactly, yeah. It’s the animal foods that build and feed the human body. Plants cannot build our bodies and cannot feed us to any large degree. However, plants provide a huge amounts of antioxidants, phenols, salicylates, and other cleansing substances. They’re powerful cleanses. It is important for the human body to be well fed and to be clean, and they do live in toxic environments. Plants have a wonderful ability to clean us on the inside, and that is their purpose. That’s why we combine animal foods and plant foods.
If we have a very toxic person, a person whose body is really polluted—and many people in the western world have polluted bodies. When you go on a purely plant-based regimen such as veganism, in the first few weeks, you will feel well. You will feel great because having a cleaner body feels better than having a polluted body. However, at certain point, your body will finish cleansing, and it will become hungry, and it will ask for building, feeding foods. How will it ask you? It’ll give you desire for a steak, for a piece of meat, for a roasted chicken, for a pot of cream, for a piece of cheese, or something like that.
Problem is that in our western world, many young people follow veganism for emotional reasons, -inaudible- spiritual reasons. They override this signal. They don’t listen to their body. They dictate to their body, now you will continue cleansing. I’m not going to feed you. That is the moment when the body starts deteriorating. It starts cannibalizing less important tissues such as muscle and bone in order to feed and sustain more important tissues such as the brain, the liver, and the heart. The person starts losing muscle, and the person starts getting osteoporosis, and then disease sets in, mental illness, physical illness. That happens in just far too many young people who ruin their lives that way.
When I went to India—I’ll tell you a funny story. The guide told us that the Hindu pilgrims travel across India to their sacred sites, and they wear special clothes. It’s the black clothes with the golden brim. Part of their pilgrimage is a 41-day fast. Next day, as it happened, I was on the beach, and I met a group of these pilgrims. They just sat in the shade. They were looking terribly exhausted, very tired. In India, all people—majority of people speak English quite well, so I’ve spoken to these people. I’ve asked them, I said, “As I understand, part of your pilgrimage is a fast.” I said, “What kind of fast is it? Do you just drink water, or are you allowed to eat something?”
These people said, “Oh, it’s very difficult, very difficult.” You know how they bob their heads, the Indians. “Very, very difficult. Such a difficult, difficult fast.” I said, “So what is it? What are you allowed to eat?” They said, “Well, we’re only allowed to eat”—listen to this—“rice, beans, lentils, vegetables, fruit, nuts, and vegetable oil, and bread.” I thought, oh, that’s the western vegan diet.
Dr. Pompa:
It is. That’s what you were saying. That’s the western vegan diet. You got it.
Dr. Natasha:
People in India, for thousands of years, call it a fast, not a diet. I would not do it longer than 41 days.
Dr. Pompa:
I was going to say the same thing.
Dr. Natasha:
-inaudible-
Dr. Pompa:
Even a little bit shorter might even benefit them, but—just the change alone, but longer than that, they’re in trouble.
Dr. Natasha:
Exactly, it is—so veganism is not a diet. It is a form of fasting. Nobody can—
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, and by the way, that’s all -inaudible-.
Dr. Natasha:
Nobody can fast forever. That is why veganism must not be a permanent lifestyle. For a short period of time to cleanse your body, great, but then at a certain point, you have to start feeding it. It’s important to listen to your body because your body’s a miraculous creation. It is the pinnacle of evolution of life on our planet Earth. It has every mechanism of looking after itself, and healing itself, and rebuilding itself built into it. It’s your own body that heals itself and looks after itself, not the doctor, not the diet, not the pills, not you, not your mind. Listen to your body. It knows what it’s doing. Don’t ignore it, and don’t dictate to it.
Dr. Pompa:
No doubt. Short-term, that diet could be a benefit, but again, every culture, according to, like I said, this new article, moved in and out of these different periods. There’s a time to recycle, and there’s a time to rebuild. You’re right. You need the meats and the fats to rebuild. Otherwise, you’re going to be in this state of -inaudible- you where your body’s breaking down, which can be good short-term.
That’s the cleansing part that you mentioned. It’s part of my whole principle that I call feast/famine cycles. Every culture was forced into them. The problem today is we stay on these diets for a long time, and we end up in trouble, to your point. I see it clinically. We see it clinically, as well. We can look at cultures. We can look clinically, and go, “Yeah, this isn’t rocket science here.”
Dr. Natasha:
Physicians know this because they have seen too many tragedies.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, no doubt. How did you get into all this? What brought you to this? 2004, the first GAPS diet book you wrote, and it—I’ll tell you, it’s transformed millions of people. It really did. You were talking about these very principles here that you’re stating in the book. Then you gave people very clear direction on here’s what you should be eating. Here’s not. Here’s the diet. What started that?
Dr. Natasha:
My son, my child. I believe that children come to us as teachers. We parents teach them mundane things, how to live in this world, how to drive a car, how to dress, and the rest of it while children teach us the most profound universal truths. My son was diagnosed with autism at the age of three. Very quickly, I discovered that my own profession had absolutely nothing to offer my child, so that threw me into a very steep learning curve. The result of that curve was that my son recovered fully. Now he’s a young, healthy man who is helping with the business and leading a normal life.
As I was working with that, I started working with other families with autistic children because many parents of this kind of children communicated with each other and shared information with each other. As I started getting results with my own child, people started coming to me, and I started working with it. I discovered that siblings of these autistic children have many problems, too. They have hyperactivity, and digestive disorders, and they were clingy, and very fussy with food, and allergies, and asthma, and eczema, and other problems.
Then I started looking at the parents, and I found that the parents are not healthy, either, that they have chronic fatigue syndrome, and IBS, and multiple sclerosis, and fibromyalgia, and allergies again, and asthma, and digestive problems. I started discovering that all of these illnesses stemmed from the same place: from the digestive system, from the abnormalities in the gut flora of the person.
The protocol that I’ve designed—we’re dealing with digestive disorders. Digestive system is a long tube. What you fill that tube with has a direct affect on its well-being. Food is the medicine, without doubt. Once I started putting the whole family on the GAPS diet, people started recovering from all of these illnesses, which were completely perceived to be unconnected with each other. Fibromyalgia and autism, who would connect the two, or schizophrenia and rheumatoid arthritis, or digestive disorder and asthma? You wouldn’t connect those, necessarily, in mainstream medicine.
I’ve realized that they all stem from the same place. They all stem from the digestive system. We have an epidemic of abnormal gut flora in the western world, and with every generation, that epidemic is getting worse and worse. Recent research has discovered that 90% of all cells in the human body are in our gut flora, 90%. Your body is only 10%. It’s a shell, a habitat for these massive microbes that live inside you, and believe me, they’re in charge. The more we’re researching them, the more we’re realizing they are in charge of this 10% of what you are, basically.
Since we’ve discovered antibiotics during the second World War, and since antibiotics came onto the market in the 50s and 60s in large amounts, and started getting prescribed to people for every cough and sneeze, we started damaging our gut flora. Then the processed foods came in, and then the formula replaced the breast feeding, which is a devastating blow to the gut flora development and the digestive system altogether, and then all the other chemicals coming in, and the vaccinations, the change in the whole environment.
What’s happening that from generation to generation the gut flora’s getting worse and worse in people, more and more unbalanced, more and more damaged? Parents pass their gut flora to the child at the moment of birth. That’s where the baby gets its gut flora, from the mother and the father. If the generation of the parents got their gut flora from their parents who had a fairly good gut flora, maybe they had a couple of courses of antibiotics prior to having their children in the 50s and 60s, maybe, still their gut flora was fairly good, fairly robust, so they passed that to their kids.
Then their children grew up in a world where antibiotics were given to them for every cough and sneeze, damaging the gut flora further and further. They lived on junk food, which feeds pathogens in the gut almost exclusively, allowing them to proliferate and to thrive in your gut. Then the young girls in that generation were put on a contraceptive pill at a very young age, and they took these pills for quite a long time before they were ready to start their family. Contraceptive pill has a devastating effect on the gut flora and on the immune system of the woman.
By the time that generation of people were ready to start their family, their gut flora was seriously damaged, and that’s what they were passing to their children at the moment of birth. With every year, what I see in my clinic, the gut flora of parents—of the young parents who are starting their family is getting worse and worse. That is why we have all these epidemics of autism, and hyperactivity, and asthma, and allergies.
Diabetes type 1 has become an epidemic. We have babies, a growing proportion of babies, with this disorder. When I started practicing as medical doctor, the youngest person we ever saw with diabetes type 1 was an 18-year-old. Now, I see babies a few weeks old with diabetes type 1, and their proportion’s growing and growing. Rheumatoid arthritis in babies—
Dr. Pompa:
Here we are with these statistics. People think it just got here. It is generational. Even the amount of mercury we’re handing down to our children, lead, and then the glyphosate, and then the microbiome disruption we’re handing down—we’re handing down toxins generationally and then a faulty microbiome. We got here. We earned it, the last four generations. Let’s face it.
I have to ask this question. It’s so on my mind right now because I’ve had so many people asking me about all of the histamine reactions that they’re getting from foods, nightshades, so they’re avoiding histamine foods. They’re avoiding nightshades. These are all plants. Could this have something to do with the fact that people are—it seems to be in people who are more paying attention to their health that are reacting to these things. Could it be that people are focusing too much on the plant-based diet, and it’s creating some of these, or is it just the level of toxins creating the leaky gut?
Dr. Natasha:
It’s both. Plants are indigestible. Take it as a fact. They’re indigestible for us human beings. The more damaged your digestive system is, the less it is able to handle plants. They’re extremely difficult to digest. Original cultures knew this through experience. That is why they developed methods of processing plants to make them a little bit more digestible, a little bit more feeding, to get a little bit more nutrition of out them that the body can use.
Dr. Pompa:
Right, fermentation, etcetera.
Dr. Natasha:
Yes, fermentation, and sprouting, and molting, and cooking, and then fermenting again. If you look at traditional cultures in Africa, for example, they wouldn’t dream of having grains without fermenting them for two weeks, then cooking them, and then fermenting again. Only then they would make their bread from it or whatever else because they knew it’s indigestible.
It only will give you a tummy ache, and lots of gas, and will not really sustain you, will not feed you, really, your body. You will still be hungry and still be starving. The more damaged the digestive system of the person is, the less they’re able to digest plants, the more plants we have to remove. I have hit that point a few years ago—
Dr. Pompa:
-inaudible- the message is opposite of what you’re saying, you understand, meaning that everyone’s saying, “Oh, you’re sick. Eat more plants. Eat less meat and dairy.” What you’re saying is the exact opposite of that, is no. This is harder to digest. By the way, clinically, I find the same thing, so I’m in alignment with you, but it’s opposite of what most people are saying.
Dr. Natasha:
People need to understand where the nutritional information comes from in the mainstream. All information that comes to the population in the mainstream is funded by somebody because educating the population is a very expensive business, extremely expensive. There is somebody with a big wallet behind every one of these big statements that vegetarianism is good.
The push for vegetarianism, I believe, comes from the big agriculture because it is very easy for them to grow plants. We’ve got machines, we’ve got chemicals, and we’ve got all these scientifically worked out protocols. Now, you spray this on day one. You spray that on day five. You spray this on day seven, and it works. They get the green mass. They get the yield. The yield of what is a big question, but they do get their yield, and they get their profit.
However, when it comes to animal agriculture, animal production, the meat, the milk, and the eggs, it is very difficult to do in the industrial model. It’s cruel. It’s extremely expensive because all of these birds and animals have to be constantly on medication, constantly on antibiotics, on steroids, and on other medications. Otherwise they just die. They don’t survive. They don’t put weight on. It’s a cruel, cruel system, and it’s very expensive. The governments are on top of them with regulations, and the vets are on top of them with regulations. Producing animal fats, animal products, meat, fish, eggs, and dairy for the industrial agriculture is difficult, expensive, and not very profitable.
Producing plants is very profitable and easy. On top of that, governments subsidize it. Huge subsidies are given to western agricultural companies for producing plant matter. That is why it is within the interests of the big ag to make everybody into vegetarians. The more vegetarians there are in the world, the more plants are consumed, the more plants they can grow, the more profits they can make. The less animal foods people consume, the less headaches there are for them and the less losses there are for them. It is within their interests.
That is where that propaganda comes from. It’s crafted very carefully. It goes through many, many different ad organizations so it’s difficult to trace it to those companies, but that’s where it’s coming from. It’s very -inaudible-.
Dr. Pompa:
I really think some of the confusion is in the fact that when people look at meat and make arguments that meat is bad, that it’s not sustainable, it’s bad for the planet, they’re really looking at grain-fed meat as opposed to grass-fed meat. Number one, there’s a massive difference in the health. People get confused that because the average consumer doesn’t even realize the differences. Isn’t there a lot of confusion with that?
Dr. Natasha:
Absolutely, huge amount of confusion, and huge amount of propaganda, and misinformation. You go to a proper organic farm. You visit this family, meet the farmers. You meet the animals and the birds, and you see how they’re kept. If you keep animals and birds the way Mother Nature designed these animals and birds to live, it is virtually no work. I have a farm. I’m a farmer myself. I’ve got a 28-acre farm for the last six years. I know firsthand how that goes. Animals and birds, easy-peasy.
You’ve got one hour in the morning to do something with them. You just let them out, give them some food, and one hour in the evening. That’s all. The rest of day is free for you. They have no diseases, and they have no problems, and they’re happy. They get their own food. Just make them free range, and give them space, give them pasture, give them sunlight, give them proper environment.
Plants on an organic farm are an absolute nightmare to grow. First of all, there’s a huge amount of knowledge that has to go into it, and huge amount of labor has to go into it. No matter what you do, it rains at the wrong time, it’s too hot at the wrong time, and they just don’t grow. -inaudible- happens, and the yield is completely unpredictable.
Growing plants on an organic basis in an organic farm is the hardest and the most labor-intensive thing to do and completely unpredictable. Grass grows for free, particularly in a country like Britain, or Ireland, or other places when it rains a lot. The sun shines for free. The rain falls for free. All you have to do is just pasture.
The big agriculture put out another complete nonsensical and nonscientific lie out there that animals cause global warning through belching and emitting gas. That is such a nonsense. It doesn’t even deserve -inaudible- at all.
Dr. Pompa:
By the way, the problem there is feeding cows what they’re not meant to eat, and that’s grain, and that creates the bigger environmental disaster, which I -inaudible-.
Dr. Natasha:
What industrial agriculture does, it takes these animals off pasture where they’re supposed to be, locks them up in a prison, in a confined factory operation, and feeds them food inappropriate to their physiology. Cows are not supposed to eat grain. Pigs are not supposed to live entirely on grain. Chickens are not supposed to live on grain. Chickens eat a lot of insects and worms. They eat a lot of meat. In order to produce eggs, which are almost pure protein, they need to eat a lot of protein, so chickens eat a lot of meat.
They eat insects, and worms, and larva, and grubs, and things. If they’re roaming free on pasture, the chickens, they eat a lot of grass. It’s the carotenoids from grass that color the yolk yellow or orange. In a confined factory operation, chickens don’t get any grass. Where does the yellow come in for the yolks? From a dye that is added into the artificial feed that these chickens are fed. There is no carotenoids at all in -inaudible-.
Dr. Pompa:
-inaudible- caution. Dr. McBride and myself are both saying, “Hey, look, we regain people’s health back by these foods, the meats, the fats, the proper dairies.” The caution is it has to be the real meat, grass-fed, chickens that are eating things, the bugs, the worms. That’s the caution. Don’t run to your regular grocery store and start loading up on conventional meat. I promise you you will get sick.
Dr. Natasha:
Absolutely, -inaudible-.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, grass-fed’s key. That was a quick time. The time went so fast. Remind them again where to get your new book and where to get the other book, which is still an amazing book.
Dr. Natasha:
They’re all available online. They’re all available on Amazon and other online stores, and they’re available in many bookstores. I have a website called GAPS.me, G-A-P-S.M-E, and I have a blog, Dr-Natasha.com. The new book has its own website called VegetarianismExplained.com.
Dr. Pompa:
I know many people need to read that book. You and I are very in agreement that short term on those diets, no problem. Long-term, you’re heading for disaster. What a wealth of knowledge. Thank you for your passion. Thank you for your research. Thank you for all that you do. You’re in the UK over there, correct? That’s where you’re from?
Dr. Natasha:
I am.
Dr. Pompa:
Thank you for coming across the seas. Thank God for technology. Thank you for all you do and your books. I know many people are going to get them, and I’ll be searching your site, as well. You’re a wealth of knowledge. Thank you, Doc. Appreciate you.
Dr. Natasha:
That’s a pleasure. Thank you for inviting me.
Dr. Pompa:
You’re welcome.
Ashley:
We hope you enjoyed today’s episode of CHTV. We’ll be back next week and every Friday at 10 AM Eastern. You may also subscribe to us on iTunes or find us at Podcast.DrPompa.com. Thanks for listening.
