Episode 62 Can Red Meat be the Answer to Autoimmune Challenges

Have you ever wondered if an unconventional diet could be the key to overcoming your food sensitivities? In this episode I give my opinion on The Lion Diet.

Dietary choices have consequences. What does the microbiome in your gut have to do with your food sensitivities and overall health? How does your diet effect your microbiome? What do you need to consider before embarking on restrictive diets?

These are some of the topics I explore in this episode.

Learn more about booking a nutrition consultation with Fiona: https://informedhealth.com.au/

Learn more about Fiona's speaking and media services: https://fionakane.com.au/

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Credit for the music used in this podcast:

The Beat of Nature

Music by Olexy from Pixabay

Transcript

Fiona Kane: 0:31

Hello and welcome to the Wellness Connection. I'm your host, Fiona Kane. Today I wanted to talk to you about I've had some questions, so I just wanted to talk to you about a particular topic and it's about the lion diet. Now I've heard people talking about the lion diet and I just wanted to put my two cents in. So the lion diet essentially is an elimination diet where in most cases, people just eat red meat. That is all they eat, and it can vary ever so slightly. Essentially, it's a very restrictive diet where people largely only eat red meat. Now, of course, people largely only eat red meat. Now, of course, most people are horrified by this because of all of the propaganda we get about how red meat's the end of the world. It's not. It's not bad for you. There are some issues around farming that could be better, and they are better in some places and not in others, but the actual nutritional value of red meat is very good. It is very good for you. It is healthy and I have talked about that in previous episodes and if you go to my blog, fionakane. com. au, you can read about it there as well. So red meat in itself is not evil or bad and it's very nutritious. There's a lot of nutrition there. Now the issue is so okay.

Fiona Kane: 1:57

The good thing about the lion diet is that it seems to be at least a small group of people, but large enough that it's gaining popularity and there's a lot of people talking about their experience with it. It's a small group of people that seem to really benefit from this way of eating and I would say with most of them, probably for the short term. However, there are some people who've been doing it for a few years now. They benefit for a whole bunch of reasons, but in my experience, the people who benefit from these kinds of diets are people with autoimmune diseases or really extreme health issues that just are not being helped by any other way of eating. And sometimes what happens with these people? If their immune system goes all out of whack and if their microbiome, their gut bacteria, is out of whack, they start reacting to everything. And sometimes with those people, when they go on this kind of meat-only type diet, it actually does give them a lot of relief, because a lot of the foods that tend to irritate people's gut tend to be things different families of vegetables and carbohydrates and things. So when people go only meat in this situation. It often is really beneficial for them Now. So I understand that's why people do it, and I understand that some people get great results out of that. So there's a few things I will say around that. One it's, you know do what works, so I'm not averse to doing what actually works.

Fiona Kane: 3:38

In saying that, though, if I was going to be doing any restrictive diet, I would always be getting regular blood tests to check to see that you're getting all the nutrition you need. Do you need to take supplements? So, for sure, if you're on a vegan diet, you must take supplements, and with meat-only diet, well, some people seem to do fine, but other people don't, and it depends also on how long you're on the diet for and how much nutrition, like how much buildup of nutrition you had before. So I've said it before when I've been talking about the vegan diet is that people won't see the downside of it until maybe years, because it might take years for the nutrition stores to disappear. So when you start the diet, you might have really high B12 and really high vitamin A and all those things, and over time, you use it all up and you're not replacing it, and so sometimes you don't see it for a while. So if you're going to do any kind of restrictive diet, please regularly test to see, have blood tests to see if you need to take supplementation, because you may need to do that. The other thing is, too, that look the reason I think that people benefit from some people not all people, but some people benefit from this style of diet.

Fiona Kane: 4:57

Like I said before, usually these people have really inflamed gut and there's some big issues there. So going off a whole lot of foods can be really really useful while you heal your gut. However, I do think it's important, where you can and when you can, to try and go back into having a regular sort of more balanced diet and bringing some vegetables and things back in, and what that may entail for some people is actually exploring things a little bit further, doing microbiome testing to see what's going on in their gut, because possibly the problems that they're having, that they're having with their immune system, that they're having that are causing them to react to everything they can. Sometimes these issues can relate to your gut flora, your gut bacteria, microbiome, and if you don't have the right balance there, then sometimes what happens is so your gut bacteria.

Fiona Kane: 5:56

It does many things. But one of the things it does is it makes things called metabolites, which is basically just make stuff. It makes stuff that does stuff and if you've got the right microbiome it makes good stuff. So it makes I love my technical language, but it makes things like it makes vitamins, minerals, or helps your body to absorb vitamins and minerals, and essentially it does active, positive stuff for your body. But if you've got the wrong kind of bacteria, it might be making stuff that's causing you problems. So it might be making a whole bunch of histamine, so that now you're reacting to amines and one of those people that's sort of intolerant to histamine.

Fiona Kane: 6:39

All those foods will set you off because you're making so much in your gut, right? So your gut bacteria does something. It's not just sitting there, it's actually actively doing something and if you've got the wrong balance, it could be causing your immune system to be set off and all sorts of symptoms that relate to the gut bacteria. So just simply not eating the food and just full stop. That's all you do. Not a good idea Not eating the food for a while if that works for you and allowing for some healing to happen, and then working with a practitioner like me to support your gut and get it back, to get your gut back to a healthy place where your microbiome is healthy. If you do that, then you might find that you're better situated to actually reintroduce some of those challenging foods that you weren't able to have before. So in those cases yes, if it's not happening for you on your own, you might need support by a practitioner to help you see what's going on in the gut and correct what's going on with that microbiome so that then you can tolerate more foods and you can bring other foods back in.

Fiona Kane: 7:55

So it's not as simple as restrictive diets are always bad and everyone should eat a broad amount of nutrition, a broad amount of foods. It's very individual to what's going on for that person. However, yes, for the most part, it is a good idea that people eat a balanced diet and are able to get their nutrition from their diet, and sometimes we need to try these other ways of eating and they actually really work for some people in different situations to support their health. So I'm not one of these people. That's all.

Fiona Kane: 8:34

Against doing things like the lion diet or the paleo diet. I'm not a big fan of the vegan diet. I think short term it might be okay for people, but I feel like it's very nutrient deficient long-term. Again, depends on the individual. So it's what works for you and it's like I said before, it's also about being prepared to have regular blood tests to check to see that your nutrient balance is all right. You're not running out of really important vitamins and minerals and reassessing things and maybe adding other foods back in over time as well if you can, because the broader foods you have, the more different nutrients that you'll get into your system and actually just the easier life is if you can eat from as many different foods as possible.

Fiona Kane: 9:22

The other thing that is important to know which is why practitioners will get concerned about people having something like the lion diet is that your gut bacteria, the microbes in your gut they do need to be fed. We need to feed them, and if you don't feed them what they want, which is largely kind of fiber and carbohydrate foods, if you don't feed them, they actually will eat the mucous membrane, the gut lining sort of thing, the gut wall, and that in turn, will start to cause health issues and that in turn, might set off the immune system and you might become more reactive to certain foods, that sort of thing. So it's one of those things that you might have that kind of diet to get better. It may come back and cause more problems in the future. I'm not saying it always will and always does.

Fiona Kane: 10:17

It is very early on in people doing this style of diet, or at least in the modern day anyway, and because there's not sort of big studies happening and this is just individuals and they're anecdotally reporting what's happening for them, it's too early to absolutely say that no one should eat that way and you can't do it long term, et cetera, et cetera. So I think that kind of the jury is out on that. But I am open-minded to the fact that we need to explore different dietary protocols and different healing protocols for people and if this is working and if you're managing, like I said, with supplements, managing some of those nutrients with supplements if you need to, then we can do that. But let's be open-minded to I think sometimes mainstream kind of rejects this kind of stuff and says everyone's crazy and you shouldn't do that. And that's happened. You know it happened with eating low carb for diabetes. And that was right. And there was mainstream was saying no, no, no, diabetics must eat more carbohydrates and low carbers were saying no, no, no, diabetics must eat more carbohydrates. And low-carbers were saying no, no, no, they have to have less. And the low-carbers were right, even though they were treated like idiots for a long time.

Fiona Kane: 11:34

So I've been around nutrition for long enough to know that we do get. You know, I've talked about it before. I talked about it in a previous episode, a few episodes ago, but sometimes we do get stuck on ideas or we only have evidence for certain things, and because we only have evidence for certain things, we can only recommend certain things, which is fair enough. However, I just do think it is worth being open-minded about other dietary protocols and testing and measuring them and and you know, listening to the anecdotal evidence and seeing what people report, what's happening for them, and if we pay attention and if we study these things, we'll learn from it and we might learn that ultimately, we don't recommend a lion diet in the future at all, or we might learn that it is a really important healing diet for some people and we might learn the best way to do it and then the best way to hopefully be able to get those people back into a normal diet in time, but we won't learn that if we just write it off and say it's no good, you can't do it and you're all crazy.

Fiona Kane: 12:38

So I do think that these things, when you get this anecdotal evidence and people are saying this is working for them and there's many thousands of people reporting this around the world now, if not more, so it's not sort of six people somewhere Look into it, pay attention. I would say, though, for most people, you don't need to go that far and you're better off to try and have a diet with as many nutrients as possible, and what we do know is different nutrients feed different parts of your microbiome, and that's a healthy microbiome is really important for good health. So for most people, I think the recommended or largely recommended anyway balanced way of eating balanced diet, is a good idea, and for some people with extreme circumstances and extreme health issues, they actually might find exploring some of these other dietary protocols, even if it's just for a while, might be a really useful part of their healing, if not something that's sort of long-term sustainable and the long-term sustainability, like I said, we just don't know the answer to that question yet. So some of these diets may be long-term sustainable, or just maybe not. It's hard to believe that, like I said, a vegan diet I don't think is long-term sustainable. It's hard to believe a lion diet would be based on the fact that it's not really feeding a microbiome as the way that it needs to be, and there is a lot of nutrition in meat, but it's not all there. So I don't know. So the jury's out on it. There's not enough information on it.

Fiona Kane: 14:20

Be careful exploring any restrictive diets on your own without support and if you do do it, like I said, please get blood tests regularly and just make sure that you're not lacking in any really important nutrients. Because in Australia a couple of years ago I think maybe a little bit longer than that there was a child that went blind in one eye from a vitamin A deficiency and he was starting to go blind in the other eye and that doesn't come back. You can't fix that right. And B12 deficiency. So vitamin A deficiency is very common in vegans or people with gluten issues as well, and a B12 deficiency is also common with a vegan diet and B12 deficiency will cause brain damage.

Fiona Kane: 15:13

So there's a reason why people in my industry sort of say look, don't do that. It's dangerous, right, because if we don't get the right nutrients, it can be very dangerous and can have grave outcomes. So there's a reason why we tell people to be cautious and there's not enough information and we're expected and we're charged with the sort of using evidence-based scientific treatments, which is stuff that we've studied and stuff that we know is true. So you know, there is a reason that we are cautious and there's a reason why we don't jump straight into these things. However, I am seeing that there are some people reporting really great results and I think we should be maybe open to exploring this and supporting people to explore some of these things and learning from it, but not just jumping right in and saying, okay, that's the next great thing and that's perfectly, that's healthy for everybody and we should do it forever. We're a long way from that, but, but certainly these some extreme diets can be really useful for healing for some people and I'm open to that and I'm open to let's explore that and let's learn more and then let's see what nutrients we might need to add for those people to support them and the best way to get them back onto a more, a broader diet as soon as we can.

Fiona Kane: 16:39

So anyway, I just thought with this episode. I just wanted to focus on that and if you have any questions, let me know because I'm happy to cover questions in future episodes. But that was a question, a news I've seen coming up and a question I had from somebody. So I hope that that was useful and please don't forget to like and to follow and to share where the video is on Rumble and on YouTube. Otherwise, if you're listening, you can also share those audios as well. But I really appreciate any support that you give to my podcast. So thank you so much for listening and or watching, and I'll talk to you all again next week. Thank you, bye.