Episode 135 | Your “Healthy” Plant-Based Diet is Making You Sicker | Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride, Neurologist & Nutritionist

[00:00:00] Dr. Katie Deming: For many people diagnosed with cancer, the question to eat often feels like a sudden life or death decision. And if you or someone you love have been diagnosed with cancer, one of the first questions that comes up is, what should I eat? And very often the advice they receive sounds something like this.

[00:00:18] Dr. Katie Deming: Stop eating meat. It's presented as obvious necessary. Even essential. But what if that advice is not only incomplete, but potentially [00:00:30] counterproductive? What if healing requires something very different than what most people are told? Welcome to Born to Heal podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Katie Demming, and today I'm joined by Dr.

[00:00:40] Dr. Katie Deming: Natasha Campbell McBride, neurologist, nutritionist, and creator of the GAPS Protocol. Which focuses on the connection between gut health, nutrition, and chronic disease. In today's conversation, you'll discover what human digestion may reveal about the types of foods our bodies are actually designed to [00:01:00] eat.

[00:01:00] Dr. Katie Deming: Whether some foods we assume are healthiest. Could be harder for the body to process than we realize and why traditional cultures around the world consistently valued certain foods when strength, recovery and healing mattered Most. Welcome to the show, Dr. Natasha. Thank you for being here with us for this important conversation.

[00:01:20] Dr Natasha: I'm delighted to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

[00:01:23] Dr. Katie Deming: so you know, something I see all the time with people facing cancer is that they're told to eliminate all animal [00:01:30] foods, and there's a lot of confusion about what the body actually needs during healing. You wrote a book called Vegetarianism Explained, and you know, I wanna start with what led you to start questioning vegetarian diets in the first place?

[00:01:45] Dr Natasha: This book, actually I am now I'm updating. I've updated it, so it should come out soon under a new name called Don't Be a Vegetarian, because I've met people who, um, got confused. [00:02:00] People are so conditioned to think that vegetarianism is wonderful and great and good, that when a book is named Vegetarianism Explained, they assume that this book is supposed to praise vegetarianism, and as a result they walk far right past it.

[00:02:14] Dr Natasha: Because they think they've read enough books, praising vegetarianism. So let's start from the beginning. Energy on this planet comes from the sun. You know, all energy is recycled, but new energy comes from the sun in order to capture that energy of the sun. Mother nature created [00:02:30] plants. They have photosynthesis. They can capture the sunlight and convert it into solid matter that we can touch and we can eat.

[00:02:38] Dr Natasha: Then for something to be able to consume that energy of the sun in the form of plant matter, ma Nature created herbi animals, cows, sheep, goats, deer, and and so on. And in order for them to digest that plant matter, ma Nature gave them very special digestive system called Arum. A cow has [00:03:00] four stomachs, enormous stomachs, and they're chock full of microbes.

[00:03:05] Dr Natasha: They have a rich microbial community in them because the basic, uh, fact from science we have from 1930s is that the only creatures in this world who can digest, plant matter are microbes. Nobody else can digest plants only balanced microbial communities. That is why the cow has several stomachs full of microbes.

[00:03:28] Dr Natasha: She doesn't digest the grass [00:03:30] herself. That work is done for her by that microbial community in her several stomachs, and that's the case for all the herbivores animals. In order then for something else to consume the energy of the sun in the form of herbivores animals, mother nature created predators and omniverse.

[00:03:49] Dr Natasha: We human beings belong in that group. We don't have a room. We have one little stomach, which produces hydrochloric acid and Pepsi. And acidity in your stomach can be [00:04:00] pH one, pH two when you are hungry. Very hostile environment for microbes. Remember, only microbes can digest plant matter, so that means that plants, generally speaking, are indigestible for a human stomach.

[00:04:16] Dr Natasha: We cannot digest them, but when you take animal foods. Meat, fish, eggs and dairy. Hydrochloric acid and Pepsi are ideal for digesting them. They digest properly, they get broken down properly [00:04:30] in the human stomach, and then that mixture gets passed into several meters of intestines where absorption of food happens.

[00:04:36] Dr Natasha: And, uh, the only things that can be absorbed properly are things that digest it properly when we take water out of the human body. About 70% of your body is water by weight, by molecular count, it's 90%. So what's left, the dry weight is about 50 50 protein and fat. And when we analyze human protein and human [00:05:00] fat in the laboratory, we find that in the biochemical composition, they're almost identical to proteins and fats.

[00:05:06] Dr Natasha: We get out of animal foods, meat, fish, eggs, and dairy. Plants have lots of proteins in them and lots of fats, but in there biochemical composition, they're completely incompatible with the human body. So the most researched protein, uh, from plants is gluten. And the more we research gluten, the more we find that nobody can digest it.

[00:05:27] Dr Natasha: Every human being is damaged by gluten, whether [00:05:30] they're aware of it or not. Whether they think that, you know, it has anything to do with their illnesses or not, gluten is damaging. All of them. There are many other proteins in plants and the more we research them, we don't have a lot of research about them, but we are working on it.

[00:05:45] Dr Natasha: And, uh, we find that they're all indigestible. They all absorb in the form of this poorly digested peptides, which can cause a lot of HAC in the body. They can cause autoimmunity, allergists, mental illnesses, and all kinds of problems [00:06:00] in the body. So the same with fats from plants. They're largely poorly unsaturated.

[00:06:06] Dr Natasha: Human body requires in the majority itself. In the majority, it requires saturated fats and then some monounsaturated and only a tiny proportion of polyunsaturated. So when we eat a little bit of plant matter, we get enough. We eat a very tiny amount of polyunsaturated. The bulk of fat consumption that you take into your body must be saturated and [00:06:30] monounsaturated, and they come from animal fats.

[00:06:33] Dr Natasha: Pork fat, B, fat, lamb, fat goose, duck butter, gh. These are the fats that are most compatible with human physiology. They're not only good for us, they're essential for us to have. They have nothing to do with heart disease. They actually prevent it and reverse it. I've written a book on this subject called, put Your Heart in your Mouth, but I explain what actually causes heart disease.

[00:06:57] Dr Natasha: So the science would've known [00:07:00] about this. For a long time, which foods are truly digestible for a human's stomach and which foods are not digestible. So the foods that, um, truly feed the human body and build the physical structure that you live in are animal foods only. Plants are indigestible. They contain a lot of substances, which are called antinutrients, which are very damaging for the human body.

[00:07:23] Dr Natasha: They destroy the, uh, connective tissue. They damage our proteins that damage muscles, bones, and [00:07:30] all the organs in the body. And there is quite a long list of them. There are enzyme inhibitors, there are TROs, there are lectins, fetas, sates, phenols, and all kinds of things. They're all very damaging. That is why traditional cultures around the world for thousands of years developed ways of processing plants to destroy these antinutrients or reduce them to make plants a little bit more digestible.

[00:07:55] Dr Natasha: So when it comes to summarize, when it comes to feeding your body and building the [00:08:00] physical structure of your body, the body you live in, only animal foods. Can build your body and feed it properly. They're the feeding, building foods for us. Plants cannot build your body. They cannot feed you. They do not feed you plants because they're indigestible for the human body and they contain lots of poisonous substances, which damage the human body.

[00:08:22] Dr Natasha: So why do we eat plants at all? In fact, my clinical experience and clinical experience of many other doctors in the world now have shown [00:08:30] that human beings can live perfectly well. Without teaching plants at all. We don't need five a day or seven a day, or 15 a day, or whatever the latest figure is from our authorities.

[00:08:41] Dr Natasha: We can live perfectly well without plants at all, entirely on animal foods. But my clinical experience and clinical experience of many other doctors around the world have demonstrated conclusively that human beings cannot live without animal foods. cannot live. We cannot live [00:09:00] exclusively on plants.

[00:09:02] Dr Natasha: The purely plant, uh, regimen is called veganism,

[00:09:05] Dr. Katie Deming: Mm-hmm.

[00:09:06] Dr Natasha: and it's not a diet, it is a form of fasting. Veganism. This is not my idea. This comes from Hinduism, which is, uh, the most ancient religion on our planet. It's set to be 35,000 years old, and they have a pilgrimage where they walk across India to the sacred sites, and part of their pilgrimage is.

[00:09:27] Dr Natasha: 30, a 42 day fast, [00:09:30] 41, 42 day fast. And, uh, their fast is the Western veganism. When they're allowed to treat only plants, they're not allowed to treat any animal foods. They do it maximum for 41 42 days and only as part of their religious. So that comes from one of the most ancient religions in the world.

[00:09:52] Dr Natasha: Veganism is not a diet, it then does not feed your body to any degree. You are fasting. Fasting can be [00:10:00] very healing for a human body and it's ancient. It's, there are many forms of fasting, but the fact is nobody can fast forever

[00:10:09] Dr. Katie Deming: So

[00:10:11] Dr. Katie Deming: I, it's amazing actually. You're just like a wealth of information of so many things here, but I'm wondering why, where, how did we get here? Where there are so many quote unquote experts in this space. Recommending [00:10:30] a plant-based diet, why is that happening?

[00:10:33] Dr. Katie Deming: So why is it, how did we get here?

[00:10:35] Dr Natasha: We live in a corporate world. The same people, um, practically own all corporations in the world, the whole chain of corporations starting from agriculture, then food industry, then medical industry, then pharmaceutical industry, all these industries. The fact that I'm a, I'm a regenerative organic farmer.

[00:10:52] Dr Natasha: I've been the farmer for the last 12 years. I produce my own food. We are completely self-sufficient in food and as a regenerative farmer, I [00:11:00] will tell you. The easy things to do on a organic regenerative farm is to produce meat, eggs, and milk because we create natural environment for our animals. So they eat the food that they design to eat and live in the environment.

[00:11:13] Dr Natasha: They design to live. They look after themselves. You are busy one hour in the morning milking cows and goats, feeding chickens, and one hour in the evening putting them, putting them all to bed the rest of the day is free. You can even hold a full-time job. You can work, I work and I, and I [00:11:30] have my farm. But when it comes to growing plants, naturally, truly, organically, in a true organic mother, that's where the hard labor is.

[00:11:40] Dr Natasha: That's when you are busy all day. That's when your back hurts, and the yield is completely unpredictable because you're at the mercy of the weather, nature and, and, and all kinds of elements when it comes to industrial. Agriculture based on chemicals, big machines, genetic modification, [00:12:00] destruction of the soil, all of that.

[00:12:02] Dr Natasha: These two things swap. It is easy for them to produce colossal amounts of plant matter because they have their science, they have their hybrid seeds, they have their, every seed is coated in special chemicals. They have their scientific schemes. You spray this on day one, you spray that on day 10. You spray this on day 14, and it works.

[00:12:22] Dr Natasha: They get the yield, they get this perfect looking immaculate monocultures with not a weed inside. One man can serve [00:12:30] thousands of acres, and very soon that man is going to be replaced by a robot. So it's easy for them to produce huge amounts of plant matter. It's profitable for them. But when it comes to producing meat, eggs, and milk, that's what they completely fail.

[00:12:45] Dr Natasha: Animals just don't comply with the industrial model. They get ill and they die. It's unprofitable, it's expensive on antibiotic, steroids and other medications and vets, and that is why they wanted to get rid of animal husbandry for a long time. These corporations, [00:13:00] so they invested very heavily in the last 20 years into new technologies of synthetic meat, synthetic milk, and synthetic eggs.

[00:13:09] Dr Natasha: This technology, some of them, uh, are already in supermarkets. So the true animal husbandry is a competition for them now. The real meat, the real milk and the real eggs, they're now taking a concerted effort in destroying animal husbandry. You probably heard how farming is being destroyed in Europe and in many of the places, and the pretaxes of various made up [00:13:30] infections and so on.

[00:13:30] Dr Natasha: Yeah. So the most profitable thing for those corporations and those people who own them to, if the whole humanity becomes vegan. And because these corporations rule our governments, our governments serve them, not us. They put in place by these corporations. They translate to the population, this agenda, be a vegan, it's good for the planet, it's good for the animals, it's good for you, it's healthy, and so on and so [00:14:00] forth.

[00:14:00] Dr Natasha: All of those things are pure propaganda. They have nothing to do with reality. Reality is that industrial agriculture only industrial agriculture can provide large numbers of vegetarians and vegans with all their plant matter that they want to eat. It is impossible to produce enough plant matter on organic regenerative farms to feed vegetarians.

[00:14:24] Dr Natasha: I'm an organic farmer. I'm telling you this from firsthand experience. I cannot on my organic farm [00:14:30] produce enough plant mate that you feed even one vegan for a year. The season is short and the yield is unpredictable. You cannot do it. So the only way to feed hoards of vegans and vegetarians is through industrial arable agriculture.

[00:14:43] Dr Natasha: Industrial arable agriculture is the most destructive activity of humanity on the planet Earth. They've already turned half of our dry lands on the planet desert, and they're rapidly turning the other half into desert. Vegan, humanity, vegetarian humanity is the quickest way to [00:15:00] turn planet Earth into a desert.

[00:15:03] Dr Natasha: So if you're a vegan or vegetarian with a regenerative farmer, you're assisting these corporations in turning the planet earth into humanity. There is nothing saving the planet in it, nothing kind to animals, and not being healthy for a human being either.

[00:15:18] Dr. Katie Deming: Well, and it's so interesting because exactly what you say, they flip that whole thing on their, I knew I was gonna like talking to you. I was like, 'cause you and I have [00:15:30] such similar views and, and my, you know, a lot of my show is about the medical industrial complex and, and I left it. Because I realized it's designed to keep us sick and the food industry is part of that.

[00:15:44] Dr. Katie Deming: It's all together, and I think what's. You, they've twisted it where they say, you know, raising animals and the gas from, you know, the methane of, you know, having the animals and all of that, that they twist that to make it [00:16:00] sound like eating animals is something, what, what do you say to that whole argument?

[00:16:04] Dr. Katie Deming: That they talk about how raising animals is detrimental to the planet?

[00:16:10] Dr Natasha: Belching cows. Yes. A basic, uh, chemical fact is that methane cannot exist in the presence of oxygen. The major sources of methane on our planet are rice paddies, production of rice, uh, rubbish tips around cities, swamps, permafrost, and and other things. Yes, [00:16:30] living animals, particularly ruminants, bel little and so do human beings, but 20%, 20, 20, 20 1% of our atmosphere around our beautiful planet is oxygen.

[00:16:41] Dr Natasha: Methane cannot exist in the presence of oxygen. Oxygen turns methane into CO2. So despite the fact that colossal amounts of methane are released by rice pads, rubbish chips, permafrost, and bugs, and swamps and volcanoes, still the level of methane in the atmosphere of the earth is [00:17:00] minuscule. It's, it's part it.

[00:17:01] Dr Natasha: It's measured in parts per million, and it's not changing. And no cow in the world can change that.

[00:17:06] Dr Natasha: So

[00:17:07] Dr Natasha: the whole belief in, in, in, in cows, uh, causing global warming or, or whatever, you know, is a complete and utter hoax, and it's based on ignorance, absolute ignorance.

[00:17:19] Dr. Katie Deming: So let me ask this, because there's so many doctors in this space, right, that are saying, that are touting these diets, and what do you say to, [00:17:30] you know, someone who's listening to this and they're like, but you know, I'm following this doctor. I'm following this expert who is saying this and they're not part of the.

[00:17:38] Dr. Katie Deming: Industrial food complex, although, you know, they're part of this whole complex because we're all tied up in it. When you're in the medical space, what do you say to that and, and what do you, why do you think those doctors are so off base?

[00:17:51] Dr Natasha: Well, every human being has, uh, their own path in life, and majority of people live in fear. You know, to become a doctor, you have to pass a lot of horrible [00:18:00] exams and continue passing these exams, and by the time you realize that you are just a, a sales force in for the pharmaceutical industry, it's too late.

[00:18:08] Dr Natasha: You've already invested half your life into this education. You've got a mortgage, you've got a family to feed and other responsibilities, and you can't just leave. That is why majority of doctors just give up and they do what they told. They're soldiers in an army. They're all tied up by red tape on every side.

[00:18:26] Dr Natasha: They're not allowed to say what they think. They [00:18:30] have to say what they're told to say, and they are simply a sales force for the pharmaceutical industry because. We live in a world, particularly the western world, uh, with a Rockefeller medicine. It's medicine that has been set up by the, uh, Rockefeller Foundation at the beginning of the 20th century because Rockefeller, at that time owned all the oil in America and they suddenly discovered that they can make drugs out.

[00:18:55] Dr Natasha: A huge health market suddenly opened up to them. So what they've done, they've set up [00:19:00] an American Medical Association, uh, and pumped huge funds into piling up huge amounts of science. commercial science, uh, where, you know, the one who pays the piper orders the tune basically. And this American Medical Association pronounced all the, um, other methods of healing humanity as qury and before this Rockefeller medicine was born.

[00:19:25] Dr Natasha: Medics in America and other parts of the world, uh, healed people with [00:19:30] homeopathy, with diet, with, uh, herbs and, and other natural approaches. They had a lot of amazing knowledge. All of that was thrown out, uh, from medical colleges as, as unscientific, unproven, and, uh, quackery and replaced with the Rockefeller science.

[00:19:48] Dr Natasha: That's how the Rockefeller medicine was born. The, the whole medical industry was born, which is. Immensely profitable for the same corporations, the same small group of people who own all the corporations in the world. [00:20:00] And the young people who go into medicine, they go with pure intentions. Majority of them.

[00:20:06] Dr Natasha: They really want to help people. They really want to heal people. They want to do something good in the world. But by the time they've done this, seven years of training plus. Junior, um, doctor stages and then the, the, the semi junior and, and so on, half the life is, is done. And it's hard for them to realize what's happened to them, what they got.

[00:20:28] Dr Natasha: and many don't [00:20:30] realize it to the end actually.

[00:20:31] Dr. Katie Deming: I can speak to that because I didn't finish my training until I was 32. And then 20 years into my practice I realized, oh my goodness, this is broken. And had to give up everything. And you know, people ask me. Why other doctors don't leave the system and for exactly the reasons that you describe is very few of us who will say, I'm willing to give up everything in search of the truth.

[00:20:58] Dr. Katie Deming: Because you're so [00:21:00] tied into all of these things and, and I really do agree with you. I think that the doctors go into it for the right reasons, but then you get caught in a system. And also, you know, I think one thing that I've always said is. For me, you know, you sound like you, you, you woke up a long time ago and you've had, you know, this, you know, awareness.

[00:21:19] Dr. Katie Deming: But for me, I couldn't see the label on the outside of the bottle when I was inside the bottle. Like when you're in the system doing the things, you know, I couldn't see what the [00:21:30] system was really about. It wasn't until I stepped outside that I saw. All of these things that you're describing, that it is Rockefeller medicine and that it is not with the intention of healing, it's with the intention of keeping people sick so you can sell them more medication, and then if you can make them sick with the food, then you've got an even better system because it can make even more money, but never with the intention of making people truly well.

[00:21:57] Dr. Katie Deming: So I.

[00:21:58] Dr Natasha: Of course there is place for [00:22:00] all forms of healing in the world, and uh, mainstream medicine has its place for emergencies. For life and death situations. If you got run over by a bus, God forbid you will need mainstream medicine. They would know how to save your life, how to patch you up together. So, but then the full healing of your body will be the job of nature, the job of your own body, because your body is part of nature to fully heal you, to full health and full vitality.

[00:22:28] Dr Natasha: But when it comes to chronic [00:22:30] illnesses. Degenerative chronic conditions, the mainstream doctor is the dangerous person to go to. That's when you need to turn to nature. That's when you need to think about diet and your lifestyle and, uh, the fresh air and the sunshine and how clean is your home, is how toxic your body is about all of these things.

[00:22:49] Dr Natasha: And when we come to oncology in particular, because we, we started with that, um, on this conversation, cancer is no more difficult to treat than any other disease. You try to treat multiple [00:23:00] sclerosis or rheumatoid arthritis or, or fibromyalgia in a personal diabetes type one, you know, sometimes they're more difficult to treat than a cancer.

[00:23:10] Dr Natasha: So cancer is just, uh, another degenerative disease, another part of our environment, the industrial technocratic environment, humanity has created and tries to live in. While our bodies are part of nature. You have to work with nature in order to heal. That's the only way. And of course, [00:23:30] people have choices in our world and, uh, many people make a choice of suppressing their symptoms instead of looking at the root cause of the disease.

[00:23:38] Dr Natasha: Because every disease is spiritual. It's your own spirit is presenting this. Bunch of symptoms and problems in your body in order to make you go through a particular lesson to grow spiritually. It's a spiritual lesson that you're presented with. I've lost count now of patients who recovered from severe chronic illnesses [00:24:00] and practically every one of them transformed during this recovery.

[00:24:04] Dr Natasha: They become different human beings. They, they grow spiritually, and how many of them eventually say, thank God for my multiple sclerosis.

[00:24:12] Dr. Katie Deming: Yeah.

[00:24:13] Dr Natasha: God for my rheumatoid arthritis. Thank God for my chronic fatigue syndrome. I'm a different person now. I'm better. I'm, I've got more light in me. I've got, I, I've transformed.

[00:24:25] Dr Natasha: I'm a transformed human being. That is the purpose of chronic disease. [00:24:30] But there are many people in the world who are not prepared to take this spiritual lesson, not prepared to do the work. So they go to the mainstream doctors, Rockefeller doctors, to get a pill to suppress this symptom, to suppress that symptom.

[00:24:42] Dr Natasha: So they feel a little bit more comfortable. But your body gives you symptoms for a reason.

[00:24:47] Dr. Katie Deming: Yeah.

[00:24:48] Dr Natasha: Yeah. It gives you pain, it gives you inflammation, gives you discomfort, limitation of function because it's calling for help. It's telling you, you're damaging me. You need to change your lifestyle. You [00:25:00] need to stop.

[00:25:00] Dr Natasha: On your life journey and, and see whether you are marching in the wrong direction with, with great precision. You need to take another route. You need to do spiritual work on yourself. But if a person's not prepared to do that, they make a choice to go to the mainstream doctor. And of course, nobody can criticize them.

[00:25:18] Dr Natasha: That's their choice.

[00:25:18] Dr. Katie Deming: Yeah, no, and that's a hundred percent what I see. And actually that's. In prolonged water, fasting is one of the most profound ways for. Not only the body to [00:25:30] naturally detoxify itself and get clean, but for people to get quiet and be with them to see what is that message that this illness has brought them and, and people come out of, you know, I've asked people from anywhere from 14 days to 30 days, you know, I've had a couple people go out to 40, they come out a completely different person, and I've seen tumors just.

[00:25:54] Dr. Katie Deming: Completely disappear. Right. Which is just unexplainable in my, you know, [00:26:00] training. Uh, and the first time I saw that, I, I said, how are we not screaming this from the rooftops That people can heal themselves And not only do they come out a transform person and look, you know, able to see the root cause and be able to transform in a way.

[00:26:18] Dr. Katie Deming: Their body receive the message that was being given to them, but they're empowered and take back their health and feel vibrant, and they actually have not only no side effects from the [00:26:30] toxic treatments that I had given for decades, they actually are better. Everything works better after someone is able to do that deep healing.

[00:26:37] Dr. Katie Deming: So you, you absolutely. I, I am surprised I haven't met you before. Now. I'm, I'm so happy to have this conversation because everything that you're saying is exactly what I know. So I wanna, I wanna shift a little bit and I wanna talk about some of the things in animal foods that are so important for people to heal that people are missing out when they're doing these plant-based diets.