Dr. Anthony Chaffee explains his strict carnivore approach, eating only meat, salt, and water since February 2018. He emphasizes that beef provides optimal nutrition and energy, referencing historical research from Dr. Salisbury in the 1800s that confirmed red meat's superior nutritional profile. The discussion covers practical aspects of carnivore eating, including meal timing preferences and the importance of eating until satiation for 24-30 hour fasting periods.

A significant portion focuses on fat consumption and digestion, explaining how the body requires adequate fat for proper bowel function through bile production. Dr. Anthony Chaffee debunks the fiber myth, demonstrating that fat, not fiber, facilitates healthy digestion through the coordinated action of four organs: liver, gallbladder, pancreas, and small intestine. He explains how low-fat diets actually cause gallstones and constipation, while proper fat intake maintains soft, healthy stools and efficient nutrient absorption.

Key Takeaways

  • Eat fatty red meat (preferably beef) as it provides 3x the caloric nutrition compared to lean meat by weight, offering better satiation and nutritional value per dollar spent
  • Time meals at the end of the day to maintain a 'hunter mentality' during daily activities, as eating triggers rest-and-digest metabolism that reduces energy and focus
  • Consume adequate fat (around 50% fat-to-meat ratio by weight) to ensure proper bile utilization and prevent constipation, as fat lubricates stools naturally without requiring fiber
  • Listen to your body's bile production capacity - loose stools indicate excess fat intake while hard, dry stools signal insufficient fat consumption for optimal digestion
  • Full Carnivore Diet - Beef Focus and Bangladesh Experience
  • Plant Toxins and Bitter Taste - Evolutionary Warning System
  • Meal Timing and Fat Content for Satiation
  • Eating Schedule for Athletic Performance and Energy
  • Fat Requirements and Constipation - Bile Function Explained

This is an auto-generated transcript from YouTube and may contain errors or inaccuracies.

hey everyone back with dr shafi um and the 
question is are you full carnival into you   what does full carnival mean uh yeah i am um 
so so for me that just means i just eat you   know meat salt water um any meat is fine i don't 
really i don't really care i just generally touch   uh generally beef so i just tell people you 
know eat the meat that you enjoy that makes you   feel the best and you know that you can afford 
you know if that's an issue for me that's beef   i always feel best when i eat beef i'll eat you 
know pork and chicken sometimes and fish whatever   um and eggs but i always feel the best when i'm 
on beef yeah most delicious as well yeah yeah   it is yeah and you know i mentioned 
dr salisbury before he found that um   that for his patients as well back in the 1800s 
that that beef was definitely the best as well   that lamb was uh was was sort of a distant second 
but that the red meats were definitely the best   as far as you know nutritional content and 
so forth so yeah as i was saying i've been   very very strict carnivore since probably february 
2018 when i got back from doing humanitarian work   in bangladesh and just a quick one on that how 
did you learn bangladesh uh being semi-carnival   oh well those people always been very meat centric 
and you know they did have meat and so i would   just generally just eat sort of but i wasn't 
thinking about the context of like don't eat   plants plants or poisonous and so forth at that 
time i always sort of had that because you know   20 years ago when i was taking cancer biology we 
learned how poisonous plants were and how harmful   they were and i stopped eating all plants then 
it was inadvertently a full carnivore for five   years at that point then sort of slipped off of 
it but i was always very plant avoidant and carb   avoided and so forth because of that um so i would 
i would you know when there's there's sort of food   available generally the meat part of it and try 
to you know avoid the carbs and avoid the you   know vegetables and so forth just because i don't 
like vegetables and um and also you know i should   tell you something evolutionarily like why would 
we hate the taste of something that we evolved on   you know the bitter taste is is significant 
you know our sense of taste is very important   uh to our survival you notice something that's 
bitter that is your brain and your tongue telling   you this this contains something that's bad for 
you that bitter taste is something bad for you   so you should listen to that you know there are 
things that are you know that taste good that   aren't good for us like sugar that's an outlier 
people people think that fructose is quite sweet   because um it's uh you know we don't know of any 
any plants that contain fructose that are acutely   poisonous for humans and it'll kill you that day 
so we recognize this as a safe quick hit of energy   until we can get our normal food but you know 
taken long term it does more even short term it   does it does some serious changes to your body 
that you don't really want and you know if you   do that daily it compounds quite significantly 
you have type 2 diabetes heart disease things   like that so yeah so in bangladesh i wasn't i 
wasn't um but it would be easy i mean there there   was meat available i would just i would just 
only sort of eat that and i sort of you know   end up just sort of eating whatever just 
because you know you're in the camps for   the refugee camps yeah for you know like 16 hours 
sometimes and or even overnight sometimes and um   you know you just sort of eat what you can get 
basically uh now knowing that i would actually   it's actually easier now when i only eat meat 
because i i eat fatty meat until i'm full   i'm generally not hungry for 24 or 30 hours and 
um even if i am hungry and i go like oh wow you   know steak really sounds good i really like to eat 
but you know i want them on call at the hospital   and so forth i was like well i got three surgeries 
lined up and i'm gonna be working tomorrow so i'm   probably not gonna be able to eat for another 
24 hours my body just goes right that's okay   and i'm not panicked and freaking out because 
my body can see my leptin you know the leptin   is produced by your fat cells and that goes 
to your brain to tell it your brain how much   energy you have so you know if you're not 
eating carbohydrates you're not eating sugar   uh which block leptin insulin blocks leptin so 
if your insulin is up because you're getting   carbohydrates it blocks leptin so your brain 
doesn't see that you have energy so it gets   panicked and say oh you have to you have to eat 
uh my brain can see the leptin so it doesn't get   panicked you know it was like well you're not 
gonna die should be fine so generally do you   eat once a day twice a day what works for you uh 
it just depends so if i'm eating fattier meat i   i'm more satiated because you're getting more 
nutrition right so if you have you know a kilo   of lean beef and a kilo of 50 50 beef and fat by 
weight the 50 50 one has three times the calorie   nutrition as the lean beef right so it's the same 
weight but you're getting three times nutrition so   your body's gonna want more of the lean beef 
because you need you need more of the nutrients   and also you're not gonna get the fat your body 
really does want fat you know animals in the wild   get about 78 of the calories from fat and so 
you know that that's an important part of that   um so i find that if i'm eating sort of 
more lean i eat more you know pounds of   steak more kilo more weight of steak and and 
you know because i have a finite amount of   room in my stomach i'll end up eating more times 
during that day if i'm eating fattier stuff it's   much less and it's actually you know as far as as 
far as uh you know cost is concerned you know so   maybe a fatty cut is maybe a little more expensive 
than the lean cut depending on what you do some   quite a lot of fatty things like you know like 
you know chuck sticks and things like that   much cheaper yeah yeah and they're 
very good fat content yeah um   but let's say it's more expensive you know 
it's a few dollars more expensive a kilo   well you're getting three times the value for your 
dollar nutritionally if it's you know 50 sort of   thing you know that's those are really raw figures 
but you know you figure so so something's you know   twice the price that you're like all right well 
maybe it's kind of equivalent but you know if it's   a few dollars more you're actually getting more 
more bang for your buck with the fattiness and   also like you know like we said like in a chuck 
stick and things like that are generally cheaper   so yeah so if i'm getting fatter feet i 
generally don't eat as much if i'm working out   a lot if i you know i'm blessed to have the 
time to actually go to the gym i i will tend my   body will want more energy and that that's pretty 
simple so you know during code when i wasn't able   to work out or go to the gym i was generating 
about a kilo of steak a day when i was able to   get back into the gym and start lifting i was you 
know i made sure that i could go to the gym sort   of four days a week at least and i was lifting 
quite hard back on my sort of professional lifting   program that i had when i was when i was playing 
professionally and i ended up literally doubling   that so i would have basically two yeah two kilos 
a day um sometimes maybe maybe a bit more throwing   some eggs or something like that but i also 
just was stacking on weight as well i put on   i was gonna put it on i was 92 kilos at the end 
when the gyms opened back up in perth and then   in about five weeks four or five weeks i was 105 
kilos you know and same body fat percentage yeah   so your body had kind of just adapted to less 
exercise less stimulus and yeah just reverted   back to a lighter fun yeah well i'd been like that 
for a while because i hadn't been really working   out that much anyway just because work was very 
busy but then when i couldn't go to the gym it   really bothered me so i just that was just like 
the whole time i was just chomping at the bit i   was just like okay as soon as these gyms open like 
i'm going after it and just making making the time   and uh so you know i had obviously 
a big response obviously that hadn't   been working out a long time you get a lot of 
beginner gains and things like that you know   there's a lot of room to improve there you 
know sort of hit around you know 110 now and i'm sure i could get higher than that i know he 
could but um with the amount that i'm able to work   out that seems to be where i'm sort of stabilized 
that desperate to become heavier in any way   so do you prefer to eat in the middle day at 
the end of the day at the start of the day   i generally prefer to eat at the end of the day 
just because you know when you're in this i've   always in in rugby i always played hungry that was 
something i noticed early on and and intermittent   fasting people sort of noticed this as well when 
you notice this but i think most people don't   notice that yeah before i was playing sports you 
know like a honey sandwich to try and get that   little buzz oh yeah as you're running out and then 
second quarter or second half you're absolutely   cool so yeah yeah i think you discovered this 
stuff that you know yeah well i got well yeah i   guess i was lucky to figure that out yeah i would 
even notice that i'd feel better if i didn't eat   dinner the night before wow and then i wouldn't i 
just wouldn't eat the entire day i never ate on a   game day because you know if i ever ate i i would 
notice right away like i wasn't as good because i   i've played hungry many times i noticed how that 
went and then if you know if i'd eat i'd be like   well i feel like crap i don't have energy and 
certainly not to the same extent if i'm playing   like a tournament or seventh term or something 
like that like god forbid you eat something then   you may be good for like one game like you're a 
honey sandwich or something but yeah like you're   screwed yeah and you know you're sort of chasing 
that you know glucose insulin spikes and things   like that um so i always played hungry anyway 
and um that always made me feel better um and so   i would eat sort of afterwards i always noticed 
that and so i noticed that when i'm sort of on   an empty stomach you have that more like hunter 
mentality you're like i have to go get my kill i   have to go you have you you're hyper attuned 
you know you've got energy bodies producing   like you have to go get your kill you have to 
go get your food and then when you get that   your body's like it turns into you know rest and 
digest metabolism say okay we've got the energy we   don't need to expend anymore you want to conserve 
nature is all about conservation it's all about   you know being very very efficient so it doesn't 
want you to your nature your biology doesn't   want you to expend energy unnecessarily so while 
you're going to get your food for that day you're   yeah your your body's giving you the energy 
that you need to go get this done and as soon   as you get that done and you eat until you're 
full your body goes chill out so i notice that   where i feel better during the day if i just 
you know go throughout my day yeah exactly   and then when i eat to satiation i'm like i'm just 
i'm ready for bed you know i just want to like   pass out and i sleep you know like a baby if i 
were to eat during there sometimes i am like you   know when i'm working out heavily whatever i'll 
probably eat twice a day i notice that i feel much   better if i don't quite eat as much as i want to 
you know i'll still have that a bit of that fight   left in me whereas if it's like you know 10 in the 
morning or breakfast something like that you like   a big meal then i'm just like i'm just very hungry 
i'm just like oh i just don't want to do anything   i'm not i don't feel like bloated i don't 
feel bad i just i just feel very relaxed   very calm i'd have no pressure to go out holiday 
disease yeah you just like you just feel good   you just want to chill out yeah yeah and are you 
into bone broth or organs or anything like that   i you know i don't eat those myself yeah um but 
they're fine you know organs are great you don't   need them uh i know different people say that you 
do but you don't you know the us don't eat the   the organs and so forth they feed those to the 
dogs we've known that for 100 years uh at least   and uh you know different polar explorers that 
went up there that's that's interesting because   we often get told that our ignorance and native 
people go straight for the liver maybe maybe maybe   they eat some of that sometimes but um that's not 
for you no yeah i know i mean i i eat it sometimes   but uh smaller shawn baker approach really i think 
he's pretty much you know kilo kilometers a day um   and he's obviously doing very well yeah yeah so 
i i think yeah i think it's probably more on the   two kilos a day sort of thing just because you 
know he's uh you know i'm six three he's six   five and he's heavier than i am and uh and he 
works out like a champ every single day yeah   you know so his body's gonna be wanting a lot of 
that that energy and uh when i when i'm able to   do heavy workouts my body wants that too it's 
just like giving it a give it but then i don't   always get the chance to do that and so i 
don't always have that hunger drive either   yeah that's amazing all right yeah well thanks 
dr jackie's yeah street carnivore mainly steak   funny steak when you can get it generally 
once a day yeah i'd like to eat towards the   latter end i find that i feel better doing that 
and one thing i will say about about fat content   and so forth um one thing that i've noticed with 
myself and with you know patients and so forth is   that you know people don't know how much fat fat 
to eat and they generally think when i say that   you eat a lot of fat they think just eat more 
fat than they have before that oh that's a lot   of fat and in fact they're actually getting 
quite a poor um percentage still not enough   a lot of these people yeah a lot of people 
would would not really get a lot of fat and   they'll notice that because they're saying 
well i'm getting really constipated i'm   getting really constipated so how conservation 
works in my view is that it's it's not actually   you know no one was having no one needed fiber 
before the 1980s that was another thing i've   said with fibrous like oh you should eat fiber 
to move things through very quickly and so forth   and it's just like why didn't we need these 
before 1986 you know why was everybody fine   before that without any any fiber or so forth or 
minimal fiber because that's because they had fat   in their diet it's actually fat that moves your 
digestion so your body um it's very difficult   for your body to absorb fat without bile okay 
that's the purpose of bile people say well   that's another argument why are people saying 
that fat's bad for you if you have four organs   working in concert just to absorb fat your 
liver makes bile your gallbladder absorbs it or   stores it and then secretes it when you have it 
and then your pancreas sets out enzymes break it   down and your small intestine absorbs it okay so 
four organs working together just to absorb fat   you know that's a lot of energy expenditure 
from your body and from your evolutionary   standpoint to absorb something that's really bad 
for you that your body doesn't want that doesn't   make any sense so it's quite hard for your body 
to absorb this without bowel your liver makes   you about 800 to 1000 mils of bile a day makes it 
very very slowly sort of slowly dripping out and   people have their gallbladder removed it just sort 
of drips out slowly into their to their intestines   so when it goes into your gallbladder it you 
know stays there and when you eat something fatty   it sort of expresses this stuff out okay and and 
then your body is able to absorb the fat with that   okay then people avoid fat and so forth um and 
that you know can cause gallstones and problems   because this is sitting there and you know it 
concentrates people realize that it doesn't just   doesn't just sit there it's normal concentration 
actually normally can concentrate up to 20 times   some people might concentrate more than that but 
what happens to um you know a solution that's a   hyper concentrated solution at rest it's going to 
form precipitating crystal that's what you know   bile sludges that's what gallstones are generally 
people say like oh this is because you ate too   much fat that's why you have these sorts of things 
but generally you'll find is the people that have   gone on a diet to lose fat and they've stopped 
eating fat for months so that's the opposite   it's the opposite yeah and so then all of a sudden 
they start eating fat again like oh that hurts and   they go to the doctor because they go because now 
they have because yeah because now it's trying to   squeeze out fat and the stone gets stuck yeah and 
stone gets stuck in there because it's formed a   crystal and they go to the doctrine oh and he goes 
yeah you know you have gallstones that's because   you eat too much fat big fat [ __ ] you know it's 
just like no actually you know it's because they   didn't eat fat and that's exactly what it is you 
see this in people that that uh have bariatric   surgery as well um they have a they have a very 
accident yeah they're taking out part of their   stomach and their and their small intestine to 
basically make it very difficult for them to eat   okay and so you know when we show radical weight 
loss solutions sort of things and so yeah exactly   yeah that sort of thing um and then these sorts of 
people have a massive massive rate of gallstones   and i've heard people say it's like well you know 
that that when people lose weight really fast it   does something changes their metabolism some way 
and somehow and gets these stones we don't really   know why and you'll talk to these people because 
they're so desperate to lose weight they go   through this extremely dangerous and difficult and 
painful surgery and it's very you know it's not a   nice recovery and um and they're very varied 
of their or i'm not going to you know eat fat   because they want to lose fat so they're really 
really really serious about this and so they   just stop eating off that because that's what 
they're told and i've heard a number of people   got to get told that they have gallstones 
and they're just their incense they're like   look that can't be true that can't be possible 
because i haven't eaten anything in months you   know i just want something like that that's why 
you have gold stones so biles for absorbing fat   when you eat fat as you're supposed to secretes it 
out there but this is a finite resource again this   is just dripping out very slowly going around 800 
milliliters a day right so it's coming out very   slowly your liver is not just making a whole bunch 
of it you want to go it just steadily makes it   and so you run out okay well what happens when 
you run out and you have more fat then you have   bile for that time your body will keep making bile 
after that but right now you're out of bile right   well that fat can't get absorbed really there's 
something something that can't go to a low degree   and so it'll get excreted okay well fat repels 
oil repels water right fat repels water so it's   already dehydrated you know the whole argument 
for why you should eat fiber is because it will   remove things quickly before it gets too dried 
out the whole point of your large intestine   is to dry it out you want to bring that water 
back in you're not trying to just waste water   you know everyone you have to think of these 
things your body's going to be efficient you   know and so anything that's inefficient in wasting 
water wasting nutrients you have fiber so that you   don't absorb food so that you don't get calories 
so that you you expel water when you don't need   to that that's not a recipe for survival in the 
wild you know during during really rough times so   you're supposed to be absorbing the water and 
when there's fat in your feces in your stools   it can absorb all the water it wants but the fat 
is still in there to keep it soft okay so that   can stay in your cola until christmas it's still 
not gonna it's not gonna get any drier than it is   and it's gonna stay soft so that's how you know 
how much fat you're getting if you're if you're   gonna absorb 98 99 of the meat that you eat if you 
don't eat fiber and and screw the whole deal up   so you're going to excrete much less because 
you're actually absorbing you know waste is   which a lot of people find when they first do 
kind of what they're amazed that they're not doing   number two well that's it they are they're tiny 
it's like a rabbit yeah exactly and and they think   that oh this this means i'm constipated this means 
i can't pay this this is that well no actually   it's good it means you're absorbing everything 
you know it's it's when it's dry and hard you know   that's that's uh yeah that that's constipation 
not just low frequency you know when you know   outside of this way of eating you know if you 
have low frequency it's probably because you're   constipated because things are dry and 
hard not moving very fast but the actual   definition of that is is dry hard stools and so 
you can get dry hard swords but you'll get them   because you don't need enough fat because 
your body's absorbing absolutely every ounce   of fat that you have because you have a 
surplus of bile to fat and so none of the   fat or very little bits getting through right 
and so if you have a little bit excess then   things are going to be soft if you have a lot 
excess you know things will get you know more   more slippery but like you know it was like 
when um joe rogan didn't know i just yeah yeah   he's got an explosive diarrhea yeah yeah so he 
over overweight but the thing is that but he   wasn't sick that's not an infection you know you 
know what i mean it's not bad for you it's just   inconvenience yeah yeah and so you know it's not 
actually harmful thing and if you like what you're   eating and you don't really mind the effects well 
then it doesn't really matter it's not harming you   uh and if you don't like that then you just pull 
back pull back the fat a bit yeah exactly so you   know exactly how much fat you're getting based on 
that but also my ryan's saying that your body will   you it will learn to produce more vital is that 
problem i've never seen the studies as that it   could be it felt like that for me i felt like 
you know uh the diarrhea went away but i wasn't   reducing the amount of fat that i was eating 
that was my experience anyway were you eating   all at the same time as well or were you sort of 
at different times no like like two or three times   a day yeah but you can but you were consistently 
eating sort of at similar times yeah and then you   just sort of yeah and then after a while 
yeah it could be you know it's i i haven't   you know i don't know if anyone has really 
looked at it maybe they have you know but i   it would stand to reason that they would that your 
body would sort of adapt and you know if you're if   you're used to not getting a lot of fat for a 
long time your body's like just going to keep   making bodies again it's efficient and so forth 
but you know then i don't think that it will make   more than is is physiologically good for you 
to absorb fat you know what it means like   you know you the amount of body that you have 
equals the amount of fat that you can absorb   yes and i don't think you generally don't find 
your body doing something that's out of bounds   physiologically you know you don't make 
a unless you've damaged your thalamus   you know you don't make a fever that's going 
to damage your brain yeah that's right you   couldn't train your body to produce like liters 
of bile i don't know why you would want to no   no unless you had some joint disease 
or something like that sensory reason yeah so i tend to just listen to my body in that 
in that sense i i trust my body knows how much fat   it wants and so i just you know eat accordingly 
um you know people might have different uh sort   of genetic issues that that would make them 
produce a different amount of bile than they need   maybe these are the people some of the people 
that are getting more bile stones than others   because they just produce much more it's hard 
to say but the vast majority of people can just   you know their body sort of recommends to them 
if you know sort of how to read read the signs yeah thank you you're welcome
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