A lot of people have concerns when they start keto that “well sure, it’s healthy for me but what would happen if everybody started eating like this? Wouldn’t it destroy the environment?” There is a simple thing you can do to stop desertification, lower atmospheric CO2, improve soil health, AND your own health: increase your consumption of ruminant agriculture products. Wait, isn’t that the opposite of what everyone says? Don’t cows destroy the planet, lick your dog, and emit greenhouse gases that will destroy the world? (seriously, you gotta watch that clip!)

Not even close, quite the opposite, and it turns out you’ve been taught that way because John Harvey Kellogg and others pushed a vegetarian agenda way back in the 1800s.

Look, they were wrong about fat being bad for you, carbs being good for you, cholesterol causing heart disease and much more. Why would they be right about this? What if it’s ALL been a lie? OK, so this is going to be a bit of a dive down a rabbit hole, I’ll take you through it in the order I ran across the pieces, I recommend you visit each link and come back here for the next one.

  1. On the first stop of our journey, we have this audio recording of a presentation by Dr. Peter Ballerstedt, given at the 2016 Low Carb USA conference.
  2. I listened to that recording on my drive to work one morning, it was thought-provoking enough that when I got to work I tried to search for stuff I had heard and ended up on this page.
  3. Dr. Peter Ballerstedt also did a variation of his talk at the Low Carb Breckenridge 2017 conference – it’s a video so you can see his slides.
  4. Then the 2 Keto Dudes interviewed Dr. Ballerstedt on their podcast.
  5. He was also interviewed by KetoGeek, it was long enough it had to be broken into 2 parts: Part 1 & Part 2.
  6. Now comes a really fun one: 2 Keto Dudes also interviewed Dr. Gary Fettke who had just given this presentation regarding the ACTUAL history of the US dietary guidelines. The podcast was interesting enough to keep me wide awake driving to Idaho at 3 am to see the solar eclipse.

If you go through all of that you’ll discover some interesting info about some of the “narratives” (as Dr. Ballerstedt likes to call them), the history behind them and the truth. Is grass-fed beef better for you? Sure but not by much, likely not enough to justify the expense. Indeed, grass-fed beef does have MOAR omega 3, but the difference is so little that 1 ounce of salmon gives you more than 3lbs of grass fed beef. If your concern is over omega 3:6 ratios then you should never eat poultry or pork and if you get some soybean oil in your mayo then you’ve likely negated a LOT of grass-fed beef eating.

Then you get into the amazing effects of ruminant agriculture on soil health and how effectively it can sequester carbon, stop desertification and completely change the climate (for the better). I now have a burning desire to save the planet by eating more beef and using more milk products. Happily, the macronutrient sources in Keto Chow come from ruminant agriculture (whey/milk proteins and heavy cream FTW!).

Specifically, I think Dr. Ballerstedt does an amazing job at articulating his points and his “discussion” topics. He’s very deliberate in what he says and how he says it. That first link was so good that I made my kids listen to it one day while we were driving for a few hours. You should check out his Facebook page.