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Topics:
1. Updates. [7:23]
2. Self care during the sickies [10:27]
3. The evolution of Modern Cave Girl [15:47]
4. What you can expect [25:03]
5. Chapter list for Eat the Yolks [31:13]
6. Fun pop culture references in Eat the Yolks [36:38]
7. A little intro on margarine [38:30]
Links
Upcoming events
The 21 Day Sugar Detox Cookbook
Eat the Yolks by Liz Wolfe
A Lifelong Fight Against Trans Fat
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Liz Wolfe: Hey everyone! Welcome to episode 118 of the Balanced Bites podcast. Liz here; and Diane is here, too, but Diane is sick, which means that paleo doesn’t work, and we shouldn’t be eating real food, and this podcast is a sham.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} It’s over.
Liz Wolfe: Done. How dare you get sick when you eat real food!
Diane Sanfilippo: I don’t even have an answer to that, that’s how, like, my level of wit has gone to negative at this point.
Liz Wolfe: This is why you needed 45 minutes to eat soup? {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} Literally, took all that time. But I have to say, I was also watching the Real Housewives of Atlanta, so {laughs}.
Liz Wolfe: {laughing}
Diane Sanfilippo: Which I’m going to thank Kendall Kendrick for reminding me earlier in the day via Facebook that I should change the channel, because I had basically been on an HGTV bender for most of the day. I just basically have the TV on in the background while I’m working, and I don’t really pay attention, and then…I did pay attention and ate my soup. I made the Portuguese caldo verde from The 21-Day Sugar Detox Cookbook, and it was delicious!
Liz Wolfe: Aww, that sounds nice.
Diane Sanfilippo: Highly recommend.
Liz Wolfe: It sounds lovely.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yes.
Liz Wolfe: I am fixin’ to make some goat stew, because my goats have been mean to me all day.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} That sounds so rough.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah, it’s so rough. Well, so, I fell on my … you might have seen this on Facebook. I fell on my buns today. By the way, I’m totally; I feel like the word “tush” is very much underused, so I’m going to start using the word “tush” a lot. So I fell on my tush today in a big mud slick outside the barn. And, if anybody’s been on my Instagram, they will see that sometimes my goats, and I assume all goats will do this thing with their heads where they are kind of like ballet dancing, you know? Like, and they’ll kind of go side to side and shake their heads, or whatever. It’s funny, but I’m sitting there, and I’m thinking back to this time in college when I had to drop my … there’s a point to this, I promise. When I had to drop my car off to get oil changed, and I walked over to like Chili’s, to probably sit at the bar and do something, you know, beer related, and I walked back to get my car through this empty, vacant parking lot and tripped and fell on my wide-legged jeans, and spilled my purse and a giant box of tampons all over the parking lot. Fell on my face. And I’m just looking around, like, oh god, who saw me? So there’s this huge strip mall full of… I mean, there were people in there! So people were undoubtedly looking out the windows of the strip mall cracking up at this idiot laying face down in the parking lot collecting tampons. So, anyway, kind of brought me back to a bad place.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: When I fell in front of the barn today, and I looked around, and I’m like, gosh. I’m really glad nobody was around to see that. And then I look over, and both goats are standing there, shaking their heads
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughing}
Liz Wolfe: And going “baaa! Baa! Baa!” {laughing} I was like, you jerks.
Diane Sanfilippo: Good thing you didn’t also drop tampons outside.
Liz Wolfe: I know.
Diane Sanfilippo: Why is it that dropping personal care products is like, the most embarrassing thing. Why is that?
Liz Wolfe: I don’t know.
Diane Sanfilippo: Why is it that, like in high school, you know, if a tampon fell out of your purse, it was like {gasp}, shock and horror!
Liz Wolfe: I know.
Diane Sanfilippo: Nooo! Pick it up! Nobody can see that.
Liz Wolfe: Now, whenever my husband asks for chapstick, I always just take out {laughing}
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} A tampon?
Liz Wolfe: I hand him a tampon. Oh my. You know what, we’re going to have a bunch of people writing in saying that it’s not good to use…
Diane Sanfilippo: I know.
Liz Wolfe: Tampons.
Diane Sanfilippo: I know.
Liz Wolfe: Which I will say, if you have the Skintervention Guide, you will see the many things that I suggest using instead of these…
Diane Sanfilippo: Not just skin care folks, in the Skintervention Guide!
Liz Wolfe: Not just skin care. I mean, it’s; we’re all over the map. But, they are organic {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: They are organic tampons.
Diane Sanfilippo: Ok. I can’t.
Liz Wolfe: Sorry, male audience. Sorry everyone. Anyway, so that’s my update from the farm.
Diane Sanfilippo: Why don’t you tell people about our sponsors?
Liz Wolfe: Sure. I’m sure they’re not going to want to exit this sponsorship agreement now, thanks to the first 5 minutes of this podcast! Paleo Treats! Sponsor number one, Paleo Treats. Get 15% off when you enter the code BALANCEDBITES at checkout. Try the new Bandito bar; it’s awesome. Pete’s Paleo, bringing fine dining to your cave. Pete’s Paleo is now offering our listeners a free pound of bacon with the purchase of any meal plan. And that offer is valid through December 31st of this year, 2013, which is rapidly coming to a close. So don’t miss your Pete’s Paleo bacon. Code is BALANCEDBITESROCKS. And finally, Chameleon Cold-Brew, which is, I mean, it’s just, it’s bottled caffeinated angel tears.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughing}
Liz Wolfe: It’s just incredible. Our special discount code for Chameleon Cold-Brew is BALANCEDBITES. If you haven’t tried it, please do it. You won’t regret it.
Diane Sanfilippo: I have to tell you, I was muted while you were explaining our sponsors to everyone {laughs} and I somehow accidentally flipped to a webpage away from our little podcast outline notes to your Instagram page, where there was a video of your chickens, and I don’t even know what else is in this video, but it started making noise at me
Liz Wolfe: {laughing}
Diane Sanfilippo: And I was like, oh goodness, I hope that didn’t just make it onto the podcast {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: No, it didn’t, but I know exactly what video you’re talking about. We’re going to have to do a segment called “Updates from the Farm”, because I do have some pretty good stories out here.
Diane Sanfilippo: Sometimes when you, like, give your update I feel like I don’t even know who I’m talking to anymore.
Liz Wolfe: {laughing}
Diane Sanfilippo: You’re like, so then this, this, and this, and I’m like, {Charlie Brown adult voice} ‘mwa mwa mwa’ I don’t even know, like, what you’re saying.
Liz Wolfe: Voiced by the incomparable Fran Drescher, playing the mother from Peanuts. “Mwa mwa mwa’ {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughing}
Liz Wolfe: Ohhh. I know exactly which… anybody that follows me on Instagram hopefully has learned by now to have the volume really low, because when one of my videos pops up, it is inevitably of the guinea fowl screaming bloody murder at something.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, that sounds about right.
Liz Wolfe: It’s a pretty terrible sound.
1. Updates. [7:23]
Diane Sanfilippo: Soo, alright, let me just give a couple of other updates before we roll into this episode, which is pretty much all about Liz {laughs}.
Liz Wolfe: Yay!
Diane Sanfilippo: No, it’s all going to be about your book for the most part. But…
Liz Wolfe: Don’t turn off the podcast people.
Diane Sanfilippo: No.
Liz Wolfe: It’s going to be good. {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: You guys, you need to hear this. And I get to say that because I’ve been able to preview the book. Nyah, nyah.
Liz Wolfe: {humming taunting}
Diane Sanfilippo: Anyway. {laughs} So right now, it is Thursday when this episode goes live, and we have, on the Balanced Bites blog 12 Days of Giveaways. I think as of today, Thursday, it’s day 7, so, you know, they are only live for one day each, so check out today’s, and then make sure you stay tuned for the rest of the next 5 days to finish out the 12. And, my The 21-Day Sugar Detox Cookbook released this week. It feels strange, because {laughs} I feel like there is so much buildup coming into the Sugar Detox book, but then the cookbook was kind of like, this big push getting it finished and having the cookbook come out I’ve just been, I don’t know, so exhausted from the other experience of launching the book that I haven’t been able to really get a lot of information out about the cookbook. So, what I’ll be doing on the blog as well as the giveaways in the coming days, I’ll actually share a post with you guys and some of my favorite recipes and make sure you guys know everything about what’s in the book and how it differs from the first book just so you can kind of get a handle on what that cookbook’s all about, because if you are interested in doing the Sugar Detox, if you’ve done it before, if you are thinking about doing it for next year, or even if you just want paleo-friendly recipes that don’t have sweeteners and are super clean, it’s a perfect book because there’s just tons of recipes that are, you know, squeaky clean! So, that’s pretty much it. And then, other events, just to kind of run through that stuff again. Let’s see, what’s today’s date. So we’ve got the first thing coming up after today will be December 27th, I’ll be down in Naples, Florida, at Cross fit Redline signing books and chatting with folks down there. So, if you are anywhere in the area down in Florida, make sure you check that out, because that is the only event that will be in the area. And then, January 4th in Fairfield, New Jersey, Dr. Scott and I will be teaching the Balanced Bites nutrition seminar over at Brazen Athletics. Tickets are going pretty quickly for that event, so make sure you sign up and I think only until December 22nd will you save $20 on the ticket, so make sure you do that quickly. And then January 5th in Madison, Connecticut I have a book signing, and then the whole west coast tour begins January 9th, so I’ll just update everyone on that as we get a little closer.
Liz Wolfe: Good.
Diane Sanfilippo: Good, good.
2. Self care during the sickies [10:27]
Liz Wolfe: Busy girl. So, real quick, what are doing to care for yourself since you’re not feeling well?
Diane Sanfilippo: Oy vey. Well, I’ve been doubling up on some fermented cod liver oil. I have been eating lots of soup, getting some good broth and some good minerals and gut healing. I was drinking a bunch of kombucha to get some good probiotics in to just kind of help balanced out my immune system. I made some blueberry lemon gummy gelatin snacks, and I did heat the blueberries, but I did not heat the lemon juice, and that was because I wanted to get lots of vitamin C from that lemon juice, so I made those and crushed the batch. {laughs} And sleeping.
Liz Wolfe: You crushed it!
Diane Sanfilippo: I crushed it. I crushed the gummies. And, no, just sleeping a whole bunch and kind of resting. Not working out. I did get a massage yesterday. I was actually feeling better yesterday. Today I’m not feeling as great, but just to kind of move the lymph fluids around and kind of get things moving through the body a little bit, since I have been a little bit sedentary. But, just resting a whole bunch, because I think that’s one of the things that people probably do the worst at when they get sick, is just kind of taking a step back and resting and I think that’s what your body needs the most in order to just fight off whatever is going on. And I know, you know, my lifestyle is set up to where I can do that. You know, I can take a day or two and pretty much do nothing if I need to. Whatever day that may be, and call it luck, but based on {laughs} you know, how I’ve set up my life so I’m fortunate in some ways, but it’s also, you know, a lot doesn’t get done if I do that.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Diane Sanfilippo: In any event, that’s basically what I’ve been doing, I think. I’ve been drinking teas, too. Herbal teas.
Liz Wolfe: I’m really getting more into herbal teas. I mean, I’ve been into them, but I’m like, kind of weirdly obsessive into them right now.
Diane Sanfilippo: Like what kind?
Liz Wolfe: There’s a dandelion chicory one that I really like, and that just a bunch of digestive ones, and then blends of rooibos, or “rebos” I don’t know how to say it, are like amazing for my skin. And then I always love the ginger and lemon morning tonic. They’re just so interesting. What a nerdy thing to say.
Diane Sanfilippo: That all sounds good. You do sound like you’re getting older.
Liz Wolfe: I know.
Diane Sanfilippo: Are you pregnant?
Liz Wolfe: No. {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: You’re definitely 30 already. Right, you’re 30?
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Diane Sanfilippo: So, well, maybe it means it’s herbal tea for you from now on.
Liz Wolfe: I guess so.
Diane Sanfilippo: Anyway.
Liz Wolfe: It probably defeats the purpose to put, like, potato vodka in herbal tea, though, huh?
Diane Sanfilippo: Probably.
Liz Wolfe: Although, speaking of booze, I am going to review the Paleo Happy Hour book this week. It might be fun. I think I’m going to have a cocktail and record a YouTube video.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, you know, people might be surprised that there are a lot of snacky, happy hour bites recipes in that book. It’s really not mostly cocktails.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. And honestly, I kind of thought it was for a little while. I cracked it open, and it was just pretty genius. I mean, if you don’t have it and you’re looking for some inspiration for what to bring to a holiday party or something like that, I think you could reasonably still get it in pretty good time before Christmas and New Years. So, Paleo Happy Hour. It’s a good one.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, that actually would be great for a New Years’ party.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah, and Kelly, the author, put together a recipe card for me for one of my favorite cocktails that she has in her book and she’s going to let me put it up on Facebook and the blog as a little preview of what she did, so. Keep an eye out for that.
Diane Sanfilippo: Cool.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. So should we talk about my book?
Diane Sanfilippo: We should.
Liz Wolfe: Alright, cool. Well, so I made the official book announcement this week because Amazon finally did upload the cover, and the description is still a little… I need to tweak it a little bit, but it’s totally accurate, it’s just, you know, not the final version. Slightly repetitive, but we’ll fix that. And, so now the cover went up and I can’t shut up about it. I’ve been pretty, I mean, I don’t know if you agree but I feel like I’ve been pretty quiet about it.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, it’s annoying.
Liz Wolfe: For like 2 years.
Diane Sanfilippo: I’m like, can we talk about this book a little more?
Liz Wolfe: {laughing}
Diane Sanfilippo: Why don’t you tell folks what it’s called, and, why don’t you… I mean, you know, I kind of was encouraging you to talk a little bit more about, like, the process and, you know I think later when the book is closer to releasing we’ll end up talking a little bit more about some of the content, which obviously that will be divulged as we go through today’s episode, but I just think it’s really interesting to learn about, like, the concept and the development of the content, and just kind of, you know, what happened going from the original plan of Modern Cave Girl, because I think obviously people were very curious, like what happened to it? You know.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Diane Sanfilippo: It’s like, no I didn’t kill the Modern Cave Girl.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: But, you know, just kind of to explain some of that and give people kind of the behind the scenes little inside look at the whole development.
3. The evolution of Modern Cave Girl [15:47]
Liz Wolfe: Yeah, so this is going to be kind of a “get to know Liz” session. We’ll get pretty raw here. But, alright, so official book announcement happened, but a lot of people may not know that I’ve been working on this thing for, like a good 2 years. Well, first you know I have to say thank everybody for all of the support that has just poured out. People are telling me that they preordered the book almost right away, and that means so unbelievably much to me, I can’t even tell you. I mean, the preorders; Diane, you know, they are so unbelievably important, and especially for a book like mine that has kind of been the little engine that could and has gone through some changes, so I just have to say, please. If you love me, or if I’ve ever given you like a chuckle or if I’ve tickled you in your whole life, or even if you don’t like me and you just like online shopping for stuff that you have to wait 2 months to get, please do preorder it and let me know that you did on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, wherever. Because I want to thank you personally. Every single person that is supporting me in this means the world to me. So, I can’t even say it without, like, choking up, but it’s pretty incredible, and so I have also gotten a lot of questions about, like you said, what happened to Modern Cave Girl? I did not, I didn’t do anything evil to her or anything like that, but this is kind of the story of a lot of things that have happened over the time that I’ve been doing this blog, and especially into the time where, you know, you plucked me out of relative obscurity and {laughs} had me cohost this podcast with you, and I kind of, over that time, started really finding, not finding my voice because I think I always had it, but I think I was honestly kind of afraid to express it. So, for a long time when I realized I wanted to get into helping people through nutrition, I kind of had this split personality problem, where I had the Cave Girl Eats blog, where you know, I was goofy and just kind of expressed myself, and I was silly and really just kind of raw and honest, and then I had this other side, LizWolfeNTP.com, that was my professional practice where I acted very responsible and proper, and whatnot, and you know, never the twain should meet. I just kind of felt like if I wanted to be taken seriously, I had to spare people the more goofy side of me that was present at Cave Girl Eats.com and I don’t feel that way anymore. But, back when I started writing this book, I felt like I either had to write a silly, sassy cosmopolitan book/response to, you know, the stupid silly cosmopolitan books like Skinny Bitch, and that’s what I thought I was supposed to write. It was either that, or it was a super serious book that was going to be full of facts and helping people, and whatever. And so, in designing this book and kind of pitching what I wanted it to be to the publisher, I pitched Modern Cave Girl, because it seemed to make sense, and I was planning on doing just something kind of, you know, peppy and sassy and whatever, and kind of trying to do something that I felt like would be marketable, and that I felt like I should write. And as I was writing it, I just realized, and I’m sure other people that have written books will be like, yup, that’s exactly what happens. But you really just can’t write something that you don’t mean. That you don’t really feel in your heart. You can’t write something that’s not inherently you. You just can’t , because it comes out patchy and, you know, full of holes, and it’s just no good. And that’s kind of the road I was going down. I was trying to be this person that wasn’t quite who I am in real life. And so, as everything kind of started to morph and change for me, and I started to become more comfortable being silly and being myself and owning the fact that I’m both silly and, at least marginally intelligent, a lot of things just started to shift. So, I’m writing this book that’s supposed to be called Modern Cave Girl, and it keeps getting pushed back because, not because the publisher didn’t like it or because they were punishing me or because it wasn’t good enough, it was because I wasn’t done and I wasn’t happy with it. I didn’t feel like Modern Cave Girl really did the whole project justice, and so when I finally was like, ok, I’m just going to write what I want to write and what I feel deep down needs to be out there, it’s going to be serious, it’s going to have lots of facts, lots of myth busting, but it’s also going to have lots of goofy things that kind of put my stamp on it. It’s going to have references to The Princess Bride, and you know, Robert Burnes, and all kinds of stuff. And I just went for it. And once it was finally done, I talked to the publisher about it, and we both agreed that it was going to be kind of a shame to pigeon-hole everything that I had put together into a book called Modern Cave Girl. And, I completely agreed. I felt like this book was meant for a wider audience. I felt like it could help a lot of people and entertain a lot of people, so we started brainstorming what else we could call it. And it was a tough call because, the publishing world… I mean, I didn’t do this. I didn’t switch things just to confuse people, or, you know, end my trail of breadcrumbs so I become impossible to find and in everything like that. It was a really tough decision that we didn’t take lightly, but the publishing world, I don’t know what it’s called, but the assign some kind of identifier to your book once it’s up for presale. And, you can’t just change the title and have it be the same book. So, we had to cancel Modern Cave Girl, create an entirely new listing for the book, which, thanks to Diane, who was instrumental in helping come up with the new title, this new book is called Eat the Yolks. Eat the egg yolks, which is basically a microcosm for everything I believe about nutrition, and it represents all that we’ve been falsely demonizing for many, many years. So, that’s how we transitioned from Modern Cave Girl to Eat the Yolks. It’s the same book, technically, but it grew into something much bigger and much better than Modern Cave Girl I think was destined to be. So, that’s kind of the story. And, the book isn’t just about eggs, it’s about all of it. It’s about all the lies and busting all of the myths and giving us context, not just for, like, you know the how-to of eating real food, but how we got here in the first place. How we got to a point where we completely stopped trusting our instincts and started relying on conventional wisdom and packaged and processed so-called health foods and all of the stuff that lead to that. And I talk about my journey, too, all of the stupid stuff that I used to do, which I often talk about in our workshops. So, I broke it down into some pretty basic chapters that cover some basic concepts. So, there’s a chapter on fat and cholesterol, there’s a chapter on protein, there’s a chapter on carbohydrates, there’s a chapter on calories and nutrients, and it’s broken down pretty simply like that because I feel like that’s the way most people think about food. But inside each of those chapters, I’m not just talking about, what is fat? What is protein? What is carbohydrate? Etc. And, honestly, I’m not even just making a case for paleo. I’m making a case for real, unprocessed food that has always been food. I don’t get into the nitpicking of “what’s paleo” and “what’s not paleo”, but I kind of tackle the broader questions about our food supply and how we got here. So, there’s just a ton in there. I don’t know, am I missing anything so far Diane?
Diane Sanfilippo: I don’t think so. I mean, I think one thing that people should probably hear a little bit more about is, like, the voice of the book. I mean, you did touch on it a little bit when you were talking about the difference between, you know, your sort of two lives at one point and how you really just want to keep it focused on, you know, who you are at your core, but I think Modern Cave Girl had this feeling that it was going to be a little bit, like, lighthearted
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Diane Sanfilippo: Eat the Yolks, I don’t know if people get that sense, but when I was reading the manuscript, I was like, this is, you know, for everybody who has loved your blog, or who has felt like they wished somebody else would read it and learn something from it, but also be entertained, you know?
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Diane Sanfilippo: I mean, there’s enough boring nutrition books out there. {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: {laughing}
Diane Sanfilippo: It’s true, and I think… I think there’s a way to kind of mix those things, and I think you do a really good job of that, so I don’t know if you want to talk a little bit more about that, and what people can expect in a little bit more depth.
4. What you can expect [25:03]
Liz Wolfe: Yes, I absolutely want to talk about it. Alright, so I don’t want anybody to buy this book and not know what they are getting. So, and while it’s hard to summarize 80,000 words of absolute brilliance on a podcast, what I thought I could do is, first of all I’ll kind of read, I think I’ll read a little excerpt from the introduction.
Diane Sanfilippo: “Egg-xcerpt!” Ha!
Liz Wolfe: What?
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} Eggs-cerpt!
Liz Wolfe: Eggs! Oh my gosh. I didn’t even get! I’m so dullened by this whole.
Diane Sanfilippo: So punny!
Liz Wolfe: Hilarious.
Diane Sanfilippo: Hilarious!
Liz Wolfe: So I’ll read a little “egg-cerpt”, and hopefully that will kind of show people my motivations for writing the book, but I’m also going to get a little preview of the chapter list. Not just the chapters, but kind of like the subchapters within the chapters, and so people can kind of see that this is serious but it’s also fun. It’s a good read, I guarantee it. Ok, so I’ll read this excerpt first, and then I’ll talk about the chapter list, and lest people are still afraid that this book is too serious, and will not be edutaining enough, I will also list all of the different goofy movie and pop culture references that are embedded within its pages. Some of which are easier to see and identify than others, and I think we should kind of make, maybe a drinking game out of this.
Diane Sanfilippo: Should I drink fermented cod liver oil?
Liz Wolfe: Yes.
Diane Sanfilippo: Every time you say… what?
Liz Wolfe: I think anytime somebody recognizes a more obscure pop culture or movie reference
Diane Sanfilippo: Somebody? Who’s somebody?
Liz Wolfe: Anybody.
Diane Sanfilippo: In our live listening audience? {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Anytime somebody could pop up at wherever, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, whatever, we’ll do like a little hashtag, we’ll do the #eattheyolks hashtag, and you can quote what you pulled out of the text and identify where it’s from. Some are really, really obvious, but some are a lot less.
Diane Sanfilippo: Alright, we’re going to have to remind them of that game when the book comes out.
Liz Wolfe: Yes.
Diane Sanfilippo: Ok.
Liz Wolfe: You take a shot of fermented cod liver oil for each and every one. We’ll flesh that out later. Here is a couple of paragraphs from the introduction. I’m talking about my journey and how I got here, and talking about the different changes that I saw when I changed my food.
Diane Sanfilippo: P.S.
Liz Wolfe: Yes.
Diane Sanfilippo: Before you start, I’m like strongly lobbying for this book to be on Audible. As read by you. Just so you know, in case you’re not aware, I’m like, I think this book needs to be on Audible, and Liz needs to be the one narrating it. By the way. Ok.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs} No, I want a 65-year-old male.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: {laughs} Actually,
Diane Sanfilippo: Morgan Freeman?
Liz Wolfe: I want Morgan {laughing}
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} James Earl Jones. You seen those commercials?
Liz Wolfe: I was just going to say that!
Diane Sanfilippo: Totes McGoats.
Liz Wolfe: I want those two old men to narrate my book on audible. “Totes McGoats”
Diane Sanfilippo: Totes McGoats. Ok.
Liz Wolfe: Oh, this is rapidly imploding.
Diane Sanfilippo: Ok. I’ll mute myself.
Liz Wolfe: Here is the excerpt: “Yet while I was thrilled with these changes, I still had lingering fears. I was worried that one day I would suddenly blow up like Violet Beauregard in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, thanks to all the delicious, filling fat I was eating. I worried that the cholesterol in my egg yolks would give me heart disease. I worried that forgoing bread would somehow make me fiber deficient and my, ahem, regularity was doomed to suffer. When I told people I was “eating paleo”, I didn’t have a good answer when the inevitable questions came flooding in. “Won’t all that animal protein give you cancer? Aren’t you worried about your cholesterol? Is it really smart to eliminate all grains?” Ironically, nobody seemed to care when my breakfast, lunch, and dinner consisted of nicotine and caffeine-laden soft drinks. For the first time, I wasn’t content with simply following rules. I wanted to know why this was working, and whether all the worries were justified. I wanted to know everything. With no dog in the fight, I set out to discover the truth about food, nutrition, and how I could best nourish my body. I wanted to know how we got here, why we believe what we believe, and what all of it meant to my health.” So that’s what I’ll read for today. I’ll probably do more excerpts…
Diane Sanfilippo: Aww, I was waiting for more. I was like, yeah! Keep reading!
Liz Wolfe: I know, but I gotta just dangle the carrot, you know.
Diane Sanfilippo: I am so into Audible and audio books because I’m like, yes! I feel like I’m with you living this journey.
Liz Wolfe: I like reading out loud, honestly.
Diane Sanfilippo: But you know what…
Liz Wolfe: I’ve always liked reading out loud, since I was a kid, because I always felt like I could pronounce the hard words and that impressed people.
Diane Sanfilippo: Oh, you’re so cool, Liz.
Liz Wolfe: I know. I’m into it, but I gotta find, like a studio that will let me do it for free. {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: So, um, alright, we can find that. Maybe one of our listeners will know someone who’s got a recording studio. What about, like, Kendall? Can we bug her? Doesn’t she have a recording studio?
Liz Wolfe: Well, yeah, but she’s like 18 states away.
Diane Sanfilippo: Oh, whatever.
Liz Wolfe: Maybe she could bring it here.
Diane Sanfilippo: Anyway, um, what was I going to say… well I think the one thing, too, when I first read Robb Wolf’s book, after hearing him on the podcast and going to his seminar and all of that, I felt like I could hear him, you know.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Diane Sanfilippo: When I was reading the book, so that actually did help a lot, too. So, I think when I was reading the manuscript, I could actually hear you saying it, and it did make it funnier. {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Well.
Diane Sanfilippo: Like, it’s funny, but I was like, yes, I can hear Liz saying all of this, so it was cool.
Liz Wolfe: I’m the same way. I like to imagine people’s voices. And, of course, if I can’t imagine people’s voices, I’ll replace them with Stockard Channing or Morgan Freeman.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} Obviously.
5. Chapter list for Eat the Yolks [31:13]
Liz Wolfe: Yeah, obviously. Clearly. So, that is kind of the serious…that’s the motivation behind the book and that’s kind of where things open up. But I’ve also got, let me get into this chapter list a little bit. And I have to apologize, because right now, the cat that we’re babysitting and my dog are about to get into a really horrific fight. It’s just, the tension is high over here, so you might hear some hissing, and you know, what not. Anyway. So, here’s a little bit… and I’m going to lobby to be able to put at least an excerpt, a longer one, 20 pages of the introduction or the whole introduction online for people to read, kind of like Melissa Joulwan did with Well Fed and Well Fed 2, so people could hop in and see if it was something that they really wanted to read in the first place, so I’ll try and coordinate that. We’ll see how it goes. If not, we’ll keep doing little tidbits here on the podcast. Little tidbits. The table of contents, I’ll go through it. We have, of course the introduction and the first section of the introduction is the propaganda police, which is how I learned to stop worrying and eating real food. In case you didn’t know, that’s actually a reference to something, so if you got that, take your shot of fermented cod liver oil. I talk a little bit about what paleo actually is, and you know, this is, technically it’s a paleo book. Because my roots are… that’s where my roots are, with paleo. But folks that know me, they know, you know, the listeners know that I’m not dogmatic about this. I mean, I’ve had {laughs} I posted a picture of some chicken curry that I made on Facebook and on Instagram, and inevitably, I got a couple of comments from people that are like, “Wait, I thought peas weren’t paleo?” I put peas in the curry. And, it’s unfortunate to me that we have been trained to think in terms of rules rather than nutrition. And that’s what this book is about. It’s not about rules, it’s about nutrition. And I don’t give a hoot if somebody eats peas for every damn meal. That doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what’s on the rules list or what’s not on the rules list of the branded trademarked paleo diet. What matters is that we are informed so we can continue to make good choices in our lives going forward. And so, that’s where I come from with this book. I think paleo is a great framework, but in a lot of ways, I think I’m reframing it and redefining it, and hopefully giving the control to the reader rather than the rule maker. So, that’s kind of where I’m coming from with all of this. So I talk about a lot of that stuff in the introduction, and I talk about scientific studies. A lot of people get real worried about, “Oh, but they did a study about this, that, and the other.” Kind of some guidance on how to think about things like that. The chapter on Fat, which comes up next, it’s chapter 1, the subsections are “let’s talk about fat, baby”. Was that good?
Diane Sanfilippo: That was awful.
Liz Wolfe: I know. So, that’s the first one. We talk about history in the heart. We talk about cholesterol, don’t hate! And saturated science, fat chance! But what about the calories, yo! And then at the end of every chapter, of course, I give a little run down on what to do. Not a list of rules, but guidance on how to move forward. And that’s every chapter. The chapter on protein, my personal favorite section is entitled “Kellogg’s flaccid flakes.” Probably my favorite section title in the entire book. We talk about protein and amino acids, but not in a boring way! We talk about getting the nutrients that we need from animals versus plants, and some of the myths and truths about that. We talk about the myths about animal protein being bad for the kidneys, liver, and the bones. We talk about the myths about animal protein causing cancer. Things like that. There’s a section called “Myth. We need to eat like primates. Or, don’t monkey around with ape food.” So, I keep it lighthearted. The section on carbs, we talk about crops and carbage. What comes with your carbs, stuff like that. Chapter on nutrients, you can bank them and you can bank on them! We talk about the different vitamins and nutrients, the myths about them. One of my favorite sections is on vitamin D and the sun. And also the one entitled, “Omega 3 or fish oil; what’s the catch?” Do you see what I did there?
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, you’re so punny Liz.
Liz Wolfe: I know. It’s so punny. So there you go. That’s kind of a little bit of what’s happening in the manuscript. It sounds exciting, right? Am I painting a good picture?
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, I’m laughing because you say, ‘we talk about’, and I’m like, who’s we? You and the reader I guess.
Liz Wolfe: Me! Me and the reader. This is a collaboration. This is not me being instructive.
Diane Sanfilippo: Here’s what we’re going to talk about, dear reader
6. Fun pop culture references in Eat the Yolks [36:38]
Liz Wolfe: In any way. Because seriously, I am no angel, you know. My dietary history is just as blemished as the next guy, and when I wrote this, I was talking, I felt like I was having a conversation with people and with my old self. So, this is about all of us. This is a “we”. This is everyone. So that’s what I’ve got there. And let me tell you a little bit about the different fun little references that you can look for throughout the manuscript. Shall I do that?
Diane Sanfilippo: Sure.
Liz Wolfe: This is not even exhaustive, by the way. This is probably in the first one-third of the book. We’ve got, Empire Records, The Little Mermaid, The Island of Dr. Moreau, Men in Black, Crystal Pepsi, Home Alone, the original one with Macauly Culkin, Edwin Star, that’s a little obscure, Twilight, of course, Jersey Shore, 30 Rock, Princess Bride, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, the poet Robert Burnes, Ferris Bueller, Life Aquatic, The Jerk, Galaxy Quest, Real Housewives, Desperate Housewives, and again the Jersey Shore.
Diane Sanfilippo: So basically ,the last couple of years, your life has been as follows:
Liz Wolfe: {laughing}
Diane Sanfilippo: Work on the book, watch television, podcast,
Both Together: Watch television.
Diane Sanfilippo: Travel to teach seminars, movies, uh… write blog posts, old movies, {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Pretty much.
Diane Sanfilippo: Well I think, yeah.
Liz Wolfe: I’ve never actually watched Desperate Housewives, or Jersey Shore.
Diane Sanfilippo: What? WHAT?!
Liz Wolfe: But those things … Never. Those things, oh I forgot Galaxy Quest. And The Jerk. Did I? Maybe I didn’t. But, these things just… they’re just pervasive. You can’t escape them.
Diane Sanfilippo: Ok, alright. Fair enough. Um, let’s see. I mean, we’ve got, probably a few more minutes to close out this episode, so, I mean, you can just kind of take it away with whatever else you want to really talk about, about the book or about any of the process of writing and kind of the journey and maybe some stuff that you feel like, you know, you learned that was interesting or different that you didn’t expect to learn in the process.
7. A little intro on margarine [38:30]
Liz Wolfe: Well, you know that I love talking about margarine. {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: I do know.
Liz Wolfe: And anybody that’s been to our workshops knows that, as well. But, what really just killed me was learning about how the margarine industry really laid the foundation for, not just the crop oil industry, you know, the canola, the soybean, all of that junk that we want people to give up. But, it also really laid the foundation for the factory farming industry. So, you’ve got all of these different things happening at approximately the same time that are all interrelated. And a lot of times we think of “the meat eaters” and “the vegetarians” and all of these different kind of, quote-unquote “sects”, s-e-c-t-s, not sex, of people and these different ways of eating that people define themselves by as at odds with one another, but in many ways, a lot of the ways we look at food and the way we eat in the modern world can kind of be traced back to the margarine industry. It’s just nuts! And that’s a theme, really. And almost every, in everything that I talk about in this book, margarine is not a theme, but the theme of tracing back why we think the way we think, because I think that gives people more, in my opinion, more interesting context for feeling comfortable with the choices that we’re making now. So it’s like, ok. Paleo is anti-inflammatory. Paleo is not hard on the digestive system. Paleo is gluten free. Paleo, you know, du-du-du-du-du-du. Real food. Replace “paleo” with “real food”, whatever you want to do. But, like I said in my excerpt from the book, to me, even though I bought into the whole deal and I was hearing people say those things back when I first got into this whole lifestyle, I still just didn’t understand how we could just throw everything the doctors had ever told us out the window. I mean, I was just now looking at some of the questions that we’ve had come in for the podcast in the last week or so, and a couple of them are, “Oh my gosh! My doctor told me my cholesterol is high. What do I do?” And I get it. Like, you bought into the paleo thing, you feel amazing, but then all of a sudden some tenant of conventional wisdom gets thrown in your face and you start to question everything. And that sucks, because so many people that aren’t questioning anything at all are actually still really sick, and there’s a reason for that. But when you find out, ok, let me trace back the whole reason we eat whole grains. Let me trace back the whole reason that we were told that soybean oil and canola oil is good for us in the first place. And, let me trace back all of the ridiculous debauchery that happened in the political world, and the nutrition world, and the research world that lead us to institutionalize all of this information about fat, and saturated fat, and cholesterol, and heart disease, and cholesterol count, and statin, and du-du-du-du-du. It kind of makes a little bit more sense. Because when you do that, you’re actually destroying the foundations of these ideas that are no less false for having been repeated for 50 years. Does that make sense?
Diane Sanfilippo: Totally. Yep.
Liz Wolfe: That’s what it’s about. Among other things.
Diane Sanfilippo: Well, I mean, do you want to just give people a little bit more information about, like, what happened with the margarine industry? I mean, I know that there’s probably an entire hour of a show we could have talking about that.
Liz Wolfe: Oh yes.
Diane Sanfilippo: But I mean, I think if I had just heard that, I’d be like, well, what did happen?
Liz Wolfe: Like, huh?
Diane Sanfilippo: And just kind of explain the beginning of that cascade, because I do think it’s really interesting, and I think it’s interesting also in its relationship to, like, the fish oil industry.
Liz Wolfe: Yes.
Diane Sanfilippo: Because I know, you know, you and I kind of share a view of fish oil for a similar reason.
Liz Wolfe: Yes.
Diane Sanfilippo: So.
Liz Wolfe: Totes.
Diane Sanfilippo: And we’ll, uh; yeah, we can wrap up with this.
Liz Wolfe: Ok, sounds good. The margarine deal. Let me think how far back I want to go. There are actually a lot of myths that circulate about margarine. I kind of; I mean, they’re fun, I mean, people post things on Facebook, like, “Did you know that margarine was originally created to feed prisoners so that their hair would fall out?” You know, all kinds of weird myths that make margarine look pretty bad, but unfortunately they are not true. Margarine was actually first developed and made out of animal fat. And that just blew my mind. So, margarine was first created in the wake of basically a drought in a region of Europe, and what was happening was there wasn’t enough nutrition in the grass that the cows were eating for them to produce milk with adequate butterfat to be churned into butter. And this was a huge, huge problem, because physical laborers, the working class, people that needed the really dense energy and nutrition from fat were without that. And that was going to be a huge problem. And the funny thing is, back then, and even in some of the broad written history of margarine, which does exist, surprisingly enough, the nutritional properties of butterfat are completely…they are acknowledged, they are touted. The fact that butter is rich in vitamin A and that vitamin A is important is completely… it’s out there, it’s clear, nobody is trying to pretend that there is any kind of acceptable substitute for butter. So, what happened was, there was no butter, so a brilliant guy with a very French sounding name that I always butcher, so I won’t even try it right now, but his name sounds an awful lot like margarine, he’s the guy that we named it after, was commissioned to develop a replacement for butter that could keep people healthy during this scarce era. So, he basically created a product out of beef tallow and skim milk, which was supposed to kind of match the spreadable consistency of butter, and it caught on. Holy wow, it caught on. But then, you end up with the same problem where, down the road, you come up with a shortage of these same animal fats, and there’s this supply and demand issue, and then we get into the brilliant development of the hydrogenation and the solidifying of oils. And that leads us to a global industry. At first, this whole margarine deal was really regionalized, but what it turned into was a global market for oils that were produced in Africa, for example, and other countries, and then shipped out for use in the production of margarine. So you’re producing all these oils, and you end up with a lot of byproducts. And that’s where we get all of this extra protein-rich meal that is sent to the factory farms. And that is basically what the factory farms were built upon. Because before there were enough raw materials to feed animals in a factory farm environment, that wasn’t even possible. It wasn’t even thought of. So, at that point we’ve got these byproducts that are creating the framework for the factory farming industry, which starts to grow. Agriculture starts to become bigger and more important, and then all the way down the line. We have all of these byproducts of that same industry that only exists because some French dude decided to create a little something called margarine.
Diane Sanfilippo: I think it’s pretty fascinating. I love learning about that stuff, and I think that’s the stuff that’s, you know, even more relevant to what we know about modern food choices.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Diane Sanfilippo: And the food industry than even the whole paleo framework. I mean, I know, you know you and I both really had our roots and our start in this whole nutrition thing from the paleo community.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Diane Sanfilippo: But I think, you know, even looking at more recent history and more recent changes, even, you know, even well since the agricultural revolution, there’s just been really big missteps that have been almost far worse, and actually today, an article came out, I think it was posted on the New York Times’ online, and it was… let me see. Maybe we can get a link to it in our show notes, but it’s called A Lifelong Fight Against Trans Fats, which is definitely part of what you’re talking about with the beginning of margarine.
Liz Wolfe: Yes.
Diane Sanfilippo: Because obviously though it started out maybe not being trans fat with the beef tallow and skim milk, but eventually became something that was completely trans fat… this is actually Chris Masterjohn’s…
Liz Wolfe: Yeah, Fred Kummerow.
Diane Sanfilippo: Like advisor.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm. I thank him in the acknowledgement of my book.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah
Liz Wolfe: Because I did read some of his work and he did fight really tirelessly for now. He’s like, 99 years old.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, he’s 99.
Liz Wolfe: He’s been fighting for years against trans fat.
Diane Sanfilippo: Mm-hmm.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Diane Sanfilippo: I think it’s really interesting. Yeah. So, awesome. Well I think we can probably wrap up there, if you want to close this out, and I think just to kind of let people know what’s coming up in the coming weeks, let me look at our calendar here. I’m not sure that it will be next week. Next week is…Well, next week is the day after Christmas, so I’m not sure what’s going to air next week.
Liz Wolfe: Just Christmas music.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: We’ll just.. on a loop.
Diane Sanfilippo: Actually, it will be a Yule log. So you’ll just hear like the little crackling.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs} that’s so much better.
Diane Sanfilippo: But I don’t know what will happen next week, but the following week, January 2, I believe we will have Chris Kresser talking about his new book, Your Personal Paleo Code, and if we can get the episode sorted before the 26th, we may have an episode with Denise Minger, either the 26th, probably more likely that one will air on January 9th. That’s my guess, so I’m not really sure on the dates on those, but just kind of keep your eyes open and check out, you know, those upcoming episodes for our awesome guests.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah, it will be fun.
Diane Sanfilippo: Alrighty.
Liz Wolfe: Cool. So, go check out Eat the Yolks. It’s available for preorder on Amazon. And that’s it. We’ll be back next week or maybe next week, or maybe not next week. We’ll see. But at some point, we’ll tackle more questions and whatnot. If you’ve been enjoying the podcast, please do help us spread the word by leaving a review in iTunes. It helps keep the show in front of lots of people that are searching, plus we just like to read what you do while you listen to the show. So until next week, you can find Diane at http://balancedbites.com/. You can find me, Liz, author of Eat the Yolks, at http://cavegirleats.com/. Thanks for listening everyone!
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Cheers!
Diane & Liz