Michael Kummer: The Optimal Diet to Improve Your Metabolic Health, Do You Need Carbohydrates, & How To Break Food Addiction (PART 2) | MMP #288

Welcome to Part 2 of our podcast with Michael Kummer. 

Michael is a digital health entrepreneur, homesteader, a former professional sprinter, a CrossFit athlete, and the founder of MK Supplements, selling freeze-dried organ meat supplements sourced from 100% pasture-raised cattle. He has a popular blog and hosts the Primal Shift Podcast, where he explores topics like local food sourcing, benefits of homesteading, ethical animal husbandry, and modern agriculture's impact on food quality. Kummer merges advanced health optimization strategies with traditional food cultivation, bridging the gap between different health communities.

Topics discussed today include:

• Adjusting carbohydrate intake to support cognitive and physical health
• Strategies for establishing your metabolic baseline
• The ultimate food diet for monitoring how the body responds to different foods and optimizing diet
• The benefits of dietary variation for health optimization
• Navigating food cravings and the influence of diet and environment
• Examining the carnivore diet's role in managing autoimmune conditions like Hashimoto's disease
• Creative approaches to making organ meats appealing

Timestamps:

(00:00) - Homesteading and Local Food Sourcing

(12:49) - Embracing Nature Through Homesteading

(19:16) - Learning About Homesteading and Regenerative Farming

(22:28) - Homesteading Lifestyle and Personal Reflection

(31:06) - Teaching Kids Healthy Relationship With Food


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Creators & Guests

Host

Brett Ender 🥩⚡️

The food system is corrupt and trying to poison us... I will teach you how to fight back. Co-Host of @themeatmafiapod 🥩

Host

Harry Gray 🥩⚡️

Leading the Red Meat Renaissance 🥩 ⚡️| Co-Host of @themeatmafiapod

What is The Meat Mafia Podcast?

The Meat Mafia Podcast is hosted by @MeatMafiaBrett and @MeatMafiaHarry with the mission of addressing fundamental problems in our food and healthcare system. Our concerns with our healthcare system can be drawn back to issues in our food system as far back as soil health. Our principles are simple: eat real foods, buy locally, and cook your own meals.

When you listen to our podcast, you will hear stories and conversations from people working on the fringes of the food and healthcare system to address the major crises overshadowing modern society: how do we become healthy again?

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00:00 - Speaker 1
Welcome back to another episode of the Meat Mafia podcast. On today's episode, we are releasing the part two of the Michael Coomer series, and if you haven't already listened to part one, I highly encourage you to go back and listen to that episode. That was Monday's episode 30 minutes of just an immense download of knowledge from this man. This guy knows so much, not just about nutrition, but just health and wellness in general, and he brings it to another level where he's actually raising his own food. He's a homesteader. He knows exactly where his food is coming from because he's raising it himself, and so his perspective on nutrition, health and wellness is really coming from this first principles way of thinking. And he brings so much knowledge to the conversation. So this is the part two. And he brings so much knowledge to the conversation, so this is the part two. We dive deeper into these topics around how to get really high quality food on your family's table, and without further ado. Michael Kummer.

00:55 - Speaker 2
Figuring out how you can process certain foods is almost as important as learning what foods you can and cannot eat, or should and should not eat.

01:03 - Speaker 3
You have to learn how to eat like a human Do you ever get cravings to go off your diet or eat processed?

01:10 - Speaker 2
food. It's really a matter of rewiring some of those neural connections so that you crave the different things. If we make five pounds of burger patties with butter and with salt, you can be sure I'm going to overeat to a point where I feel almost sick because I can't stop.

01:26 - Speaker 3
Michael, do you grow fruits and vegetables as well on the property?

01:30 - Speaker 2
Yes, we do. I mean we have berries that have been growing fairly successfully, raspberries in particular, but also strawberries and some blueberries and elderberries, even though, you know, I mean, they are berries but not in the same, I guess, category as raspberries. We use them more, like for making tea and stuff. We also grow a couple of veggies, but, I want to say, significantly less successful than our protein game, and that's, I think, also because you know, we care more for the protein, we focus more on it, we spend more. You know we are more on top, more on top of in our animals than our veggie garden. But, going forward, we want to take it also more seriously and even grow some of the things that I would, you know, not necessarily recommend you consume in greater amounts, but you know, for example, ketchup.

02:18
The kids still eat ketchup, you know, and we buy it, you know, from from primal kitchen, which is, you know, at least one of the better ones, I think. But ultimately, you know, I want to grow my own tomatoes. You know, and at least know exactly, you know, what goes into that ketchup. Or you know, grow. Maybe you know some other things that I I don't care for much, but like the smell of onion. I mean, if you roast onions in butter, I mean, is there a better smell than that?

02:41
are onions, something that I would recommend you eat a whole lot. No, I can't handle a lot either, but just having it from time to time, or at least having the smell you know in the kitchen is beautiful, and so you know we want to grow a bunch of those things and see what we can preserve and can, and you know, and ferment and what have you, and make maybe more compatible than it would be just eaten raw. And yes, so it is something we do and it is something we want to do more.

03:09 - Speaker 3
So going forward, yeah, even being able to grow some nice parsley and make some homemade chimichurri for a steak or something like that.

03:18
I think I fall into a similar camp with you, where I'm really not consuming vegetables much at all but, like you know, being able to flavor your dishes with some, you know, sauteed garlic or some chimichurri or some parsley and onions, like that's a, that's an amazing part of the experience, but more as like a flavor enhancement versus like hey, I'm going to make a separate vegetable side dish, like I very rarely do that at this point.

03:38 - Speaker 2
Yeah, no, no, absolutely. And I think also, you know, once you have reached a certain level of health and you are somewhat in tune, you can figure out how much of what you can get away with. You know what does impact you, what doesn't impact you. And so we've gotten significantly I don't want to necessarily say relaxed, but more like in tune and opportunistic in terms of what we eat and how we eat. Like every so often. You know, my wife bakes double fermented sourdough bread and you know, if we have to for a weekend, everyone is fine, nobody's gonna fall, nobody's falling apart. We wouldn't eat that every day, but every so often it's. It's something special, not in the sense that the food is special because it's so super nutritious, but it's special in the sense of it brings back memories. You know, maybe from you know especially how I grew up.

04:23
I'm from Austria, you know bread is a staple, you know, same in, you know, my wife, you know, with rice, for example. So we have, you know, we soak white rice, you know, overnight, and then we have it every so often. Everyone is happy with that, nobody's falling apart, and I think also figuring out how you can process certain foods is almost as important as learning what foods you can and cannot eat, or should and should not eat.

04:48
That really goes to the mentality of, I think, dr Bill Schindler, who says you have to learn how to eat like a human, meaning food processing methods fermenting, soaking, sprouting, peeling, grinding, heating, what have you?

05:03
All the things that are out there. You know humans have figured out over decades or over, you know, tens of thousands of years probably, how you can process certain foods to make them less toxic plant foods, in particular, you know less toxic, extract more nutrients from those foods and make them maybe a little bit more compatible. That doesn't turn them into ideal foods or staple foods for that matter, but it at least is something that I think you can enjoy on occasion. And maybe then, when you have family over who doesn't necessarily share your strict carnivorous or animal-based eating styles, you can make it work for everyone, and every so often we do that amongst ourselves, and everything is good, you know, and nobody is falling apart, nobody is getting, you know, cancer or diabetes. You know, yeah, as long as you understand, you know, how that food responds to you, or how your body responds to that food, and you have to, you know, modulate that accordingly.

06:01 - Speaker 3
Very well said, and you're someone that's done a lot of different experimentation with different diets over the years and I feel like you've really honed in on the specific food groups and types of foods that make you feel your best. So I'm just curious, like as of today, what foods are you gravitating towards, what are you staying away from? And also just like, what does a typical day of eating look like for you at this point?

06:25 - Speaker 2
Yeah, uh, I mean you know very much animal-based. I mean we eat a boatload of beef and eggs. We also do a moderate amount of pork if we find good sources. We do occasionally chicken. We're going to do probably more chickens once we raise our own. Coming March. We'll probably increase that intake.

06:41
You know I do a lot of fermented raw dairy. So I ferment my own kefir. We get the raw milk from a local farm here and I ferment that overnight and I have that a lot. I mean I drink kefir every single day and I do fairly well with it, really well with it. Really I do eat a lot of raw cheeses as well.

07:00
So dairy meat, beef in particular, um and and eggs is really a staple, um, and then from a carbohydrate perspective, I mean I, you know I'm fairly active. I don't work out six times a week anymore like I used to, but I'm still, you know, burning, I want to say, up to 3000 calories a day. Just, you know lifting feedbacks and shoveling dirt and you know doing all the things that are necessary, and so I eat probably up to 100 grams of carbs a day from raw honey, from the dairy, from, you know, occasionally you know, white rice, occasionally the sourdough fruits. You know those are typically my sources of carbs and that really applies across the board for the kids as well. We all eat more or less the same. Maybe our you know macronutrient split might differ from meal to meal, but the core ingredients are the ones that you know. We all pretty much eat the same and I eat typically twice a day. So I eat. Well, I actually don't have a fixed eating time anymore. I used to be fairly strict in terms of I'm going to fast for X number of hours and then I eat.

08:08
Now I try to mix it up. Usually I work out in the morning, when I work out at 8.30, and so then I eat by 10 is my first meal. If I don't work out, I might have my first glass of kefir, maybe at 8.30, maybe at 9. So I try to mix it up, but it's usually a breakfast type of meal and then a fairly large one, and then a fairly large dinner, ideally around five, sometimes earlier, sometimes a little later, but roughly around that time. And you know that's how we all eat.

08:39
Two meals a day, fairly big ones obviously, because you know and I ate about 4,000 calories a day. That's the other thing. You know I do over consume calories, but because it's mostly protein and fat. Both of you know, two macronutrients that are used for significantly more than just energy. You know I can get away with, you know, eating that much without, you know, gaining weight, or at least no body fat. You know I gain, hopefully, a little bit of lean muscle tissue, um, but that's pretty much it. So that's that's how my, my eating looks like.

09:12 - Speaker 3
Got it so very simple a lot, a lot of animal products, some cheeses, raw kefir, some rice, from time to time some raw honey, maybe a little bit of fruit too. And I like what you'd said about eating some type of a breakfast type meal, because I've actually been finding myself in a similar camp than you, where I do two big meals, one at lunch, one at dinner, and I've been noticing, after a workout at the gym I've been really enjoying like a protein shake with raw milk, three or four egg yolks and then like two scoops of the noble chocolate, and I actually feel better doing that than doing a really prolonged fast and not consuming anything.

09:46 - Speaker 2
Yeah, not true. I mean, you know, with the fasting, you know, I've come to the conclusion that it is a stressor, a good one, you know, a hormetic stressor, but it's a stressor. Nevertheless, and depending on what the other stressors in your life look like on a given day, you know, fasting might not always be to your advantage, Especially on days when you work out and then you do the sauna and the cold plunge and you're stressed at work. You know, adding on the fasting I don't know is, you know, is necessarily a good thing. So I tried. And also, you know, getting into a routine, I mean, you can do any, you can get used to any routine and it feels normal, you know. So you know, if I do 16 hours of fasting every day, and I do it every day, I get used to it, I don't need, you know, I feel like I don't need food any earlier, but then again it, you know, I think it loses also the effectiveness of pushing you outside of your comfort zone because you just got used to it. Like if you cold plunge every day and it's nothing anymore, it's probably less beneficial.

10:44
So I try to mix things up and really be, you know, not unpredictable, because there's obviously a level of predictability in my life. But, you know, sometimes I eat early, sometimes I eat late. The other day, for the very first time in forever, I had two pairs before I work out. I usually always work out fast, but I'm like you know what you know, if I really want to be as consistent as possible with you know, our ancestors, they didn't eat at the same time every day, they didn't work out at the same time every day. It was opportunistic, and so I try to mimic that as good as I can, without really being random, but being more being predictably unpredictable, I guess I love that.

11:20 - Speaker 3
And it's like you. You've put in so many reps that when you've put in those reps over years, you, your body, just develops this incredible intuition where clearly it was signaling to you that you wanted those two pairs before a workout. So instead of saying I need to stay in this very rigid, fasting state, you're like, no, I'm going to give my body what it wants and I'm sure you had an amazing workout.

11:39 - Speaker 2
Yeah, I sure did.

11:42 - Speaker 3
And I like your perspective on carbs too. So you're still fairly like moderate to low carb if you're only consuming 100 grams of carbs a day, like moderate to low carb if you're only consuming 100 grams of carbs a day. And I sympathize with that because when I'm just looking purely at my GI and some of the autoimmune issues that I have, plus just general body composition, when I'm as close to like red meat, eggs, animal products and water as possible, that's when I feel the best. And if I'm doing some really slow long distance endurance training, I can do really well with a low carb diet. But when I'm ramping up those workouts and they're higher intensity or I'm sprinting or whatever, I just don't have that same pop and I don't have carbohydrates in my diet. So I appreciated what you said about that.

12:20 - Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean I, typically I, I, you, I mean my CrossFit workouts are typically, uh, shorter, so maybe you know the longest Metcon, the metabolic conditioning aspect. Typically we have a strength, you know, and then we have a metabolic conditioning and so the Metcon part is usually not longer than 20 minutes, so I can use my glycogen stores. You know, I don't run out of glycogen because of that one workout, but I can tell them, you know, I come home I have my, you know, keto, friendly, carnivorous, you knoworous breakfast, meaning meat and eggs and maybe some bacon, and then in the afternoon I feel like I'm running low on fuel Because at this point likely, I'm literally running low on glucose, because gluconeogenesis takes some time to replenish those glucose stores and the brain and some other tissue requires glucose that your body can make, but it's much more efficient to provide it via food. You know, that's probably one of the reasons why we can metabolize, you know, carbohydrates into glucose. There's going to be a reason for that.

13:22
And so I feel that if I withhold carbs, at that point there is no benefit but just suffering. And by suffering I don't mean I'm not falling apart, but my I, I, I perform less than optimally, which might still be higher than most other people, but less than what. You know what my baseline is. And so, on the flip side, however, if I overdo it on carbs, because there are certain days where I'm like you know, let's say once every I don't know two months, we have pizza, you know, and we make our own sourdough pizza. You know it's all handmade and you know the best ingredients that we possibly can put together, but nevertheless it's pizza. You know it's a high carb type of thing. If you put two pies in front of me, you can be sure I'm going to eat those two pies, you know.

14:05
And that might be 500 grams of carbs, and if I were to do this, then that would certainly be less than conducive to my health. I feel like my energy is going to be wonky and all kinds of stuff is going to happen that I don't feel necessarily good about. So I know that there is an upper limit for me and I know that there is a lower limit for me, but it seems like 80 to 150 grams of carbs a day is somewhat the sweet spot where I maintain stable energy levels and I don't suffer any from the I'm running out of glycogen kind of thing, especially on days where I work out.

14:53 - Speaker 3
Michael, to your point, do you have any recommendations for someone that might be a little bit newer in the space and doesn't really know how to establish their baseline? And one of the reasons why I'm asking that is we both have the perspective and I would imagine some listeners that are listening have this perspective of understanding what it feels like to maybe not have optimal metabolic health and then gaining that metabolic health, and you have such a great understanding of what makes my body feel good versus what foods don't sit well with my body. For someone that's newer in this space, they just don't have that comparison, so I think it's difficult for some people to really understand that baseline. For me, a food journal was super impactful just writing everything that I was eating but then also keeping inventory of, like, my energy levels, my bowel movements when I had ulcerative colitis, and I'm curious if there's anything that you found to be effective to getting that really good baseline that people are looking for.

15:33 - Speaker 2
I think doing carnivore, strict carnivore, for 30 to 90 days is an incredible way to, because that really removes all the potential factors. I mean, I've yet to meet anyone who says, oh, I'm sensitive to meat, and even if you argue, well, there are those who don't handle beef very well. Well, get bison, get some sort of ruminant and eat only that, with water and maybe electrolytes, and do this for 30 to 90 days and you will feel freaking amazing, Regardless of what your preexisting condition is. You will notice a significant improvement, notice a significant improvement. And then you add stuff back one by one and you'll notice oh, suddenly I'm bloated again, I get gassy, I get diarrhea, I have heartburn, I have my skin breaks out.

16:21
Whatever the case might be, you'll figure out really quick what does not sit well with you and in some cases it might be a combination of two things. Maybe eating bananas all by themselves is fine and maybe doing, you know, whatever else is fine, putting both together or doing it maybe for more than one day. You know if you eat let's say, if I have bread three days in a row, my skin starts breaking out. If I have it two days in a row, nothing is going to happen, you know. So you kind of need to play with this a little bit, but I think the best way to establish a baseline is just to eat meat. You know, that's the most I think compatible food for humans and it'll clear you out, it'll fix any gut issues you might have, it'll fix any you know other kind of inflammatory conditions and you'll get a really good baseline.

17:12
My wife even though I mean, we are an animal-based diet, so we are by no means on a standard American diet where we suffer from inflammation and chronic disease and all of that but even she told me when, before we went to Costa Rica, she did carnivore for three weeks and she said the difference between eating only meat and eating some of the other things that we do is night and day. And that was from an already relatively good baseline. Imagine if you're on a standard American diet, if you've never paid attention to what you're eating, and you go on a carnivore diet. I mean, yes, you might have the keto flu in the beginning and blah, blah, blah, but within the first 30 days you'll feel a dramatic difference and that is your new baseline. That's my take on it.

17:58 - Speaker 3
It's such a powerful message and it's something that I personally resonate with too of just understanding having a super inflamed gut and your life being revolved around having to go to the bathroom, and it's embarrassing and you always feel inflamed, you always feel fatigued, you don't feel like a normal person.

18:15
And then you actually put these the right foods in your system, these animal products like you're talking about, and you just stick to it and you know, you lo and behold it, and it also doesn't take that long as well. I mean, within a week, I felt like a different person. All it took was like five to seven days and I'm like I absolutely feel transformed and I just kind of went deeper and deeper and deeper, and I think a lot of other people are experiencing that too. Um, which is why I think that's one of the benefits of social media is that it allows people to share their anecdotal stories, so other people that are struggling can get proof of concept of like all right, well, if this person healed from Hashimoto's by going carnivore, why can't I do the same for myself too?

18:50 - Speaker 2
Right, and I mean your audience is probably different to you know, the general audience that you would find on YouTube or anywhere else. So anyone listening to the you know meat mafia podcast probably understands that eating meat is not a bad thing. But regardless, you know when, when I, when people say, well, you know, but this is crazy, eating only meat. You know you need a balanced diet. You need fiber, you need X, y, z. You know. I always say you know, look, you know, it's very easy to figure out. You know, eat only Oreos for 60 to 90 or 30 to 90 days, eat only potatoes, eat only plants. You know, do whatever you want. You know. Do it for a while and see how you feel, and then do something else and compare.

19:33
You know I would recommend starting with meat because you're going to get to the end result, you know, fairly quickly, instead of having to waste your time, you know, with all kinds of different foods. But at the end of the day it's a free experiment, it doesn't cost you much to. You know, eat something for a while and see how you do. You know. And then eat something else for a while and see how you do and figure it out. And I think everyone who gets their head around that meat isn't actually bad. It's not going to clog your arteries. You don't need fiber. You know to to poop and and all of those things. You know they have every single one who's done it. You know it has worked and feel they feel dramatically better than they did before. And it's it's. You know. The proof is in the pudding. At the end of the day, it's very easy to figure out.

20:15 - Speaker 3
It really is For you, michael. I'm curious Do you ever get cravings to go off your diet or eat processed food? Are you one of those people that you fixate on how good this food makes you feel versus how bad this processed food makes you feel and you kind of stick to that as your mental model? I'm just. I'm just curious, cause I think that's something a lot of people struggle with, even if they're in this carnivore space. They do well and then they kind of get pulled out of it and then they kind of fall off the track and it's like this constant cycle of of doing really well and then putting weight back on, and they can't really maintain that consistency over time.

20:48 - Speaker 2
I've seen a lot of people. It's not that I'm without cravings. I mean I don't crave McDonald's or I don't crave broccoli. There are certain things that and I'm not saying this is all because I'm so mentally strong or whatever I think there is a mental aspect to this. I think there is certainly a feedback loop in the brain where we get addicted to certain things and the brain I mean, if you think you can be stronger than some of those hormones in your body that tell you to eat, to go after salty food or sweets or whatever, you're mistaken. Your body, your hormones, always win because they are. I think that goes back to our, to our ancestral core of our basic survival, that If the brain thinks we need to eat certain things, you're going to eat certain things. And I think it's really a matter of rewiring some of those neural connections so that you crave different things.

21:50
I crave, for example as funny as it sounds a steak or a homemade meat patty burger patty with a lot of salt. That's for me, you know, with a lot of salt. That's for me, you know. I can easily overeat on if we make five pounds of, you know, burger patties, you know, with butter and with salt, you can be sure I'm going to overeat to a point where I feel almost sick because I can't stop. Yes, Not the worst food to overeat on, but nevertheless I can. I can tell my body's like I want to have more, more, more, more of that. I'm the same way with pizza. Now, I'm not in the sense of that If there is no pizza around, I'm like, oh, I need to order pizza. I need to order pizza. No, but if it's in front of me, if I purchased it, you can be sure that I'm going to eat it. I'm not going to leave a slice behind, you know. And so, yes, food that where I'm like, okay, I need to go to the store and buy a bag of chips. Definitely, I think.

22:44
For me, the change, uh, that flipped in my head Once I I saw those foods as poison. You know, I don't see that as food anymore. I feel like this goes against the very, my very core. You know, and I don't know what happened for me to make that mental switch. I can't tell you that this is what you need to do to fix those cravings, but it's ultimately, I think, all a combination of neural connections that you need to rewire If you keep reinforcing certain things, those neural connections are going to get stronger and stronger and stronger and it's very difficult to break them apart. So you need to work on, you know, rewiring your brain but also, at the same time, you know rewiring, maybe, your gut in terms of, you know letting certain bacteria starve out that are causing some of those cravings.

23:32
And for me, you know fasting.

23:34
You know, if you have, if you've never really fasted for extended periods, you know try to not eat or not eat for three days.

23:41
And I can tell you, whatever food someone puts in front of you, and if it's raw liver and you've never eaten or had or liked liver, you're going to dig in and it's going to be the best food you've ever had.

23:51
You know, because it resets your perception of what it means to be hungry, what it means to be, you know, craving driven by hunger, versus you're not really hungry but you're just craving for something because maybe you're anxious or maybe something else is going on. So I think the combination of fasting, stress management, changing your environment, not having access to the If you have those foods in your pantry, the chances that you're going to give in to your cravings are much higher than if you don't have that food at home, and so I think it's a combination of those things that can help you get off that. That bandwagon and um, and fortunately, you know, I I've I've never been on it, uh, that you know. You know, in a way, that I I have to go to mcdonald's now because I can't, you know, stand not having a burger from them.

24:37 - Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah, very, very well said. And I always come back to the protein test. I forget who I learned this from. But very simple If you're craving a piece of steak, chicken, eggs, fish and animal product, you're actually hungry. If you're not craving these things, you're just eating for pleasure, enjoyment, oral fixation, whatever it is, and I think that's tried and true. And also to your point, michael.

24:58
I think this stuff is a matter of systems. Like, if I, if I look at myself, if I'm doing my job of like, going to the local farmer's market or whole foods wherever, and I'm stocking my fridge up for the week with good quality steak, chicken, eggs, et cetera, milk, I'll stay really on point with my diet. If I'm in the office and I have an air fryer here and I can bring meat in and I can cook my own meals, I'm great. Where I would get into trouble is if I don't set myself up for success and I'm like oh, it's eight o'clock at night, I don't have time to go to the grocery store, I don't have anything in the fridge. Oh, let me just stop for this. Let me pick something up from a restaurant.

25:32 - Speaker 2
Yes, yeah, no, absolutely, you know. Environment, I think, is crucial for success, having the right foods at home, not having the foods at home that you don't want to eat, you know. And that's even more true than if you have kids, because you know, if you say, hey, kids, you can't have that because it's not good for you, I'm like, so why do we have it at home? You know, if it's not good for you, why can't you have it, but not me? And the other thing, the other nuance, that is, you know, related to cravings.

26:00
I notice that when I'm stressed, I'm gravitating towards quick bursts of energy and very often, depending on what types of foods you have at home, those might be processed carbs, be it then chips or be it, whatever the case might be, and so I think it's really managing your anxiety, managing your stress levels, goes a long way of dealing with those cravings. And then one of the snacks that I find to be super helpful is boiled eggs, um, and then you try, I just, you know, have like a little, you know, like jar of salt, you know, and I just, you know, like dunked him into salt a little bit. So it's a super salty kind of snack, but it's the end of the day, you know, it's protein, fat and it's salt, none of which is bad, but it takes care of that craving aspect in a very, I think, healthy and elegant way. And, like I've noticed that today I was super stressed, I'm like I need something and I'm like, okay, you don't need anything. Your brain just wants something because it thinks like we have to defend our life and that's why we need energy. But there is nothing life-threatening around me other than, you know, regular work.

27:05
And so I went to the fridge, I got some of, I got three of those boiled eggs and I just, you know, add, had them with salt and it took care of business. You know, the salt, I guess, the salty aspect that took care of my cravings, um, and the protein took care of satiety and, you know, making sure that I feel like fueled. And that was it. Much better than you know, going, you know, and getting a bag of plantain chips or sweet potato chips or whatever you might have at home, where there's zero nutrients in there. It's just carbs processed carbs, for that matter. You know, boiled eggs, I think, are one of the best snacks and craving killers out there.

27:42 - Speaker 3
Yeah, it really touched all the bases, because you're getting a nice whack of protein, you're getting some fat in there, and then there is something about that saltiness that just kills your appetite when you eat something really salty. I've had a lot of success with that too. I meant to tell you have you seen this cowboy butter recipe that's gone viral on, I think, like TikTok and Instagram, recently? Because I tried it last night, dude, it was, oh my gosh, it was. It was literally, I think, the best steak that I've ever had in my entire life.

28:09
So, basically, take a big stick of grass head butter. You slowly cook it down. You have like a clove of minced garlic, some chopped up chives, a little bit of Dijon mustard, chili flake, salt pepper, and then you throw it all in there and zest some lemon and just kind of let it simmer and just dip your steak into it. I'll send you the recipe. It was so good that I wasn't even that hungry Like I probably was going to eat half of the steak, but I ate the entire steak because it tasted that good.

28:37 - Speaker 2
Yeah, I can relate to that. I mean it sounds delicious and you know, those are the things that if someone says, but you know, eating meat every day is boring, no, you can actually make that very exciting and I bet if you have that type of steak you can at least eat that for two weeks in a row without feeling bored. And then you switch it up and make you know, kathy makes those meatballs she puts in a little bit of um, like like yeast, nutritional yeast, and and maybe some coconut flour, whatever, and salt and you know, and whatever other spice, and they just taste absolutely delicious, you know. And, and there is no way to get used to that very quickly, I mean, you can, you know, alternate between those meatballs and the steak and then maybe, you know, with a good omelet, that's, you know, if that's in a lot of butter, and maybe with some cheese on top, and you get really a satisfying meal day in and day out, without eating anything that you're not supposed to A cool thing to try with those meatballs.

29:34 - Speaker 3
If you took some of the NK supplements, some of the capsules, and just took out the organs powder and sprinkled it into the meatballs and it's just for meatballs and you can't. Took out the organs powder and sprinkled it into the meatballs and it's just for meatballs and you can't even taste the organs at all yeah, that's very true.

29:44
That's actually what a lot of our customers with kids do, because the kids, you know, if they can't swallow, don't want to swallow a capsule, just open it, put him on top of whatever, you barely taste it and uh, and you get your you know your organ fix well, you got me excited when you were talking about the possibility of incorporating some bison onto the property in the future, because I think there's so much value in someone creating like a bison liver supplement or a bison organ supplement, so I'm wondering if that could be in the future for you, if you're going to be raising some of your own bison.

30:12 - Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean probably not for our supplements business, because I don't think I'm going to have enough bison liver to do that but I'm actually in touch with a ranch with a freeze dryer, with a domestic freeze dryer, believe it or not, and they want to offer bison and so I'm actually considering adding that to the product line as like an alternative for anyone who doesn't, you know, like or cannot handle beef and appreciates, you know, bison. I mean I personally, like I really like the taste of bison liver raw. You know thatison. I mean I personally, like I really like the taste of bison liver raw. You know that is, it tastes so, so, pleasant and mild in comparison to beef, um, and you know it's obviously, you know, much closer to you know how humans would have eaten. Then you know cattle, which are, you know, really a a human invention, uh, to a degree.

31:02 - Speaker 3
Well, if you, if you did that, you would have at least one super happy customer, because I would buy that all day long. And there's very few foods where, when you consume it, you feel almost like this instant pulse of vitality. And I feel like liver in general is one of them, but bison liver in particular. I remember going to Rome Ranch in Fredericksburg for the first time and they butchered a bison. They shot the bison, they butchered the bison right on the property and then they chopped up a bunch of the bison liver and then they had some malt salt and you could just sprinkle it right on top of the liver. And, number one, to your point, it has this amazing pleasant taste to it. It doesn't taste metallic at all like certain types of cow liver and you felt. I felt this like unbelievable burst of energy afterwards that I haven't felt from many other foods that I've consumed before.

31:43 - Speaker 2
Yeah, absolutely.

31:47 - Speaker 3
Are you big in incorporating raw foods in your diet? Do you throw in some raw stuff too?

31:51 - Speaker 2
I do. Yes, I do. I mean, most of the meat that we eat is more raw than anything else. But also in our organs, liver in particular, we do eat. I eat raw. The kids not so much, the wife not so much either. They stick to the mk supplements, yeah, but I do whenever I get a chance. You know I, I eat some raw. It doesn't happen every day or every week, for that matter, but you know, if, if I, you know, get it from somewhere, um be it. You know, from hunting deer, or from from buying it fresh at the farmer's market or anything else, or even from our own rabbits, I don't mind eating it raw.

32:28 - Speaker 3
Awesome.

32:29 - Speaker 2
One other thing if you're into organs but you don't like the taste and you don't care for buying supplements, just chop it up, freeze it in small cubes and then just take the cube and swallow it out of the freezer. Swallow it, you don't even taste it and you still get your. You know your piece of organ meat, assuming you trust the source, you know.

32:48 - Speaker 3
Yeah, there's so many little tricks to make to make organs more palatable. But we, we love your products too and we, you know, see you putting more SKUs and products out there and it's just, it's exciting to see and the company didn't even exist when we first got to meet you, just like Noble didn't even exist either. So it just, it just shows when you find something that you're passionate about, not trying to be absolutely perfect with it, but just start and you'll improve and iterate over time.

33:10 - Speaker 2
Yep, absolutely, absolutely.

33:13 - Speaker 3
So. So, Michael, what's the best way for people to connect with you if they want to learn a little bit more about what you've got going on and whether it's you know, homesteading, health content, your podcast, MK supplements there's so many great things that you're doing, so.

33:29 - Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean, there are now a lot of different outlets and channels depending on what your, you know, your consumption preferences, but, um, you know the, the podcast, primershift podcast, primershiftpodcastcom uh, is certainly one way where I try to share, you know, something that's a little bit less in depth than my blog posts. You know, not everyone, you know, appreciates reading 5,000 words on a given subject, even though you know I try to, you know, write it in a way so it's very easy to consume. It has, but has, all of the information that you need to make, you know, educated decisions. But the podcast, like you know, elevates it a little bit. You know, has more, like you know, practical, day-to-day kind of stuff, what I do, how I do it. Um, you know the youtube channel, you know, same thing, you know it's, it's I always try to have a companion video to most of my blog posts so you can consume it there as well.

34:12
Um, and you know, on instagram, you know we now have, we actually started now blogging on our homesteading page as well, kummerhomhomesteadcom. So we're going to put out some of the stuff that we've learned, you know, and how to get started with homesteading. You know, some of the lessons learned from raising chickens and bees and all of those things. So that's something and the same with. On YouTube, we have the Kummer Homestead YouTube channel. So, depending on what you're interested in if more health, fitness, biohacking, you know, it's michaelkummercom and Primershift podcast and my corresponding YouTube channel and Instagram as well, that's. That's one of the the social media outlets that we that we are fairly active on. And then Kummer Homestead, you know anything homesteading related. Some of it obviously bleeds over. You know I try to cross link whenever it makes sense, but we try to, you know, keep it as separate as possible, possible, depending on what it is that you want to learn more on.

35:02 - Speaker 3
That's great, and I love how you have all different forms of media and content that are out there, because there is this amazing surge of seemingly younger people and younger families that are interested in getting into the homesteading game. So, whether they want to read a long form blog article, see a YouTube video, listen to a podcast, et cetera, it seems like you're touching on all the bases there and just trying to put out such amazing information. And you know, you're someone that Harry and I have learned a lot from. We always love getting to chat with you. We always feel like we've learned something new. So, you know, really appreciate you coming on the podcast and doing this with me, man.

35:34 - Speaker 2
Thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it too.

35:36 - Speaker 3
For the second time now, yeah, well, hopefully we'll do a part three in Georgia, right, maybe down there Exactly, yeah.

35:42 - Speaker 2
Maybe, maybe an hour on our new farm, then we do an onsite.

35:46 - Speaker 3
I would love that. That would be amazing. That would be amazing. Well, appreciate it.

35:54 - Speaker 2
Michael, thanks so much. Thank you All right, take care.