Introduction
Bella
I really do feel like I felt better the day I went carnivore, because I was living like a zombie before it. I think for me, the most eye opening moment was when I realized that whole plants are trying to kill you. How can this diet be what I am on forever? I don’t want to do it forever.
Dr. Eric Westman:
She calls herself “Steak and Butter Gal,” a former vegan who says six years on plants destroyed her health. Now she claims meat brought her back to life, but her story might challenge everything you think you know about food. Hi, everyone. Dr Eric Westman, here and of course, at my channel, I review and debunk nutritional misinformation online. But every now and then I get to interview the movers and shakers in the nutritional space. Well I perceive who are the movers and shakers, and Bella, welcome to the interview.
Bella
Thank you so much for having me. Dr Westman, it’s an honor.
Dr. Eric Westman:
So those who know you, know you as “Steak and Butter Gal” and she caught my attention a few years ago. I’ve been watching and doing reacts videos from time to time. I’m very curious to talk to you. And for those who don’t know who you are, how did you get into this space? How about a little background, and then you have to include the piano playing. That’s awesome.
My Background
Bella
Thank you. Well, background on how I even discovered a carnivore lifestyle was because I was struggling with my health to begin with, and I do blame it on the vegan diet that I tried to heal myself with. And I did a vegan diet for six years. So for six years I was waiting, waiting, waiting, hoping that, I guess magically, my health would get better and my skin issues would go away, but it just never did, and it got worse. My health also got worse, to the point where I lost my period completely.
So thanks to a vegan diet, I stumbled across a carnivore diet, and a lot of people when they hear this story on paper, it just sounds insane, because how can somebody go from a vegan diet, eating only plants, to only eating meat on a carnivore diet? And a lot of people forget that I actually tried a standard American diet for my whole life growing up already, so I already ruled that out. I think that actually caused my cystic acne and my psoriasis and eczema. So that’s why I moved to that vegan diet and became more health- and diet-conscious—to try to heal myself—but because the vegan diet actually made everything worse, after six years of being on it, I decided to really commit to a carnivore diet, because it really was the last resort for me. I was desperate to heal the skin, and I was performing a lot of concerts. Every single week, I was on stage, and I was a pianist, studying to be a classical pianist, and during this time, when I was making the switch from veganism to carnivore was when I was studying at Juilliard in New York, and it was just a very competitive, busy time as a student for anyone. You’re going to lectures, you’re practicing eight hours a day, then you’re being on stage performing, and then you do it all over again every week.
And so I was really feeling the toll on my mental health and also on my capability to perform, to be a performer, because I was having memory slips on stage more and more as a vegan, and I was very confused. Like, how is this possible? Because when I go online and I learn from these vegans who are praising this lifestyle as literally the best life in the world. You’re going to save the planet. You’re also going to save yourself. I was getting memory slips, so what the heck was happening? But for me, the real wakeup call was when I lost my period.
Dr. Eric Westman:
Well may I interject, why didn’t you, like most, just go to the doctor and get put on medicines? And often it is the last… when the period goes away or you can’t perform or do your job, you go to the doctor, they give you medicine, and they don’t even suspect the vegan diet to have done it. Why didn’t you do that?
Bella
That’s a good question. I think when I lost my period, that was my wakeup call to finally consider doctors. And I still remember the call that I had with my mom, because that’s when I was already panicking. I was like, how am I going to have kids one day, which is one of my biggest dreams, is to be a mom. Like, how am I going to have kids if I don’t even have my period? And so that’s when I finally told my mom that I was struggling—no more period—and she was the one that really forced me to go to the doctor, and she was very concerned.
So I booked that doctor’s appointment to actually get at first a full, complete lab panel to just see how my body and my health was. And so it was after getting the results of my blood work with this doctor in New York, that she was the one that sat me down and she asked me questions like, “So, what are you eating?” She actually asked me about my diet, and I said I was on a vegan diet, yes. And so she’s the one who said, “You either supplement if you insist on staying vegan, or you eat some animal foods.” And so thanks to her, I opened up my mind to the possibility of eating meat or animal foods or eggs again. And so I went online, and that is what I searched: vegans eating meat again, because I was just so curious to see if there was anyone out there. I didn’t even think of searching for anything like that until that day.
And so when I searched “vegans eating meat again,” it showed up vegans going carnivore that day. And I found people like Kelly Hogan. I found people like at the time, Asra con Lu and Kasumikriss. So these two women, they were Asian, and they were sharing their story of going from vegan to carnivore themselves. And this is like six and a half, seven years ago now. And so thanks to these two women, specifically, it gave me the courage that I needed to just go carnivore myself.
Dr. Eric Westman:
Fascinating. And then how fast did you notice a change in how you felt?
Bella
Man, when you eat nothing but fruits and vegetables, day in and day out for six years, that first bite of any animal food is really quite unreal. My first bite was eggs scrambled in Kerrygold butter, and I still remember that first bite of scrambled egg as if I suddenly went from seeing life in black and white to color. It was in that moment of just eating eggs—the first bite—I felt like I was coming back to life, and it could have just been the explosion of the flavor that I was tasting for the first time, but I couldn’t stop eating butter.
Okay, so that’s the biggest thing that I still remember, is that first bite of Kerrygold and eggs. The butter and the fat is what woke me up. And it awakened this craving and this insatiable appetite for more fat. And it had to be butter for some reason, so all I could think about was, man, I could really just eat more of that scrambled egg cooked in butter, because, man, that butter flavor was so good.
Dr. Eric Westman:
Then, steak came in? Steak and butter?
Bella
Yes, so I started with scrambled eggs cooked in Kerrygold butter because I was scared to eat meat. I heard all of these horror stories of vegans literally making you feel ashamed of eating meat. They’re the way that they brainwash I like to say, at least I felt like I was brainwashed by their beliefs. I was very ashamed and afraid to eat meat, even handling raw meat, and seeing the blood. I felt a little bit nauseous just looking at that. So I didn’t choose to eat meat first. But after eating the scrambled eggs, I was like, this tastes so good. I feel so good, let’s move on to the meat. Ground beef was next. So I ate ground beef as my first meat, and it just tasted so good. I couldn’t believe how flavorful meat and animal foods could taste without any seasonings, any sauces. I was just really shocked. And then I started just combining, naturally, ground beef, scrambled eggs and butter. And then I moved on to real beef steaks, so ribeye, New York strips. I watched so many tutorials on how to even cook a steak properly. It was a total new world and a learning curve for me. And I have to say, it was very exciting, and I enjoyed every moment of being a carnivore, because it just felt that good. I really do feel like I felt better the day I went carnivore because I was living like a zombie before it.
Social Media and the Carnivore Community
Dr. Eric Westman:
And that’s not surprising to me. People tell me that the first day, their hunger is gone, they’re not craving the same things, and I wasn’t expecting the first bite. That’s a good response. How do you notice the change from the first bite? I’ll usually say, it may take a day or two for the hunger to go and the cravings, but I can understand that. And I suppose “Egg and Butter Gal” doesn’t have the same ring to this. Yes, this all comes from the story of the podcast or the YouTube channel.
Bella
It felt like it was all meant to be, because at no point of my life did I ever even imagine or think that I would be putting myself on social media, much less like making my life surrounded by it.
Dr. Eric Westman:
I know, exactly.
Bella
Yes, so of course, you can relate, yes, exactly. And it’s truly a calling, and it’s a blessing that we get to live out and help people through the internet, which is really such a gift, if you do it the right way, and you are spreading truth and goodness and positivity. I feel like social media is a superpower, but I grew up thinking that I would just be a pianist, like that’s all I studied to be, and that’s what I wanted to be, was a pianist.
And so it was all happening 2019, to 2020. You know the pandemic happening. Everything shut off. Even my school switched to only online, and I was trying to finish my master’s degree at Juilliard. So it was very a different year one to year two. Totally different type of student life. Everything was online. I was trapped in my teeny, tiny New York apartment, and no more concerts. Obviously, no more even going outside and being a pianist out in the real world. So instead of just practicing 8 to 10 hours in my apartment, I was like, let’s do something else with my time. It’s not like I’m going to perform next week or next month or maybe even in the next half year, who knows. So I decided to shift my focus to sharing my carnivore journey, because I, at that time, was so impressed with all of the benefits I was feeling. It was just like the perfect timing. I couldn’t shut up about it. So I decided to share my carnivore healing journey on Instagram first, because I already felt very welcome there. And this is six and a half years ago. The carnivore community on Instagram back then versus now is quite different in that.
Back then it was a very teeny, tiny, tight knit little group online. It was just a little pocket of the internet. And so once you’re in it, everybody kind of knows each other. And I just felt so supported by the carnivore women. And so I was like, wow, I literally watch everybody’s videos. Why don’t I start posting some things? And so that’s really how it started. It was just an Instagram food diary or a healing journey for myself and for the community to follow along. And I think it really sparked a lot of interest by the community, because I think I was one of the younger ones to share seven years ago, and they were so supportive and uplifting, and they wanted more. They were like, Bella, we want to see more videos. We want longer videos. Can you do a YouTube channel for us? And I did, and that’s how YouTube and Instagram kind of started around the same time. And thanks to the YouTube community, they were like, we would love more support. Is there any way we could maybe gather together in a community setting? So I started the Steak and Butter Gang, and I really think it was the timing. Everybody was stuck at home. Everybody was looking for connection in a way, and so it just worked out to happen all at once, and I’ve continued it ever since.
Dr. Eric Westman:
So for those who aren’t familiar with you and your YouTube channel, it’s fantastic. And really, do you only eat steak and butter?
Bella
Now I don’t. Now I’ve opened up my variety. I was doing it for the entirety of my deep healing journey, which was year one. Year two, I would say pretty much just steak, butter, eggs. Eggs kept my carnivore diet cheaper as a student. So if I replaced half a pound of the beef that I potentially would have eaten with eggs, it did cut the cost down, but it was predominantly steak and butter. Therefore, I just in the moment, I was like, what should I call my handle? Steak and butter? Or what I’ve been changing my life with at the moment, and I’m obsessed with these two foods.
Let’s just call it “Steak and Butter Gal”. That’s how it kind of came to be. I just chose the two top foods that I was eating the most of as a newbie carnivore, and I went with it. But now I’m six and a half years in, and I’m eating raw cottage cheese at every meal. Now I’m eating raw, smoked gouda. I’m eating a lot more dairy than I ever have, actually, but emphasis on the raw. I don’t eat pasteurized dairy. It just doesn’t work with me. I eat salmon, I love shrimp, I love chicken wings. So I’ve really opened up my variety, because I’ve healed enough to where I could.
Dr. Eric Westman:
But at first you felt you couldn’t, or did you test those foods?
Bella
Exactly. At first, I had histamine intolerance, so I had to keep my foods limited to really high quality, beef, butter, and eggs.
Impact of Carnivore Diet on Health and Community
Dr. Eric Westman:
Yes, thank you. Metabolically, as you deep dive into this, it’s very similar to something that we’ve studied and used in our clinics at Duke for decades now, and that’s a keto diet. And so when people are faced with carnivore, actually, it’s very familiar to me, and I passively would allow people not to eat vegetables, and definitely there’s no fruit if you’re doing the strict keto level. So I’m finding myself reassuring people that a carnivore diet is not as weird as you think, and to me, it’s metabolically very similar to something that I’ve seen also reverse the psoriasis, eczema. But although our focus is mainly diabetes and obesity and metabolic syndrome, I’m sure you have clients or people who’ve reversed those things, too. So the histamine reactions are very interesting.
And I do get a subset of folks who come in that I don’t know… is it amplified a little bit, if you’ve switched from vegan, or is it? And now this is really, I’m asking you, a leader in the grassroots movement, to scan and learn and teach me. I’m in academia, and we’re supposed to know things first, right? No, not in this world. So I see people, especially if they have the bendy Ehlers Danlos, mast cell, histamine, there’s some kind of cluster there that I wonder if you’ve seen enough. How many people have you helped? Hundreds, thousands, millions? And what is your view on what’s going on when someone has a health issue or switches to what you’re doing or what you’re helping them do?
Bella
Oh, wow. I’m honored to even be asked this by someone as knowledgeable and amazing as you. Firstly, I want to just share that so many people in my community, and yes, it’s a very hardcore carnivore community, they always credit you. They always tell me, oh, I actually found out about this diet from Dr. Eric Westman. So you are making a huge difference with your videos that you post on YouTube.
But I do have the ability to just see so many people walk into the community, either needing to heal, extremely sick, or just wanting to lose weight—I get the entire spectrum. And I think those who really need to heal, at least from what I’ve seen, and I personally live a very high fat carnivore lifestyle, and I understand that my intensity of high-fat is not for everyone, but specifically, I’m seeing when women come in with hormone issues, with autoimmune issues, with any type of health concerns that they are really trying to heal, the moment they start gradually upping the fat—and this doesn’t require lowering the protein—but the moment they start upping the fat more and more and more and intentionally doing it consistently, it doesn’t count if you’re just doing two days in a row of more fat and you’re not seeing results. It doesn’t work like that.
But if you are consistently upping the fats and you’re sticking to it, there is always some type of benefit in their healing needs. So for specifically the women who need to heal hormonal issues like thyroid, they need to bring down the cortisol, or maybe they have PCOS, or they’re trying to bring back their period, they have amenorrhea, almost 100% of the time, when they up the fats, it gets better, if not heals completely. And so that’s the consistent thing. If there’s anything to note that I’ve seen over the past six years now, it’s higher fat, or just upping the fat as a carnivore, is incredibly effective at healing pretty much all things. But I want to emphasize women, because I work with mostly women. Not a lot of men come in here, mostly women. That’s what I’ve noticed.
Dr. Eric Westman:
Well, and would you say you’ve helped hundreds, or thousands?
Bella
Well, I think tens of thousands, maybe. I think so. Yes.
Dr. Eric Westman:
Well, that’s phenomenal. I mean, that’s more patients than a doctor sees in years, right? So, or they might have a panel of a few thousand people they follow, and of course, the information we get, we trust people are telling the truth, right? And I’m always just a little worried about the comments below and all that.
But once you get into a group that’s really looking for support, I think we can see things pretty clearly as well. So I wonder, in the teaching that I do, which is ketovore, or allowing a little bit of vegetables, I see this kind of healing too, but I would love to do, if there were a “magic wand of studies” to do, there would be a carnivore versus 20 gram total carb per day, 40 grams, 60 grams. And kind of see, but it seems to me, the lower you go, and then down to zero with carnivore, kind of the stronger the dose is, in terms of diabetes reversal, obesity and even for hormonal things. Does that make sense?
Bella
It makes a lot of sense, and I would confirm that, at least, based on my experience with working with so many people. Within the community, when you join, I am not the expert, nor am I the coach. I’m not really the leader, besides just being the example on YouTube, I talk about a carnivore diet using my own experience, and that’s the only way I feel comfortable, too. I never try in my content to tell people, well, you have to do this, or this is how you must eat.
I just share my own experience, and it does inspire a lot of people to dig deeper. And so that’s why I’m very grateful for channels like yours, Dr. Westman, where you guys can provide the evidence and the studies and the knowledge and the medical support, but I’m constantly just sharing my story, my experience, my healing, and it actually has successfully gotten a lot of interest. And so I’m seeing these people who are looking for serious support. They join the community. I do have a team of coaches in there, and they are the ones giving guidance. If any of these community members need more guidance than coaching, that’s when we recommend. Dr. Chaffee, Dr. Westman, maybe go to their groups.
Maybe hire a keto-friendly doctor to give you a consultation. So we are always very aware of the needs of each member, and sometimes we recognize our support is not enough. So when we notice somebody coming in, they used to be ketovore or keto, and we do have a lot of those, and then they go strict carnivore with us, most of the time it’s even better results. It’s even more appealing.
Dr. Eric Westman:
That’s my impression, too. And although then it gets a little harder for them to deal with their family and friends, sometimes where they’re. I just don’t understand. I never was worried about what other people thought I should eat. Of course, at one meeting we put on, there was a doctor who came locally. We were in Minnesota at the time. He said, my mother hates to cook. We were all what? In fact, she had the I Hate to Cook Cookbook – Volume 1 and Volume 2. And actually, they exist. And so he then says, “My mother put hate into the food!”
So, I mean, my mother wasn’t like that, but she didn’t really get into it and would do things like boil tongue—cow tongue—on the stove for the afternoon and, well, at the time, that didn’t make it smell very great. But anyway, I think we learn a lot of that socialization. And People’s Pharmacy is an NPR show. They did an interview with me and a journalist who tried carnivore and she felt like she couldn’t go out with her friends and I wonder what your response would be. What would your response be to someone who would then say, so she’s in mid-20s, I can’t go out with my friends to eat if all I do is eat meat. What’s your advice there?
Bella
Yes, I actually have a lot of tips on this, because I love Asian cuisine, so let me share with you my Asian secrets on how you can actually eat out pretty easily, with friends, with your loved ones, family, partner. Just go to any Chinese hot pot restaurant, because that is truly a carnivore heaven – hot pot. If you don’t like Chinese hot pot, go to Korean barbecue. Or if you don’t like that, Japanese barbecue or sashimi places are also carnivore heaven. And then the fourth one, not Asian, but Brazilian, any Brazilian steakhouse, I promise you, your friends are going to love you for taking them there, because it’s really not just meat. It’s so many other foods that they can enjoy with you.
Meanwhile, you can be the one sticking to only meat. I think more and more that these types of restaurants are becoming more popular with just everyone, and so there’s more openings of these restaurants. So there’s always a way to find an affordable Chinese hot pot. A lot of these are all you can eat. So even better, you can save money and eat a lot. Japanese sushi, sashimi or Japanese yakiniku and Korean barbecue. And then the fourth one, Brazilian, I think it’s called churrascarias, all you can eat at these Brazilian steakhouses. So it’s honestly perfect for social outings and for celebrations and eating out.
Dr. Eric Westman:
Yes, that’s great. And well, there isn’t when you were vegan, though. There is this kind of push to proselytize, right?
Bella
Yes.
Dr. Eric Westman:
Or people are going to look at you. Why aren’t you having this? Why aren’t you having that? What would be your response to that?
Bella
When I was vegan, I would say, actually, quite similar to how I respond as a carnivore. Now I’m doing this for my health. I’m doing this to heal.
Challenges and the Misconceptions
Dr. Eric Westman:
If you watch Sacred Cow and some other documentaries, it’s actually good for the planet, too. It’s just not to that level of awareness in pop culture, I’m afraid. Shifting gears. I looked up the YouTube channel, you have Steak and Butter Gal and I saw you were talking to your father in China, and of all places in the world, in the last 10 years, I taught at the Bawan Hospital in Shenzhen. And Jackie Eberstein, who worked with Dr. Atkins for 30 years, we were both invited to help the hospital learn about low carb and how to implement it.
And I remember, what a long haul to travel there, but when I got into the hospital ward, the dietitian comes down and he goes, oh, because he’d been watching all my YouTube videos, on YouTube there weren’t a whole lot at the time. I think there are other places in China where they thought I was Eric Berg, because at the time he had such massive popularity. But in Shenzhen, what an interesting place, and they treated us like royalty. Coming in, they had a banner out front, “Welcome Dr. Westman and Jackie Eberstein.” And so that said, I listened to your interview with your father, and I think it’s wonderful, and yet, I’m the critic. I mean, if I was going to allow a paper to be… so, as a referee, we review papers, and we make sure to get something peer-reviewed, that there’s certain information there.
And so you were talking to your father about the cancers that he’s had and I wonder if the diagnosis was really there, and I don’t mean to be but anything other than supportive in these questions, but I wonder how the diagnosis of the cancers were made, and then if there was any, because to live, I think it was eight years with pancreatic cancer. It really kind of depends on how the diagnosis was, where it was, that sort of thing, because there was a recent paper on metastatic pancreatic cancer using a keto diet. And I mean, it didn’t do much, because at that stage, it’s so late, it’s hard to make that kind of change. There’s another study going on with glioblastoma, which is a very difficult-to-treat brain cancer, and it’s not like an overnight cure. That’s what I’m just trying to say. To balance the hope and the promise of this approach, I need to be just a little cautious. Maybe there wasn’t the proper diagnosis, or prove me wrong, please.
Bella
Yes, well, from what I know, and my dad communicates with me mostly in Chinese—and I am able to communicate the way that I need to with Chinese, but I’m not fully fluent—but from what I know that he’s told me, he caught the signs of the pancreatic cancer very early on, and the moment that he found out about it, he did the Whipple surgery.
Dr. Eric Westman:
I see. Okay. That makes sense. The Whipple is a very intensive operation that reroutes the intestines, and the idea is to surgically remove it. Yes, okay, Whipple, this makes sense. So the one reason I asked that is when I was at the hospital in Shenzhen, they diagnosed things and were active about things way before you would see action here in the US. So like, someone had a little elevated blood sugar in the ER there, and they hospitalized them. And I was kind of shocked. What the heck? We were giving them insulin, and telling them, go home and I’m afraid most doctors wouldn’t say, “Don’t drink sugar in the drinks,” which should have been said. But whenever we’re looking at information, even around the country, in the US, getting to make sure that the diagnosis and then having a Whipple actually, the Whipple procedure may have been curative if they were able to get all of the cancer. Okay, that’s awesome.
Bella
Yes. So well, I’m curious to know, are there many patients who, when they do the Whipple surgery, after it’s done, the cancer re-emerges, or it has spread to other places?
Dr. Eric Westman:
Yes, I will look up the percentage. Sure, yes, if they miss, if they’re unable to get the whole tumor, for example, that there may be recurrence. So that would be the statistic to look up, if a Whipple procedure is done for pancreatic cancer, what’s the prognosis and what kind of recurrence happens? I’ll bet it’s also operator-dependent, meaning surgeon to surgeon, there would be a difference if he was at a very, very good tertiary care, seeing the worst of the worst patients. Those doctors tend to be able to get better results, but that’s great. And of course, O wish you and him all the best. Cancer is a sort of fortress that it’s hard to get up there or even make a dent in it.
Bella
I totally understand, and I think with my dad, what he feels like was so effective post surgery, was most people who had that surgery, he tells me they need a very long recovery, or they don’t fully recover back to how they were before. But he feels like he’s even stronger, even healthier, even more alive after the surgery, because he adopted a ketogenic, meat-heavy diet, and every year, he tests if there’s any new cancer, and there’s not, and so he feels like that’s also his change in diet.
Dr. Eric Westman:
Great getting back to your community. Then what’s the kind of classic? It’s even probably old hat now if someone comes in and these things get better or resolve. What are you seeing?
Bella
Okay, so there’s always some type of energy increase. So they’re sleeping better. Their energy is up. Their mood is uplifted and positive. A lot of people will say they feel like this gray cloud over their life has shifted and cleared, and so they just feel happier and more motivated in general, the more serious, impressive ones, pant sizes, like a lot of pant sizes down, body is changing. And with the women, they’re starting to see bloat going away, the waist getting slimmer, yet they’re not losing fat in places that they don’t want to lose fat. And that’s really awesome, because maybe that’s a sign that the hormones are functioning as well. We even get women coming in, thinking that they’re in menopause, but their period comes back and they’re not necessarily very happy.
Dr. Eric Westman:
Right, I’ve had a few.
Bella
Yes, exactly. A lot of people, their hair is growing back finally, or their hair has stopped falling, finally. A lot of people come in with skin issues, understandably, and the skin issues clear up. Cystic acne is clearing up. Autoimmune issues are clearing up. That one, we do see a lot of alignment with doing a lion diet. So those with autoimmune healing needed, they do benefit greatly from a lion diet, which is just beef, salt or ruminant meat, salt, and water.
And then, like you mentioned, diabetes reversal happens pretty much every single week in the community, and we are able to track this because we have a weekly NSV celebration call. So NSV stands for “non-scale victory”. We don’t necessarily want to focus too much on that number, on the scale, so we like to shift our focus on what other things are happening. And so I’m pretty confident to say, you can pick any chronic issue or illness, and at this point there’s been someone who’s been able to improve it, or feel like they’ve been able to heal completely from it.
Dr. Eric Westman:
Yes, and the first time I heard of this kind of grassroots effect, and then summary of this was from Craig and Maria Emmerich, who have their own kind of cookbook empire that they would be presenting at meetings. Here’s what people write to me about: how they’re feeling better, and so I could wait for the randomized control trial and the literature that comes up in PubMed and ignore all of this stuff, but I’m afraid I can’t ignore it. And I actually wrote a course on the carnivore diet, and we have it available at our Academy for those people who want a deep dive. And what struck me is the science—the biochemistry, the physiology—is very similar to a keto diet. I think the ketone metabolism, the lack of glucose (meaning lack of carbohydrates) and lack of gluten, other simple sugars and all these other preservatives, make it a relatively healthy approach, even compared to all the other things we could do.
But one of the things that really struck me most was that the internal anatomy of a human is more like that of a carnivore, so that the stomach, the intestines, when you compare the human to, say, a gorilla, internally, they’re entirely different. So even though people say, “We’re descended from gorillas, we should eat leaves”, no, the intestines are entirely different. So that was something that was persuasive for me, and then just the common sense, or it’s called face validity. I finally met Anthony Chaffee at a meeting in London recently. When you say plants can’t run away, so their defense mechanism is to put toxins into their leaves so that mammals—usual mammals, anyway—will eat them and never eat them again, when, of course, humans self-administer horseradish and hot peppers over and over again. We’re not normal mammals, but I think that made me kind of say, well, right. I mean, there are neurotoxins that would make the animal not want to eat the leaf again, including humans. I mean, so what? When you step back, what’s convinced you other than your own personal experience, or other people must have been trying to dissuade you or tell you, “You’re wrong. Why do you persist in teaching this?”
Bella
Well, I think, for me, the most eye-opening moments where I realize maybe Dr. Chaffee is right about this whole “plants are trying to kill you”—I know he’s making a bold statement, but there is a lot of truth in that, and I feel it when I have foods that have spices on it. Spices alone will give me a runny nose the next morning. When I eat out and I request for my steaks to be cooked in its own fat, but they bring it to me, and it’s clearly cooked in seed oils because I can taste it. My taste buds are very, very acute now. The next day, my skin will break out in a rash. So I feel like every time I have little slivers of plants or seed oils and my body breaks out, or it clearly shows symptoms that it is not happy and it is inflamed, proves to me very, very clearly that plants are trying to make me sick, or plants are not agreeing with me, or plants are trying to inflame me, because when you live so clean on a carnivore diet for so long, any little bout of spices or seed oils, at least for me, do give me a very clear signal where I can feel it in my nose, and it’s usually congestion and runny nose as that first symptom when I have spices, and then for seed oils, it’s always an itchy rash in my chest area, and it’s like red little rash, like bumps.
It goes away after like 48 hours for both, but why would I choose to eat plants when eating those types of things already gives me such strange symptoms? And I understand as well, looking at the other side of it, that some people can tolerate and still thrive and be happy and live their best life, eating some fruits and vegetables and just whatever they want, but with a lot of animal foods. And I see those testimonials, and I see those real life accounts online all the time. I just realized that I’m not one of those people, because every time I try to introduce them, I see what it causes in my body and in my skin.
Dr. Eric Westman:
That’s fantastic, because these personal experiences matter, and I think they generalize beyond but maybe most people are numb to it or can’t make the connection because they have congestion and little rashes all the time. So just kind of a weird metaphor, but Chaffee, pretty impressive guy. He was a former professional rugby player and super smart, and he gave one of the talks, led one of the sessions at the Public Health Collaboration of the UK in London. There I also saw some research by Professor Isabella Cooper, where they looked at women who had done keto for on average, I think, five years, and they were all about 35 and they looked, which was an unusual study, because normally you take people on an American diet, put them on keto, and then see what? No, these people are already doing a keto diet. And she explained that many of them didn’t really ever want to eat carbs again, but they did it for science. They’ll sacrifice their body so the parameters they were looking at all kind of look bad.
After three weeks of eating based on the standard UK guidelines, then they went back to eating keto. And she used, for the first time, a term we’ve tried to use, haven’t put it in a paper yet, called euketonemia, meaning normal ketones in the blood, as opposed to ketosis, which “-osis” means an abnormal condition. And so the studies actually look at longevity markers, and it’s starting. I would say the young scientists are looking at this in a great new way. It’s not just, let’s use this as a therapy and then, oh my gosh, stay away from it. It’s more, what if people would eat this way all the time? Maybe this would be healthier and people would live longer. Do you have any concern about doing this for a long period of time? Or has anyone else had trouble? On this recent podcast with the People’s Pharmacy, they asked, well there has to be something bad about this. I mean, people say drugs are great. There are no side effects, and they always have side effects. But maybe this is one of the best ways to eat. I don’t know.
Bella
Yes, I guess we won’t know until we experience it ourselves. And so my answer is, when I’m asked, do I think this is healthy or sustainable long term, my answer is absolutely yes, and I base it off of my own experience, because I’m almost seven years in, like just over six and a half years now, and I can confidently say that the benefits that I have experienced are better and better with every year that I stick to it. So my energy now is so amazingly high. I just feel like when I wake up in the morning I want to do stuff. I want to achieve stuff. I want to get my to do list done because I have the energy and the motivation for it.
I think that requires really good optimal health, and it also requires really fantastic, pristine mental health to want to keep doing difficult things, and I find joy in doing that now, whereas before, when I was on a vegan diet, and I love that I have these two lives that I can compare, because one is on plants, one is on meat. When I was on a vegan diet, it took a lot of willpower to do anything even remotely difficult, and so to live these two lives based on two different fuels, and just see how effortless it is now to do things that I’ve always wanted to get done. How can this diet to me feel like it’s not forever? I want to do it forever, only because I feel better and better. So, yes.
Bella’s Journey and the Future Plans
Dr. Eric Westman:
Are you still tickling the ivories?
Bella
Absolutely now it’s for fun. Now I can just enjoy it as a hobby. It’s not like this dooming, oh my gosh, I need to make it into a career. I really like that. I’m in this position where I can just truly enjoy piano for what it is, which is this amazing spiritual experience, and so when I sit down at the piano, I try my best to film it and share it online. But sometimes the most magical moments are when I’m alone with my piano and I’m just in it. I’m just into music. I highly recommend for everyone to listen to classical music and even better yet, take some piano lessons.
Dr. Eric Westman:
What’s your favorite piece or pieces to play?
Bella
My favorite composer is Beethoven. I just connect with Beethoven so much. His piano sonatas are truly the most incredible experience to learn and perform and play. Yes, Beethoven.
Dr. Eric Westman:
A few years back, realizing I didn’t practice enough piano, I came up with the idea that, at work, if someone gets to a certain milestone, I would make up the excuse to play a song. And it kind of morphed into this, people choose a song, and so I hand this little spinet out in the waiting room. It’s also a way to see if someone has powers of observation. I’ll say, did you notice that piano in the waiting room? Most people know. They don’t expect it to be there, right? And so I’ll ask them to choose their favorite song.
You get the lead sheet, fake book thing, or even music notes will give you, for a fee, the written out notes. And I’m a Chopin Etude. I can do two of them, and some of those Beethoven sonata middle sections are just unbelievable, gorgeous. But the most fun I’ve had is when the patient there starts singing a song. And song one was a former opera singer. She’d lost 50 pounds and just belted this out. So yes, music is a way to connect people, and so I found that having them choose the song, and then my dexterity is not the greatest, but I learned that I could fake it with a fake book or a lead sheet. But my staff now, many of the nurses and the radiology techs, they come and join the backup choir sort of thing. But I think maybe that avocation, the training is a very experiential sort of you had to learn about the connection one on one with an instrument. I think it could apply to any kind of instrument and I think that’s really neat. And then applying that and with the same level of observation of your own experience, and then sharing it, you have to, right? Music, by itself, has those moments, but it’s a public sort of thing.
Bella
I agree, that’s such a great observation alone. And I actually, when I reflect back to my years at Juilliard, even though half of it was online, I think the skills that I acquired through that type of education, to this day, in every aspect of my life, I am practicing, so the discipline, the ability to just sit still and observe and not always be doing or speaking or talking or filling the air, the ability to just reflect all the time and be so go inside and learn what’s on the inside, rather than always being affected by the noise. I think so many skills that I practice today are actually from when I was training to be a pianist. So that’s very true what you said there.
Dr. Eric Westman:
Life lessons. Thank you so much for your time, and I hope this reserves the right to call you back and talk to you again, if that’s okay?
Bella
I would love that. And I would love to have you on my channel, if that’s okay.
Dr. Eric Westman:
Absolutely. And just to reiterate, for those who may have caught you in it away, how do they find you?
Bella
Yes, so steak and butter gal, G-A-L, on all socials, and you can check out my content on all platforms. Thank you.
Dr. Eric Westman:
Thanks again. Talk to you soon. Bye, bye. If you enjoyed this video, consider joining our YouTube membership for early access and exclusive live Q and A’s with me. Just click the join button below or support us with a PayPal in the description.
Watch the full video here.
Speaker Bios
Eric Westman, MD, MHS, is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Duke University, the Medical Director of Adapt Your Life Academy and the founder of the Duke Keto Medicine Clinic in Durham, North Carolina. He is board-certified in Internal Medicine and Obesity Medicine and has a master’s degree in clinical research. As a past President of the Obesity Medicine Association and a Fellow of the Obesity Society, Dr. Westman was named “Bariatrician of the Year” for his work in advancing the field of obesity medicine. He is a best-selling author of several books relating to ketogenic diets as well as co-author on over 100 peer-reviewed publications related to ketogenic diets, type 2 diabetes, obesity, smoking cessation, and more. He is an internationally recognized expert on the therapeutic use of dietary carbohydrate restriction and has helped thousands of people in his clinic and far beyond, by way of his famous “Page 4” food list.
Bella, known on social media as Steak and Butter Gal, is a Juilliard-trained concert pianist who advocates for a high-fat, animal-food-only carnivore diet to improve health conditions like cystic acne, eczema, and psoriasis. After transitioning from a vegan diet to the carnivore lifestyle, she has experienced significant benefits, including healed skin, improved mental clarity, and restored energy.
Medical Disclaimer
The information provided by Adapt Your Life Academy (“we,” “us” or “our”) on www.adaptyourlifeacademy.com (the “Site”) is for general informational purposes only. All information on the Site is provided in good faith, however, we make no representation or warranty of any kind, express or implied, regarding the accuracy, adequacy, validity, reliability, availability, or completeness of any information on the Site. Please see our full disclaimer for further information.
