49: From Almonds to Spinach: Dr. Schindler on Avoiding Common Dietary Traps

Bill Schindler: Here as a result of, of, of that sort of approach for millions of years is. Not what should I eat? It's how should I eat? We look at food, say, okay, how was this food prepared? Is this in a way that's compatible with not only our physiology, with my state of health, maybe? 

Bill Schindler: The one toxin that I haven't ever found any evidence for mitigating the negative effects of, through some sort of processing, are oxalates.

Michael Kummer: It makes me cringe whenever I see someone, you know, having like a green shake with almond milk. I mean, that's like the, the worst of the worst you can possibly consume.

Bill Schindler: I, I hate the word superfood, but I, if I was gonna use it, I would use it for something like liver.

Michael Kummer: Onions make your eyes, you know, tear. Certain types of peppers, you know, make you start, you know, sweating and then get hot, because, you know, those are the defense chemicals of the plant trying to tell you, do not eat me. 

Bill Schindler: So number one, no matter what but I will never eat another potato peel the rest of my life, period. That mindset change is very important, going from, oh my gosh, it's another thing to worry about, to, oh my gosh, I've just learned something and I have the ability to make a change in my diet for the better.

Intro:

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Michael Kummer: All right, Bill, thanks so much for joining me again. We had the pleasure of talking already, um, probably a year or so ago, talked about, you know, some of the concepts, uh, we, we, we will talk today in this episode. But specifically, I want to tee it up with one thing.

I posted a read on Instagram. A couple of days ago, and it basically said, stop eating plants that are trying to kill you. Um, you know, to kind of make it a little bit catchy, but then I said, you know, unless you know how to, you know, mitigate some of those defense chemicals that are naturally found in plants and, you know, kind of make it work.

And then one person responded and said, you know, stop spreading misinformation. I have rabbits and we feed them lettuce and carrots, you know, and they seem to be perfectly happy with that. And I'm like, well, you know, you're not a rabbit, you know, and so maybe let's take this an opportunity to kind of dive into the difference in physiology, you know, how, what, what foods we are designed or have evolved on, on consuming and digesting better than maybe some other things and how that differs from maybe ruminants or even rabbits who are not ruminants, but they have a fairly large, um, you know, seco, other organs basically that allows them to You know, use plant matter in different ways than, than we, and then we'll dive right into what can we do to plants to mitigate many of the defense chemicals that are found in plants.

And maybe you can also explain why on earth would plants have, you know, defense chemicals. I mean, they want us to eat them, right? Or maybe not. I don't know. So you don't worry about that.

Bill Schindler: Well, first off, thank you so much for having me back. It's a pleasure to talk to you again, especially about such a, an important topic.

Yeah. It's so funny. That you brought up rabbits as the beginning of this conversation, and maybe we can even start there, because one of the things we have to understand, uh, is that different animals are designed to eat, biologically designed, and in many ways, psychologically, but, but, but, but biologically designed to consume particular foods and particular foods in a distinct way, uh, not humans.

Humans, and we'll talk about that in a few minutes, are completely different and we have to recognize that in order to eat the most nourishing, safest, uh, and nutrient dense diet possible. We'll get to that in just a minute. Let's start with rabbits because it's perfect. Um, there's something unique about rabbits.

They're in a category of animals called hindgut fermenters. And I would gather that the person that wrote that comment doesn't understand that and doesn't realize that the way they're dealing with their rabbits is actually probably not nourishing them to their best ability. So hindgut fermenters, there's a lot of animals that are hindgut fermenters, they have a fermentation chamber located at the back end of their digestive tract.

So for a rabbit to be fully nourished, they eat their food, they partially digest it, they partially absorb some of the nutrients, Uh, then the food travels through the large intestines into this, uh, fermentation chamber, uh, where it ferments, continues to break down, it leaves, you know, they, they poop it out, they turn around, eat their poop, And goes through a second time and then they get the rest of the nutrition from that original food they were eating and then they poop that out and then they're done with it and they can tell the difference between the first time it passes through their digestive tract and the second.

So if you have a rabbit and you're, you know, you have your little pet rabbit at home and it's sitting in the cage and they're pooping and it's going right through that and they don't have access to eating it again, you're not fully nourishing your rabbits. And I would gather most people that have rabbits don't realize that and it's, it's a really.

Cool way to start cool, start this conversation because they have a unique, uh, set of apparatus in their digestive tract that allows them to consume food in a certain way and, uh, and, and get safe and reliable nutrition from it. Now cows, on the other hand, and, and ruminant animals have a, a room in a chamber in their actual stomach before it goes to their intestines where that food is broken down through fermentation, right?

So it, it's a completely different system for cows than it is for rabbits. And definitely with humans. And what we have, what we need to fully understand with humans, Uh, and this is really weird for us to think about, but if your, if your approach to food is, Hey, I should only eat the food that my body is designed to consume, you're never gonna come up with the right answers.

Because our body is not designed to consume almost all of the foods that we eat in a safe and nourishing way. We'll get to that in a second. But, if you are, this is related, if you are, I was saying that when you were doing the introduction, If your approach to food is based on, Oh, I'm only going to eat things that are designed to be consumed, then you have, you know, that's sort of a lost cause as well, because there's very little things out in nature that are out there for intentional consumption.

There are a few, we'll talk about them, but there are a few. So, my approach, and I think this has been the approach, our ancestors approach, for millions of years and has been such a powerful approach that it resulted in incredible, safe, high quality, easily absorbable nutrition that it supported massive body and brain growth and we're here as a result of, of that sort of approach for millions of years, is not what should I eat, it's how should I eat, or in other words, What can I do to all of these resources around me, whether they're coming from the supermarket, or the forest, or the field, or the ocean, or wherever they're coming from, what can I do to that food to overcome my incredibly inefficient human digestive tract and make that food as safe and as bioavailable and as nutrient dense as possible before it actually goes into my mouth?

And that's what we started doing millions of years ago with stone tools and later with fire and later with fermentation and a bunch of other things. In order to to do that and before we sort of just jump off in this conversation. I want to Maybe preview it and I don't know if we talked about this last time But it's important to this conversation if we if we look at our pre agricultural Ancestors, everything prior to 12, 14, 000 years ago.

And so for millions of years, up to 000 years ago.

Michael Kummer: Well, there are even those who, sorry to interrupt because not a funny comment popped into my head. Someone telling me on, on, on, on YouTube the other day, Hey, but you know, evolution is, is fake. It's a theory. We've only been here for like 2, 000 years or over 3, 000 years.

I'm like, well, then I don't know how we can have a discussion, but we let's, for the sake of argument, let's assume we have been around for a while.

Bill Schindler: Yes. So if, if you don't think there's any validity to evolution, none of this is going to make sense. But if you're, if what you're truly trying to do is understand how to approach food in the safest, most nourishing way possible.

Please at least give us the space to have this conversation, to take in this conversation and think about it. So, when the agriculture revolution begins, everything about our diets, our relationship with food, the safety of our food, the nutrient density of our food, the diversity, all those things change.

It actually plummets and tanks. Prior to that, our hunter gatherer ancestors, for millions of years, Uh, if you think about the technologies required to include animals in our diet and plants in our diet, there's a couple very important distinctions. So first off, uh, the technologies our ancestors created for millions of years to include animals in our diets were almost solely focused on overcoming our physical limitations and allowing us to get the animal, right?

Boomerangs, atlatls, spears, bows and arrows. Fishing nets, fishing hooks, traps, whatever that is, getting the animal. Once we have a lot of mental energy, a lot of technological advancement, a lot of tool creation to get the animal. Once we have the animal, all that we need, in almost all cases, is a sharp edge.

A simple stone flake we can make in less than a second. cut the animal open, all that nutrition in almost all cases is fully available to us without any other work. Maybe chopping up some meat helps, maybe cooking some meat helps break it down a little bit, but in general the blood, the fat, the organs are just as safe and bioavailable in a fresh raw state as they are in a cooked state.

Right. So there you go. Plants are the exact opposite. Literally in both cases the exact opposite. Very little technological input needed to get the plant. You know, we're picking berries, you know, picking fruits, picking leaves, whatever, whatever. We had maybe have a digging stick to get roots out of the ground.

But other than that, we can collectively forage very easily. Almost all the technological input for millions of years that our ancestors created to include plants in our diet was focused on the process. Once we have that plant, what do we have to do to it to overcome our physical limitations and make that plant safe?

In other words, detoxify it and also make the nutrients in it available to our bodies. And one thing I'm, I really want everybody to understand. And I didn't understand this for most of my life, is just because a food has a nutrient in it, doesn't mean our body has access to it. I call it the can of soup effect, the idea that, I used to look at a can of Campbell's soup in, in, as a kid, and I'd read the, you know, we had no phones or whatever, so you'd actually read the labels on food or read the cereal box in the morning.

I would read the label on the back of the can, and it would say it has, This much zinc, this much calcium, this much protein, this much fat, this much whatever, and I just had in my head this image that, okay, if I swallowed everything in that can, all of those nutrients would magically go everywhere they need to be in my body and get utilized by my body, and that is not the case.

Right. Our mouth is not the case. Uh, and opening into our body. Our mouth is the opening to a tunnel that ends up pushing things out the other end. Right. We have to be healthy, our guts have to be healthy, and the food has to be broken down properly, especially for humans, in order for us to access those nutrients.

Michael Kummer: Right. So, maybe like going back to, uh, You know, what you said before, you know, all of our efforts with animals, we're getting the animal meaning that, you know, obviously no human, no living thing wants to be eaten, right? They all want to live and have offspring, you know, take the kids to Disneyland, whatever, maybe not the broccoli plant, but you know, most everyone else.

And so, you know, animals run. Or they fight, you know, to prevent you or to deter you from eating them or their offspring. Plants usually don't run very far. They might have thorns or whatever, but they use defense chemicals, right? That not only lock in some of those nutrients, but that can actually contain anti nutrients or other chemicals that can make you sick or prevent the absorption from whatever nutrients they have, unless you do something with those nutrients.

Um, with, with those, you know, plants and process them in a way as you described.

Bill Schindler: 100%. And let's, let's very quickly look at a plant from sort of a 40, 000 foot view, you know, biologically. What, what is it that a plant is trying to do? Now, so for all organisms, plants, animals, insects, whatever, they, the only thing that they have to do to ensure survival of the species and that they don't go extinct is reproduce viable offspring.

So that means they need to reproduce. What they reproduce has to be able to reproduce, and what that reproduces has to be able to reproduce. I mean, that is literally the foundation of, of, you know, evolutionary science. Like, it has to happen, and when it doesn't happen, a species goes extinct, and when it does happen, a species continues to survive.

So, like you said, with animals, I mean, there, there, there is some chemical Sort of defense mechanisms like a skunk, for example, right? But in general, most of your animal defenses are physical. They can either run away, fly away, you know, whatever, or they can fight and they have things to help them fight.

But plants are different. While there are some physical defense mechanisms, like bark on trees help create a barrier between disease and the inside of the tree or thorns on a bush or whatever, but in general. Every single plant on this planet has some sort of a toxin in it. And I know a lot of people that are very plant forward thinking get put off with a statement like that because they think that suggests that I'm saying you should never eat plants, and that's not true.

I eat a lot of different plants. There's some plants I would never eat. There's a lot of plants that I would never eat that a lot of people have, eat, eat large amounts of, but I, my, my approach to plants are just as intentional as my approaches to animals and my diet. I'm very thoughtful about it. There's some I include, some I don't.

But most importantly, you have to understand there's some things you have to do to certain plants to not only make them safe, but also make the nutrients in them, you know, available to our bodies. And we can go through a bunch of examples. But if we look at a plant in general, a couple things we have to understand.

First of all, plants aren't just mean. Like plants don't just say, hey, I want to harm everything around me. And it just is, you know, happening. They don't have that sort of intent, obviously. But plants do need to interact with the outside world. And they, and they actually do communicate with the outside world.

And they communicate through the production of these things we call allelochemicals. Some of these allelochemicals produce toxins that ward things off and keep things away. So, coniferous trees, for example, like pine trees and spruce trees and hemlock trees, They produce a toxin through their roots that, uh, go into the soil and make it so that there's not competing plants, you know, around for nutrients in the soil and that sort of thing.

So that's why typically when you, when you come across a, like a, a forest of, of conifers, there's typically nothing or very little growing underneath it. Um, so to ward things off. Typically, you're warding things off like bacteria or disease or, uh, mold or fungus or predators, right? You're, you're, you're warding these things away.

So, we understand this. Now, also, plants need to communicate in other ways, and it's not just warding things away, it's bringing things to them. So, pollinator plants, for example, there's, it's no, it shouldn't be no surprise that flowers often look pretty, smell amazing, and are often non toxic because they want, they want to attract through that flower.

The role of that flower is to attract things like pollinators to it. Makes complete sense. Fruits, on the other hand, the role of a fruit is to attract, in most cases, to attract an animal, to consume the fruit, and then the seeds on the inside, the babies of the plant are, go through the digestive tract of the animal and get deposited in a pile of manure somewhere else.

I mean, it's absolutely brilliant. It makes complete sense. But if we, if we dive in a little deeper, We can look at a few nuances that make all the difference in the world as far as safety and nutrition. Fruits that are mature, mature ripe fruits, mean that they have mature seeds that are ready to be deposited somewhere else and sprout and create new life, are typically not only very delicious, smell very good, but also are very low or have no toxins in them at that point.

But, especially with wild plants, but in general, fruits that are not mature mean that they're inside of them are seeds that are not ready to be spread either. So there's typically a toxin or toxins in those immature fruits that gets shut, that toxin gets shut off when those seeds are ready to be spread because it doesn't do the plant any good if an animal comes and eats the fruit early and spreads immature seeds, the plant isn't propagating.

So by me, here on the East Coast of North America, we have Um, a fruit called, um, wild persimmon, which is my favorite fruit in the world when it's ripe. But if you eat it too early, you're, it's astringent, it sucks all the water out of your mouth, you taste it for like seven hours, it's absolutely nasty.

That's the toxin that's saying, don't eat me now, I'm not ready, but when I'm ready, please eat as much as you want. So flowers are typically low in toxins. And mature fruits are typically low in toxins, but for the rest of the plant, we're talking about roots, which in many cases for things like, plants like potatoes, are the powerhouse, you know, the carbohydrate storage, the lifeblood of that plant is usually heavily guarded through toxins, especially on the outside of it, where it interacts with the outside world.

Leaves and stems and things can be, usually they don't want to get eat, so typically there's toxins there. Yep. Mature fruits are typically non toxic, non immature fruits are typically toxic, but the majority of the food, the calories that we as modern humans get from plants are from the seeds, the nuts, the grains, and the legumes.

All four of those are the babies of the plant and they are heavily guarded through toxins. And if we're going to consume them, we have to do things to them to not only detoxify them to the best of our ability, but make the nutrients in them available to our bodies. And I mean just, and I know I'm rambling, I'm sorry, but I'm so passionate about this.

The seed, here's a great example. Seeds. This is how silly it is. Seeds are physically and chemically designed to withstand a digestive track of animals. Because that's the role, that's what they do. They go through the, in many cases, in some cases, they are, they require passing through the digestive track of an animal in order to, that, that's a necessary step before it actually can propagate and produce new life.

But here we are focusing, you know, food systems on extracting nutrition from these heavily guarded parts of the plant and they absolutely

Michael Kummer: require a process. Right. And especially if you then grind those seeds, you know, kind of in, in some cases, maybe even, you know, removing some of that, you know, what would allow adjustive system.

And now it's all broken up and you get like the full load of those toxins, like, you know, WHOOP. Regular grain flour if you don't do anything to it. Mm-Hmm. , you know, it's like one of the worst foods you can consume, you know, unprocessed. And by processed, I don't mean, you know, getting, you know, bleached and whatever, you know, highly processed flour for the store.

Right. But doing it yourself in a way that mitigates some of those issues. And I think mitigation is also a good, um, or Im important term because in many cases you cannot completely remove those toxins. Right. You mitigate to a point where. Assuming you're in somewhat decent shape and health, you can consume them without falling apart, right?

But if you already maybe, you know, with leaky gut and autoimmune conditions, chronic inflammation, you know, then maybe even the residual toxins in those plants after all the mitigation techniques you have thrown at it might still be enough to not be good for you. Would that be a fair statement?

Absolutely, and

Bill Schindler: especially when we, in a very unnatural way, Um, create a, create a system where we can continue to consume these plants, um, and the toxins that are in these plants. day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. So I'll give you a great example. So first off, I've spent a lot of my career as an archeologist and anthropologist studying the detoxification of plants.

You know, ancestral practices that allow people to make plants safer to consume. Uh, and there's a lot of different ways to do this. You can, through, uh, sometimes it involves heat or cooking. Sometimes it involves dehydration. Sometimes it involves fermentation. Sometimes it involves the nichetanalization.

There's a variety of, sometimes it involves. Cooking certain plants with something else that allows, or eat, consuming it at the same time that allows us to safely eat that, or more safely eat that plant. And, and really, I mean, our combined human intellect and innovation has been transformative, and to allow all of these plants that we have no business consuming to get into our diets in a safer way, so that's fantastic.

Except the one toxin that I haven't ever found any evidence for mitigating the negative effects of through some sort of processing are oxalates. And unfortunately, fortunately more people are talking about oxalates than they ever have before. But unfortunately, oxalates exist in a very high concentration in a lot of the foods that we've touted as superfoods over the past 20 years, things like spinach and almonds.

where we do need to understand that even if, you know, you can do things to nuts, like soak them, and you can help with things like phytic acid and lectins and some of the other problems. We have the anti nutrients in nuts, but it doesn't do anything for the oxalate. So, I don't want to suggest that you can process your way out of, uh, poor food choices, but you can improve the digestibility and, and the, uh, the danger, uh, dangerous effect of a lot of these, a lot of these plants.

Thanks. Um, however, what I would like us to also understand, as I was alluding to a minute ago, is I don't want us to, you know, all of us that think the ancestral approach to food, like I do, is a wonderful thing, and I, and I do, I think it's a great model for a foundation for how we should approach food today, but, um, I don't want us to, you know, get drawn into this idea that, hey, we go, yeah, okay, Grab our grocery cart and go into the produce section of the grocery store, and we're walking in, and all of a sudden you're acting like a, you know, a hunter gatherer of the past with the same sort of choices.

It's nothing like that, because when we think about our ancestors including plants into their diet, A, it was by default hyper seasonal, and by default hyper local. And the grocery store is anything but either of those. We have now made things like spinach available all year round and food from all over the world can, can come in.

And now we're faced with having to make choices as a modern consumer that our ace hunter gatherer ancestors never had to make, for instance, right? There was no, and there was no spinach, you know, back in the day there were not even any almonds back there. Those are all domesticated plants and wild ancestors.

But let's say there was spinach. 20, 000 years ago. You, you as a hunter gatherer would only have access to eating that spinach for the two weeks out of the year it actually grew where you live. And even if you, did take in a higher level oxalates at that time because you're eating a bunch of spinach than the other 50 weeks of the year you didn't eat them.

Right. So there's, we've, we now are faced with questions and answering questions that we never had. How much spinach should I, should I really be eating? Because modern market has put them in front of us at a cheap rate.

Michael Kummer: Yeah, no, that's absolutely correct. And, you know, and you mentioned the term superfoods before, you know, it makes me cringe whenever I see someone, you know, having like a green shake with almond milk, I mean, that's like the worst of the worst you can possibly.

You know, consume, um, without any way of mitigating those oxalates, as you mentioned. And if you ever had, I remember from back in the days when, when we still ate spinach, you know, at a restaurant, like creamed spinach or whatever. And you feel like your gums go numb. Those are the oxalates, right? Yes.

Literally piercing your gums. I mean, those crystals piercing your gums, making you feel numb. And the same goes with many other foods. I mean, we, we know, you know, onions make your eyes, you know, tear. I mean, peppers, or, you know, whatever, you know, certain types of peppers, you know, make you start, you know, sweating and then get hot because, you know, those are the defense chemicals of the plant trying to tell you, do not eat me, you know?

And, you know, and it's so hard because,

Bill Schindler: first off, it's hard for humans because, A, food is such, So pervasive that everything that we do it's it's in our daily lives. It's in our traditions. It's in our religion It's in our it's in everything. So it's hard to be pragmatic and separate out You know these kind of conversations from the way we've experienced food for our entire lives It's been the way of it's you know, the vehicle through which we've experienced the world But if we really step back and think about it and and again I'm not saying the word toxin that meaning that if you have a little bit of it on your tongue, you're gonna die I mean it Toxin.

It is something negative about it. Sometimes these toxins can have positive effect depending on dosage and amount and context and, and setting and all these sorts of things. But, you know, if we think about it, every single spice that we eat, the flavors in that spice are actually a defense mechanism.

Cinnamon. We love cinnamon. Cinnamon is the bark of a tree. The flavor that we get from cinnamon that makes your tongue all tingly that we enjoy in our gingerbread or whatever it is. is a defense mechanism. In low doses, not a very big deal, but cinnamon could make you very, very sick in a larger dose. So the difference between spice and in a higher dose could actually be medicine.

I mean, there's a lot of spices that naturopath practitioners will give you to ward off like, you know, parasites in your body because they will do that. It could go from spice, to medicine to poison the same exact thing in a different context or a different dosage and we have to now we're left with having to mitigate this because we could fill our spice cabinets with all these incredibly dangerous things and we have to use an eighth of a teaspoon instead of a couple of them and you know that that sort of thing the other um Interesting thing, I think, is, you know, our gut health makes a big difference in how we deal with some of these toxins.

We shouldn't be necessarily scared of the word toxin, because, you know, we have detoxifying mechanisms in our body, right? We have a liver for a reason, and there's an expectation that in our diet, things we could eat that heal us in one way could also harm us in another, and we, if we're doing things the right way, then our body is taking care of some stuff.

But the reality is, we need to be, you need, I think, we need to approach vegetables, plants in general, with the understanding that, not necessarily plants are trying to kill you, but plants are trying to interact with the outside world, we know that there's some parts of plants that are safer than others, and, but inherently, all plants have toxins, At low levels, some of them are fine.

Some of them will kill us or make us very, very sick. But to me, the most dangerous ones are the ones in the middle that we don't right away see some sort of an impact after we consume it. It's not like we feel sick right afterwards or We get, you know, the next day we have something happening. It's those ones that have toxins that build up in our body over time.

And five months, five years, 10 years later, we have the symptoms of having too much of whatever that is in our bodies and we mentally can't connect. I'm sick of this because of what I've been eating for 10

Michael Kummer: years. And, you know, honestly, I mean, just looking around, I mean, there are obviously, you know, a lot of different factors involved in, in the state of, of our health, you know, chronic disease and obesity and all of those, you know.

Um, you know, there are, there are seed oils, there are ultra processed foods, etc. But I would argue, even among those who try to do better, and we've been jumping on the, you know, plant based is good, plant based is healthy wagon, you know, a couple of years in, and now they are seeing those issues as well.

And many of those refuse to connect, you know, the fact that they've been loading up on toxins for years and now have, you know, joint pain, inflammation, you know, all kinds of things that are ultimately, or that plants contribute to, or, you know, cause them in the first place. But maybe let's talk about, just to give some, some very specific examples of What are some of the plants that you would absolutely never eat, and that you can eat, depending on your state of health, but what do you have to do to them to make them work for you?

You know, some of your practical stuff, and maybe, you know, focus on stuff that a lot of people like and enjoy eating on a daily basis, probably not even knowing what they're doing.

Bill Schindler: So, the ones that I would never eat. are the, are the plants that have a high oxalate content because we found no way to mitigate the effects of those oxalates.

So the only way to deal with oxalates in our diets is right now that I'm aware of is to keep them out, right, or keep them at, keep them at at least a low level so we don't have, so things like high oxalate containing foods or things like spinach, swiss chard, rhubarb, certain kales, many of your nuts, especially almonds, uh, pine nuts are very bad, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, I mean, uh, beets, all parts of the beets, the leaves, the beets themselves, those are I mean, the list goes on and on, but those are some of the ones that most of us would consider part of a healthy diet that are really dangerous, especially in large amounts.

And just to give you an example about how dangerous they really are, your body can only handle a certain amount at a given time every day. And then after that, we start storing them. Your body starts storing them in places that cause everything oxalate, gout, to all kinds of damage. A lot of that damage is pain, pain, very, very painful.

One single spinach salad contains three times more oxalates than our body can deal with in a given day. So if somebody is, is getting up in the morning, and I know people that are doing this, that are getting up in the morning having a spinach shake made with almond milk, and then a spinach salad at lunch, and I mean day after day after day, it is wrecking havoc on their bodies that they may not feel this second But they're going to feel in several months or several years what I suggest and then we'll get on to more specific examples Like you mentioned in a minute, but you know, there's nothing about What I'm telling you that is going to you know, make me money, right?

I'm not trying to sell you a supplement I'm not trying to I'm not trying to tell you do this because I and then it what I'm suggesting is You know, from a place of, of where I've had my own issues with oxalates, um, major issues, uh, life changing issues, um, what I'm suggesting is, listen, if you are 30, 40, 50 years old, and you're starting to see changes, like you're, you have, you know, inflamed joints, or pain, or you're walking up the steps at night, your knees are starting to creak, And you just start discounting it like oh, you know what, that's just old age, that's just old age, that's what happens when you're 40, or you get up in the morning and your feet are all swollen, or whatever it is, you're starting to feel, don't attribute it to old age, it's, it's, it's common for us to have these issues right now when we're in our 30s and our 40s and our 50s because all of us are on these, you know, incredibly toxic diets, but it shouldn't be that way.

We, like other animals, should live these incredible lives and keel over debt. We have normalized dying for the last 20, 30, 40 years of our life and starting to suffer as we get closer. It's not natural. Something is off. And the nice thing about our bodies, the powerful thing is they're always trying to heal themselves.

Yeah. So what I'm suggesting is, if that is happening to you, take a very good look at the foods that you eat every day and Then look at those foods and see if those are foods that contain extraordinarily high amounts of oxalates. I will point you to people like Sally Norton. Her website is amazing. Her book, Toxic Superfoods, is amazing, and she just came out with a supplement a week or two ago.

that have, uh, it's an, it's a fantastic resource and has a whole bunch of lists of, of, of foods and their oxalate contents and things like this. Look at those and then say, you know, be realistic and say, you know what, I eat a handful of almonds every single day and I have for five years. And if that's the case, maybe back off, maybe, maybe take some of those higher ones out of your diet and see what happens over the next several weeks.

It's a, it's a very easy, cheap, safe way. to start to literally make an impact on your life. The one sort of caveat before we move over oxalates that I'll say is if you, if you recognize that you have an incredibly high oxalate diet, so if you're eating somebody almond milk, a bunch of almonds, spinach, you're eating tahini left and right because it's made up of sesame seed which is loaded with oxalates, all these different things, if you realize that you are probably in a state of oxalate toxicity in your body, Then my suggestion is definitely get her book, Assign Horton's book, or talk to her or somebody that's an expert in this, because there is a little bit of a danger of completely removing oxalate from your diet's cold turkey overnight.

Your body will feel amazing for two or three weeks because you're not ingesting these things, but as soon as it realizes that, You're not ingesting the oxalates, it will start to dump the oxalates from the stored resources in your body, and at best, it'll be painful, at worst, it could be dangerous. So there's a way to start to remove these things in

Michael Kummer: a safer way.

All right, that's good, that's good to know. And then that probably applies to, you know, many, especially toxins and stuff that are stored in fat tissue, I would assume? Yeah, I agree. Go ahead, I'm sorry. No, it's that, you know, if certain interventions like, you know, going on a, you know, super low carb diet, you know, being in ketosis all the time and suddenly, you know, you burn fat, you burn fat and all this stuff that's stored in your fat tissue gets dumped into your bloodstream, you know, in, in, in one shot and you feel terrible, you know, and you think it's the keto diet, but no, it's, you know, the toxins that are coming out in way faster or in higher amounts than, than you can handle.

Bill Schindler: Yeah, you, you have to, it's a, a little bit of an aside, but a really good point. So many people, I, I hate the word superfood, but I, if I was gonna use it, I would use it for something like liver. Like liver to me is a super, is the closest thing to a superfood there is. Right? And so many people have this mis.

conception that the liver is where all these toxins are stored. The liver does a great job of detoxifying, but the toxins are not stored in the liver. They're either expelled from the body or stored in places like fat. So you make a very, very, very good point. So the other plants, Like things that we can actually do something to.

Um, let me, I'll give you two very quick examples, and we can continue, uh, to a bunch of others as well, but one example is a potato. I'm actually writing an article, I'm literally writing an article on this right now. Potatoes are a major Another part of a lot of people's diets around the world. Um, and, especially here in America, kids are eating massive amounts of potatoes in the form of potato chips and baked potatoes and French fries and all the other ways that we eat potatoes.

Um, potato is a great poster child for some of these things. Number one, We need to recognize that the wild ancestor to all potatoes, ancestors to all potatoes, are incredibly poisonous. Like, INCREDIBLY poisonous. Like, will kill you or make you very, very sick if you eat them. And it's a painful experience to do it as well.

But somewhere around 8 10, 000 years ago, Some people around the Lake Titicaca region of Bolivia and Peru, they started domesticating potatoes. And as most of us learned in high school, by the time the explorers came to that area, they, there were already 300 to 500 different types of potatoes under domestication, uh, which is awesome.

But what they didn't tell you is almost every one of those, even under domestication, would make you very, very sick if you consumed them without some form of processing. Many of those potatoes are still grown today in, in those same regions. And I went, uh, to Bolivia and Peru to work with, uh, indigenous Aymara and Quechua communities to learn how they detoxify these very dangerous potatoes because even the modern potatoes in the grocery store, even though they have a lower toxin load than their ancestors, the toxins are still there.

And I wanted to see if there were things that they were doing to their potatoes In this more traditional sense that we could apply here in Modern Sunday's Kitchen, and it's true. So here's a couple of, uh, and there are things and I'll tell them real quick. The potato first off is very, very dangerous.

And if you think about the role of a potato, you know, here's this plant, it's conducting photosynthesis above the ground and then the top, when the winter comes, the top part of that plant dies off and it spent the summer and the fall Putting all the energy into these roots so it could live off of that energy through the winter until the spring comes and they're going to put new leaves out.

So it's a very important part of the plant, and because of that, it's heavily guarded chemically. So, number one, and I grew up in the 70s where, The most important part of the potato was the potato peel because everybody said that's where all the nutrition is. First of all, that's not true. But even if it was true, it's not worth the danger of all the toxins that the skin has.

It depends on the potato and a couple different things, but at least three to six times more toxins in the skin than the actual potato itself. So the number one thing you should always do is peel a potato. Right. And we lived in Ireland, uh, for a year. They ate a massive amount of potatoes in Ireland.

When I went to South America, I couldn't believe how many potatoes they ate. But, except for one instance, which I'll tell you about in a minute. Every time Anybody picked up a potato, whether they were going to ferment it, or freeze dry it, or, uh, eat it with clay, or boil it, or bake it, except for one time, they always peeled the potato.

Like, every time. I saw thousands of potatoes peeled, and what was fascinating to me was, if I gave you a regular grocery store potato in a potato peeler and said, peel it, you know, ten seconds later, you're done. These potatoes, these heirloom varieties potatoes, like, look, like, all gnarly, and peeling them is quite a chore.

It's very intentional, it's always done, I ask them every time, why do you peel the potato? Because that's roll the top. So number one, no matter what, I will never eat another potato peel the rest of my life. Period. That's the most toxic part of the potato. Number two, um, the glycoalkaloids, which are the most dangerous, one of the most dangerous toxins, two of the most dangerous toxins in the potato.

that the concentration of those glycoalkaloids change even after harvest. So, and you can, um, you can understand why in some cases, number one, if they're damaged areas of damage, if a potato's cut or bruised, these, uh, these toxins, uh, grow to higher concentrations in those areas. And I think it's a defense mechanism, obviously there.

So if, so first of all, handle the potatoes gently. If they're bruised or cut, those portions should always be cut off and discarded. Secondly, if they're stored improperly, uh, if they're stored in, uh, and light can get to them, everybody's seen them, you'll get that greenish tint, that chlorophyll on the skin.

That is not the toxin, but when it's there, it is a proxy indicator that the toxin load is getting to very dangerous levels. So, number one, if you see greenish tinges on the potatoes, You know that they're too toxic to consume, but don't be fooled in thinking that the green is the toxin, right? It's not, it's, it's an indicator that it's there.

So don't like peel the green off and then go ahead and eat the potato, take the entire potato and discard it. Um, secondly, thirdly, I don't even know where I am at this point. Uh, there are things that you can do to the potato to make the potato itself. lower in toxins. Uh, one of the easiest ways to do it at home is to ferment them.

Um, and there's a couple of advantages to the fermentation. I'll, I'll explain. Number one, um, the fermentation helps to detoxify some of those residual toxins that are found on the inside. Number two, and this is a little bit of a side, but it's very interesting. There's another place in the processing of the potatoes that can be very, very dangerous.

So when you take the potatoes, a very sugar and starch rich food and fry them. You are creating a, it's a Maillard reaction, which is, produces acrylamides, which are very carcinogenic. In fact, there's certain areas, like California, for example, if you buy a bag of potato chips, it'll say on the back, you know, danger contains acrylamides, known carcinogens, this, uh, was caused through the cooking of these potatoes or whatever.

And it is. So when those sugars hit that hot temperature, it produces, it browns and produces these acrylamides. Um, there's been, uh, A lot of places in the world, the EU is one of them, where they're pushing very hard to reduce the acrylamides in our diets because they're, they're, they're known to be that dangerous.

When you ferment the potatoes, the bacteria eat the sugars. It's the food for the bacteria. So in addition to helping to detoxify that potato, your final result has a much lower sugar content. So then when you go and cook it, You don't get that Maillard reaction, you don't get that production of acrylamides, you don't get the browning, but you can still get that, that crispiness and the same sorts of flavors.

So, to me, if you took a potato, you know, the healthiest, the healthiest, one of the healthiest ways to eat a potato, and this may sound strange, is take a potato, peel it, cut it into potato chip or french, or french fry size, ferment it, fry it in high quality animal fat, and your final product, is to me is actually one of the healthiest ways you can actually eat it.

You've done all your work on detoxifying it, you've reduced the acrylamide production, you've fried it in high quality animal fat. It's a completely different food.

Michael Kummer: Right, right. And that's, I think, for a lot of people, you know, they might say it's not worth it, because it takes time, obviously. I mean, we ferment all of our, you know, fries when we make them, after I write you a book.

Um, you know, eat like a human, you know, that's what we started doing. And it's really a simple process. I mean, it takes a couple of days on the counter, you know, saline solution, you know, just what is it, 2. 5%, you know, saline solution. Um, it may take 10 minutes of prep work that that's extra, you know, to cutting the potatoes and whatever, and then you leave it there and then we air fry them or, you know, fry them in tallow, what have you.

And, and, and it's reasonable, you know, and, but it's the important distinction between, you know, a potato prepared this way and the, you know, potatoes you might get in the restaurant, you know, fries that you might buy in a restaurant that have been fried in seed oils, obviously not fermented, skin on in many cases, because it tastes better, you know.

So, you know, there's a huge difference between those two types of food. You can't even compare them, you know? And, and I think that's the distinction we need to make with every time we look at food, say, okay, how was this food prepared? Is this in a way that's compatible? With not only our physiology, with my state of health, maybe, or is this maybe something that I want to cut out for a while or cut out forever in the case of, you know, almonds and spinach and some of those things and, and, and it requires some mental.

You know, efforts to make those conscious decisions about what you're putting in your body. I,

Bill Schindler: I, you're right. And for some people, the beginning of the conversation about the potato, like I get it. And then all of a sudden I went down the rabbit hole and talk about fermentation, all those other things. And they're like, okay, this is too much.

One thing I think we, we should all understand is any step that you take in the right direction is a step in the right direction and implemented day after day, week after week, month after month. It becomes very powerful. So, I'm not necessarily suggesting that everybody all of a sudden eat nothing but fermented potatoes.

Like, that's a huge step for some people. Um, but, if all you did right now was just say, You know what? I'm gonna peel all my potatoes. That is a massive step. Especially for your kids, if they eat a bunch of potatoes, you know, you're not gonna go to the restaurant and buy the potatoes. potato skins fried in vegetable oil, right?

That right now, hopefully from this discussion, that'd be, that's poison. It's poison, but if you're going to continue to eat potatoes, I'm not saying be scared of potatoes. I am saying you probably shouldn't eat potatoes every single day. And if you do, you need, there's things you can do to help me, but at least peel the potato right there.

That's going to make a big difference. Um, and we need to make sure we have that sort of grace and there's a lot. The cool thing is this is a rabbit hole that we can dive down front. This journey. Our entire lives as, and as if you're of the mindset, like, okay, I'm going to go tackle this project. and change my diet here and then I'm going to change the next thing and I'm going to change the next thing.

That's awesome. If the mindset is oh my god, like I'm going to try to change everything tomorrow, you know that that is not sustainable to do that quickly and you're going to end up You know, not being successful a week later. Peel the potatoes. It's simply that easy. That makes 75 percent of the toxins are going to be gone because

Michael Kummer: of

Bill Schindler: that.

Michael Kummer: Do something better today than you did yesterday, you know, just And make it consistent. Exactly, and be consistent with it. And here is the thing, you know, At the end of the day, you know, we have to come to realize that everything we have done, especially in the last, maybe 200 or so years, as far as food is concerned, and many really, many other aspects of our lives, they're all detrimental to varying degrees to our health, you know, that pain.

I mean, living in, in, in buildings like we do now with mold, with VOCs, with all of those things. None of this is really good for us, right? But in particular with nutrition, I think you have two choices. You either just restrict yourself to those foods that are relatively easy to consume as is, like animal products, well raised animals, you know, eat your meat every day, you know, and you're not gonna have any issues, eat your organs, eat your fat, and you'll be fine, eat your eggs.

Um, or if you want to say, no, I don't want to restrict myself to a small portion of the available foods, then you need to learn how to prepare, you know, you, if you ignore either one, you're going to be in trouble. And that's why I want to say 90 percent of, of Americans, or maybe even more are in trouble in, to a certain degree in terms of having health issues that are 100 percent lifestyle induced.

And in many cases, very irreversible. Right, exactly. And that's a very important point, you know, regardless of how long you've been eating. the wrong way or living the wrong way. It's almost never too late to at least make a significant improvement. You know, you might not be able to grow back, you know, lost cartilage tissue or whatever, or bone tissue that has deteriorated.

But I think in many cases you can make significant improvements to your quality of life. Um, and that's, that's what it is. Ultimately, you know, worth it, in my opinion. If not, then, you know, what are you doing? And

Bill Schindler: I also think some of this is mentally exhausting for people because, you know, they, okay, I got on a low carb thing, and I've made my changes, and now you're telling me I can't even eat almonds, and this is like, what am I supposed to do now?

But I think that mindset change is very important. Going from, Oh my gosh, it's another thing to worry about, to, Oh my gosh, I've just learned something, and I have the ability to make a change in my diet for the better, is a very powerful place to be. There's a lot of people that have no control over what they're eating, and are just happy to be able to get something into their mouths.

But most people listening to this, I would expect, have the opportunity to consciously make a change. And again, I'm not saying to be afraid of plants. There are some plants you should be deathly afraid of, right? But there are many things that I enjoy. the texture of certain plants. I enjoy the flavor of certain plants.

I enjoy the nostalgia of certain things that I've eaten since I was a kid and remembering, you know, holiday or sitting with my family or doing something that, you know, all of that comes back when I, when I, you know, we get nourished in a lot of different ways. So this is not an anti plant conversation.

This is a conscious plant conversation. Right. Do what you can and start to make those changes. But again, I do think that the one thing that we need to be conscious of, especially in today's. dietary landscape, um, is to take the, take stock of the, the diet, what we're eating and where oxalates are creeping into our diets.

Right. Um, and because that one, that one's an easy one to deal with, just get them

Michael Kummer: out. Right. Yeah, I agree. And you know, I would encourage anyone to, you know, get your book. It has been a game changer for us, just so we understand that, how can we, what mitigation techniques and, and, and you also have recipes in there.

And also if you want to have your. I don't know, your ice cream, your, you know, what have you, your French fries, whatever the case might be, there is usually a way to make it in a way that is significantly less toxic and probably compatible with a lot of people's, you know, health. And, um, and, you know, just to maybe reiterate what you already mentioned, but you can ferment, especially grains, you know, we, my wife started baking sourdough bread after, you know, reading your book and we can, I mean, we, we don't have bread every day.

We, I don't think we could handle bread every day, but having it. You know, once every so often. Everyone is completely fine with it. You know, we ferment, uh, the potatoes. You know, peeling is another very simple way where you don't even have to, where you can do it right away. You know, peeling the potatoes.

Or, you know, peeling, uh, it probably applies to most root vegetables, right, that are underground. Remove the skin, because that's the protective barrier, you know, that protects the inside of the plant, right? And just learning a few of those very simple techniques, some are more involved, some are more complex, depending on, you know, how far down the rabbit hole you want to go, but at least it helps.

It opens up a whole, uh, array of, of foods that, you know, you can consume more or less in a, in a safe manner, you know, again, depending on your state of health. If you're, you know, already on, you know, In a very bad shape, you know, maybe, you know, lean more towards animal foods and, and wait with, you know, trying to mitigate stuff.

But for everyone else, you know, it's a great way to expand your culinary horizon a little bit. I mean, you're a chef, you know, so, you know, you obviously enjoy cooking with different types of foods, right? And making them, Uh, taste good and delicious and, um, and so it doesn't have to be simple, you know, diet doesn't have to be simple, you know, meat with salt and that's it, and a glass of water.

It can be more, but you need to, you need to know what you're doing, right? Absolutely, and

Bill Schindler: I would suggest, uh, two things. One is, if you want to remove toxins from your diets, then going carnivore automatically does it. Like, because it automatically just removes them all. So if you're looking for a simple, like, all in solution to see what happens, how your body feels without any plant toxins in them whatsoever, that's a very, you know, straightforward way to do it.

Um, I have done carnivore several times with amazing results. But again, for me, carnivore is not a lifestyle that's, you know, I, again, I enjoy certain, certain other aspects of food. So our approach, my approach, my family's approach, our approach here at the Modern Stone Age Kitchen. Um, to including those other things in our diets, whether it be french fries or bread, is not to do the fake version of it.

Not to do the, how can somebody with a test tube fake these flavors and these textures and put out some other kind of, you know, franken sort of food that reminds you of that, without maybe, you know, You know, the carbs or whatever you're looking for. Our approach is, how can we apply a traditional approach to food to make that final product as safe and nourishing as it can possibly be?

And because of that, we are able to include in our diets You know, the healthiest version of bread that's possible, you know, long, wild, slow fermented sourdough bread, or, you know, an ice cream that might, you know, might have, you know, fermented dairy in it from a local cow and, you know, non, um, not, no refined sugar, completely different foods than the modern version and very, very different foods.

then the franken version that's just trying to give you, you know, no carbs, but it doesn't matter all the other chemicals and nonsense.

Michael Kummer: Yeah, no, absolutely true. And, uh, and, uh, again, very much appreciate your time. I think it was very insightful. I hope anyone watching this, you know, doesn't, uh, go away from this, from watching this and saying, oh, you know, I can't eat any plants, but no, there are ways to consume them.

Just learn how to, um, and, you know, you'll be on your way towards better health, hopefully. Um, thanks so much, Bill. I appreciate it again. Um, and, uh, where can people find you if they want to learn more?

Bill Schindler: Okay. A couple of places. Uh, first off, uh, our website, eatlikeahuman. com is where all the information, our blog posts, our classes, we do a lot of classes and workshops and food tours around the world.

So you can find information out about that and the book at eatlikeahuman. com. Our restaurant, the Modern Stone Age Kitchen is located in Chestertown, Maryland, which is actually fairly close to Washington DC and Philadelphia, even New York City. So if you're in the area, we'd love to have you and cook for you and nourish you.

You can find out information about the restaurant at modernstoneagekitchen. com. And you can follow us on Instagram at esfoodlab for our nonprofit, Modern Stone Age Kitchen for the Restaurant. And I'm at Dr. Bill Schillner, Dr. Bill Schillner. Thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure to talk with you.

Thanks so much. Appreciate it.