Stay Off My Operating Table

What Ancient Diets Teach Us About Health and Longevity | Suze Alexander #157

• Suze Alexander • Episode 157

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Discover the ancient health secrets of indigenous tribes in this eye-opening interview with Suzanne Alexander, co-author of "The Ancestral Diet Revolution". Journey through the eating habits and lifestyles of various tribes to uncover valuable lessons for modern health.

In this fascinating discussion, Suzanne shares her firsthand experiences living with tribes like the Maasai, Hadzabi, and Datoga in Africa, as well as groups in the Pacific Islands. She reveals surprising insights about their diets, including the critical role of both plants and animal products in maintaining optimal health.

Key topics covered:
00:01:30 - Introduction to Suzanne's tribal adventures 
00:05:45 - Importance of plants in traditional diets 
00:12:20 - Animal products in tribal nutrition 
00:18:50 - Natural movement and lifestyle habits 
00:25:30 - Differences between tribal diets and health outcomes 
00:35:15 - Lessons applicable to modern life 
00:45:00 - Misconceptions about ancestral diets

Learn how these indigenous groups maintain robust health well into old age without modern amenities. Discover the power of natural movement, diverse plant consumption, and traditionally-prepared animal foods. Suzanne challenges common assumptions about "optimal" diets and encourages viewers to reconsider what it means to live as a human being.

This interview offers invaluable wisdom for anyone interested in ancestral health, nutrition, anthropology, or simply living a more natural lifestyle. Gain a new perspective on diet, movement, and connection to nature that could transform your approach to health and well-being.

For more tribal content and insights, follow Suzanne Alexander on Instagram @SuzanneAlexander.104.

Interested in learning more about ancestral eating? Check out "The Ancestral Diet Revolution" by Suzanne Alexander & Chris Knobbe

Website: Ancestral Health Foundation

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(c) 2016 Mercury Retro Recordings

Any use of this intellectual property for text and data mining or computational analysis including as training material for artificial intelligence systems is strictly prohibited without express written consent from Dr. Philip Ovadia.

Speaker 1:

He was a morbidly obese surgeon destined for an operating table and an early death. Now he's a rebel MD who is fabulously fit and fighting to make America healthy again. This is Stay Off my Operating Table with Dr Philip Ovedia welcome back to stay off my operating table.

Speaker 2:

I am thrilled to have back with us suze alexander. The last time she was with us she was preparing to go on a big adventure and she has now done it and I've really been looking forward to hearing about it. Phil, anything you want to say to set the table for us?

Speaker 3:

No, can't wait to hear about it. We'll link in the notes to Suze's first appearance For anyone that hasn't heard it or doesn't remember. She's the co-author of the book up over my left shoulder there, the Ancestral Diet Revolution, and, as Jack said when we last spoke, she was setting off on an epic adventure to see how the world eats. We want to find out. So, Suze, how was that trip?

Speaker 4:

It's been a couple trips since I talked with you guys, because first Chris and I Dr Konomi and I we went to the Pacific Islands and I was just leaving. It was like I think the next day after I talked with you guys I was heading out to go meet him in Australia, and so that was profound. We were originally supposed to go and see seven tribes, but one of our flights was canceled and so we couldn't get, and that was one of my favorite tribes I wanted to go spend time with on the island of Tana, but that was canceled. So one day I will go back there. But that was profound.

Speaker 4:

We but we didn't, we weren't living right with them Like I did when I just got back from Africa. So I've done two trips. So we'll kind of cover both if you want. Yes, want to start talking about the Pacific islands first. Okay, in the Pacific islands we didn't live directly with the tribes, so we I had kind of I'm very budget minded, so we stayed in some pretty interesting places. You know, you might see some rats and you might see some anything, but I just try to save money whenever possible. But we were always living right near where the populations, the indigenous people would be living. So the first tribe we visited was in West Papua, indonesia, and they were called the Dani tribe, the D-A-N-I tribe, and they live way up high in the mountains, in the highlands. And very similar to what we wrote about in our book very similar. They live about 90% on sweet potatoes. I couldn't wait to really see them with my own eyes. Are they truly healthy? Can you really survive on just sweet potatoes like that? How high Pardon.

Speaker 2:

How high oh?

Speaker 4:

it was. I can't tell you exactly, I have it in my other notes, but I had my PowerPoint. I have all that on there. But it was extremely high. We had to take a little plane to fly up there to get up there. But it was extremely high, we had to take a little plane to fly up there to get up there and it was very cold at nighttime. They didn't really have.

Speaker 4:

It was really wonderful because it was very lush and when you think of the tropics and but of course we're not in the water because you're way up high, and so that's why they wouldn't have fish and they revere the pig. As a matter of fact, the area that was called Wamina and Wam in the Dhani language means pig. The area that's called Wamina and Wam in the Dhani language means pig. So they named their region after the pig and they revere them. So they will only have and consume a pig maybe once to two times a month. They might do chicken, maybe the same thing, but very rarely. They're very plant-based and they were very. They're beautiful people, very scantily clad, not much clothing on. That was a little tricky. At first I was like oh, where do you look? It was an interesting experience Anyone who's watching. If you want to go on, you can see pictures on my own social media pages where you can see them. They're there so you can get an idea of what they look like. But they were very interesting, especially now that I've seen all the different tribes, all kinds of diets, to see who really is the most profound and who really is aging gracefully and beautifully and is robust right into their hundreds.

Speaker 4:

It wasn't them, it was not them, they were. You know they don't have a lot of disease, that's what we wrote about. They really are very and they smoke like unbelievable I could. Of all the tribes they were. It was unbelievable, it was constant, and yet they didn't have emphysema, they were not wheezing, they were not coughing. You know our tour guide and my translator, when we were climbing them out and to go see where they collect their spring water or their salt water, where they get their salt from, they were smoking the whole time going and it was was really steep and Chris got injured, as a matter of fact. That's how steep it was. I mean, he's got bad knees to begin with but it didn't help and he was just. None of them were coughing, nothing. And then you go and sit in their huts with them and it's just billowing smoke and I'm coughing, but they never coughed. They were just very amazing, but we wrote about this.

Speaker 4:

But the sad thing is they are starting to smoke the cigarettes that we create in our country. They're no longer harvesting their own, Like when I was in Africa, the Hadzabi, they grow their own. So if they're smoking, whether it's tobacco or marijuana, they have their own, and so I think that there's a key thing there. I'm researching that because there is actual benefits, because I'm part Native American and Native Americans you know the peace pipe that they're all smoking. There's actually healing properties, and the more I'm doing, it's called ethnomedicine and it's just so amazing what these plants can do in every single tribe.

Speaker 4:

And so this is what really is bothering me I'm really trying to get this out there, guys is that whenever we have people saying that plants are trying to kill us some are, Some can, but as far back as we go back to the Neanderthals, we go back as far as humankind first began they've been using plants, and all of the tribes, including the Maasai, all of them and I'm going to be going to live with the Inuit soon and even they use plants, and it's remarkable. They all say, without them they would not exist, because they use them for medicinals. And so parasitics I mean, you name it, the Maasai alone. I feel like I'm jumping all over, but I've got so much to tell you.

Speaker 2:

That's okay, we're just hanging on for the ride.

Speaker 4:

Sorry, guys, the Maasai, they revere their branches and barks and their herbs and their roots and so forth, and they don't eat them, but they boil them in water and it extrapolates the powerful medicinals and the nutrients that they get out of them and they consume those every day, so like a tea or a broth or something.

Speaker 4:

Oh yes, and so like they got chai tea which is made from their raw milk with some water, and they will add either raw honey, if it's a season, or cane sugar in that, and it's got the barks, the acacia and the nickelada I mean any of these things they may have the crotonten, megalococcus there's so many things they add to them and each one I write a paper about them and each one has been scientifically studied and they actually do. They can. They're parasitics, they're anti-inflammatory, anti-tumor, anti-cancer, they lower cholesterol, ldl. And then we wonder why the Maasai can consume so much saturated fat. And this is where I'm really concerned. When we're preaching to everyone and the Messiah will say this they believe this with all their heart. They said we cannot live without this. They couldn't describe it, but they said we know it's doing something with the fat. They kept telling me it's something with the fat for us and in all my research it's proving this.

Speaker 4:

And additionally, with the Maasai, there's a lot of studies have been done on them. If you go back in about 1960, there was a huge study done on 50. They did autopsies on 50 hearts of Maasai and they were having blockage. There was buildup. The only difference is when they compare them to 60 year old people in the United States. Their arteries are much wider than ours and so that's why it's just they never have heart disease. The reason why they're thinking again, this is all speculation and I want to go back and do more testing myself as well. But what they're thinking and it makes sense to me, because they move constantly, they are not sedentary, and all the elders they're on their hundreds they're all telling me the same thing we have to walk. They walk 12 to 15 miles a day, 90, 100, they never stop. The women unbelievable what they do every day just to survive. Same thing with the Hadzabi they're walking all the time, but they're not drinking all, they're not eating as much as what you see with Maasai.

Speaker 4:

And so when you look at those the research with their hearts and so forth and you look at what, and they all will say the same thing they know their lifestyle is powerful. They said every. They said they looked at me and they're like where are all your muscles? What is powerful? They said. They looked at me and they're like where are all your muscles? What are these? They'd have never seen them before. I'm such a young woman. And I said they're muscles. How'd you get those? I showed them and they're like why, what is the point of that? And I said because it makes us healthy. And they said just walk. Humans are meant to walk. You're not meant to do that.

Speaker 4:

And yet when I went out to with women in Africa to chop their wood, because they have to do that every day, that's what's cooking their food, it's what they use. So they were lifting 150 to 200 pounds of wood, no one else helping them onto their heads, and they would wear them off of a big belt. And I was doing the same thing but I broke my arm. And so I'm trying to do this with a broken arm because I didn't tell anyone I broke my arm because they would have sent me home. So I was just kind of dealing with it with a broken arm.

Speaker 4:

But the strength but they don't have muscles, but because they're not doing repetitions all the time, but they put me to shame. Put me to shame, the strength of these people, and it's just nonstop moving all the time. And so I believe that when we are saying I'm an animal-based person, I eat a lot of meat and now I drink a ton of raw milk and I'm doing sheep milk, which is extremely high in fat. But I'm very active and so when we're telling people, oh, you know, you can eat all this and you don't have to move because you're just going to get, you know, get ripped. I mean, hearing all these things, I'm like, oh my golly, this is so dangerous. If we're going to eat ancestrally, then we have to move ancestrally. They all work hand in hand. But there's the plants, and if we're not consuming these plants, I mean we can just all say, oh, you know, we've been eating meat forever, that's what we always would be, but they all were having plants, even the Neanderthals.

Speaker 4:

There's archaeological evidence. Now, this is all new. I spend my days researching this Evidence. Now that they found in their teeth that they're finding these plants, and everyone says, yeah, but what about when it was the ice age, guys, the temperature in the ice age? It wasn't like below zero, it was like 43 degrees, and that wasn't across the whole world. Africa was still fairly warm. Additionally, let's think about this let's go to a spot where the Inuit live and they've got the caribou and so forth Even today, but it's frozen over the ruminants. Where do you think they're getting plants from?

Speaker 4:

they're always good point they're always there and it bothers me when this. I'm a researcher, I know this stuff and the thing is it's so interesting is their hooves and their noses. They dig down into the snow and the ice and that's their vegetation. Now let's look at the Inuit. The Inuit know how valuable plants are. Where do you think they get their plants from in the wintertime when everything's frozen over? Because they do get berries. They do get plants in the summertime. They have those, but where do you think they would get it in the wintertime?

Speaker 2:

I couldn't begin to guess.

Speaker 4:

Their caribou stomach and the intestines. Oh my God, it's a delicacy for them. It is a delicacy and they will consume that and they love that. And even with a Maasai and I have a couple of videos where I'm eating the stomach I'm like, oh, it's really rubbery, but the chyme was still inside of it they called it digesta that's what we call it scientifically, digesta and it's loaded it's fermented plants, loaded with nutrients, and so they don't fully rinse it out, they leave some in, and so when they put it into the soup, they're getting the nutrients. And then, of course, I go with the inuit. Then they've got the mouse food that they go. I could go on and on.

Speaker 4:

That can dispel all these myths that people keep saying if you haven't lived it, you don't know it, we can read. I mean, I've been reading research since I was five years old. I've been studying all of this and because my father was wildlife rehabilitation, so I had to research all of our animals and my grandmother lived with tribes in africa when I was a little girl and she would come home, yeah, to visit and with the pictures and I was just in awe how beautiful and how healthy they were, and I was so sick, my dad was so sick and I'm my first hypothesis at 10 years old are we sick because our food doesn't look like theirs? You know, tang instead of oranges, yeah, you know Captain.

Speaker 4:

Crunch. It was awful, and so that's when I knew it was our food. Yeah, you know, it's a lot.

Speaker 3:

How much I'm just thinking, as you're going through all this and you're, you know, looking at these different've introduced. You know what we think are better answers and we can create something better and we can process it into something better. You know that really seems to be the consistency is, the further we get away from what is naturally in our environment, the worst, the worst the results seem to get.

Speaker 4:

Absolutely, absolutely, and that's's and the key thing is and all. And I've asked if you can go on and you can see all of my live chats I had, but I didn't. And what? The pacific islands? But in africa, I did live instagram chats with all of them and it was so profound because I kept asking them all of these different questions that everyone would see. Everyone wants to know what do they get? And they were all saying exactly the same thing. And they're starting to add in ugali, now ugali is a cornmeal mixed with water because the government is taking away so much of their land. Now this is in Africa.

Speaker 4:

And, of course, another part of my research is our polymorphisms. So when we look at DNA, our polymorphisms, this is a huge topic. I'm also writing about this. I got so many papers I'm writing on. So my gosh. So the polymorphisms are that we have genetic DNA and instead of saying now, instead of saying we are what we eat, I say we are what our ancestors ate. So because? So I'm looking at my DNA. So I've had ancestral, my ancestrally. There's two different things I've used 23andMe and ancestral. So I've got all my DNA mapped out and in this it will actually show you these polymorphins, which can be good, or they can trigger them, and so I have celiac disease.

Speaker 4:

And when I go back and look at my genetic DNA, I'm Irish, scottish, french and Native American. When I go back and I look at, especially in Ireland, thousands and thousands of years ago they were not consuming grains. The only grain they would consume would be oats, but mostly it was meat and milk it would consume would be oats, but mostly it was meat and milk. And then when grains started entering in wheat and barley, which is the gluten, babies started getting really sick. And many celiacs are Irish and it goes back to their DNA. Now the tribes, all of them are telling me since we started adding in Ugali, we're starting to get sick. I'm sick before the Dutogas. They're very similar. That's another tribe I lived with.

Speaker 2:

Where is that?

Speaker 4:

They're right in Africa. So when I was in Africa, guys, just to make you understand, most people who go to Africa they're researchers, they do not live with the tribes because it is so unbelievably dangerous. And I did it and I will tell you most people could not do it because I was in total fear factor 24, seven. It was frightening. You don't know about pythons, you don't know about cobras, animals, violent animals, insects, I I was like in sounds like texas it was amazing.

Speaker 4:

But when you go to the bathroom and this is just a simple little thing this is why most people won't do it just because of this fact where you got to go to the bathroom out in the bush and you're all by yourself and you don't know what's going to be out there and whether it's dark or whatever it is, you're out there and you're praying. You're out there squatting, praying. Nothing's gonna come up and get you. It was literally. I had times I thought I was just gonna cry. I was so afraid because I'm so alone. You know, I'm this woman out there by myself. I had my translators and stuff, but you're still alone, especially when you go to the bathroom. But anyway, and the flies and mosquitoes were just all over you constantly you can hear me on my live chat. They're literally going into your mouth, in your eyes. They were all over your food. They were just everywhere. Eventually, just kind of. This is what life is. It was unbelievable. We had an attack by hyenas one night. We had a tent that we had done a slaughter camp with a Maasai, and so we had three tents my tent, my guide's tent and then our supply tent where we had taken some of the slaughtered animal that was left over and we put that in the tent. In the middle of the night I hear this, the most horrible. I thought my guides were getting killed. It was the most horrible sound. I go, oh, it's green. And they I thought my guides were getting killed. It was the most horrible sound. I'm just I go oh, it's green. And they're like we're okay, we're okay, they're Messiah. Of course they're okay, they can kill us. It was horrible. And they're go get your tent, stay there, stay there. Finally, in the morning I was at my tent. I crawl out and what was it? And they said we were attacked by hyenas and the tent was just demolished. They had taken everything, but at least they didn't get any of us. But you just don't know. And so the key thing is the key thing is that when we're researchers and we go there, and if you're not living with them 24, seven, and you just leave your beautiful hotel and you come and stay up, spend a couple hours with them and then you leave, that's a little drop in the bucket. But when you're really living with them and you're doing everything with them, you see it, you hear it, you feel it, you're experiencing it.

Speaker 4:

I mean, I know that had I not been consuming their plants and their soups, I probably would have been loaded with parasites and who knows what else that could have gotten malaria. I mean, I was covered. I have a picture. I was just literally covered with mosquito bites. It was so bad. And of course, they've never a lot of tribes have never seen white people. They were so remote and they were. They couldn't believe what's this all over your skin, what's happening to you? Because they don't get it. But it was just, I was just covered in bug bites and it's a wonder why I didn't get malaria. Why, because I'm consuming all their soups with all these plants. Why didn't I get parasites? They were eating all of this food and talk about dirt and antibacterials, because these are all antibacterial, antiviral.

Speaker 4:

Everything is so dirty. They're not washing anything. The knives talk about Hadzabi and their gut microbiome. It's not the plants. It's not the plants they are. Everything is literally bacteria laden Unbelievable.

Speaker 4:

Their knives, everything. Nothing's washed. They'll kill an animal, kill the next animal. Nothing's cleaned. They're drinking out of mud puddles. They're drinking out of anything they can find. I mean I just collect spring water myself.

Speaker 4:

I go to a local spring, and I'm sure it's who knows what it's got, but I've been doing this for over 20 years, so I my immune system is very strong, but I was a little concerned. I did not drink their water. We did boil it because I just thought. I thought I don't want to get sick. I mean, I just don't want to be sent home, and so the next time I go, though, I will definitely attempt to drink their water. But I really believe that it's not just the plants, it's the way they live. I mean, we're so sterile here. Everything's going to be washed and wiped down, and now, since I've come home, I'm just like it is what it is. You know we need. We have this amazing immune system, you know, and we can fight off anything if we're in optimum health and we're consuming what God created for us, and that's what these people are doing. Now, if I go back to the Danny tribe, which was the one in the Pacific Island living, Right.

Speaker 4:

This is the ones that 90% sweet potato. Yeah, as they aged, and even in their youth, their skins are becoming very saggy. Their teeth what teeth? They were missing a lot of teeth. Now again, they were smoking heavily, but as they aged they became so frail just like they're going to break. I felt heavy compared to them. I was like, whoa, I feel really heavy. Did you say something?

Speaker 4:

And then, comparing to the meat base, oh then I'll go to another island in the pacific islands, the vanuatu, and vanuatu. They now they're down on the ocean where they plethora of fish every day. They do some chicken, but fish was probably 50 of their diet. And then they would have tubers, of course, tubers like the sweet potato. Everywhere I go, including Africa, tubers are king after me. And again, when you think about in Okinawa, you know they're big with tubers as well, but tubers everywhere, the Hadzabi tubers, and sometimes they chew them just to get the minerals and the water out of them, and other times they will cook them and they will consume them, depending on what the tuber is. But in Vanuatu this is the Pacific Islands they were beautiful Up into their old age. They were robust, their teeth were gorgeous and fit, as can be. They were not fragile, their skin was gorgeous, they were beautiful and so. But again, they did eat plants. They had fruit. I mean, fruit was everywhere, everywhere you go, there was just fresh fruit.

Speaker 4:

And talk about the difference in food, because everything's growing ancestrally, there's no pesticides, it's not GMO, it's growing fresh there. No, another thing I also found the emfs. My, I always feel like I mean I have everything hardwired in my house because I don't want to have a lot of emfs, like you know. I mean, I've always been leery of that, but there you're. So in remote places it wasn't there and I'm not a good sleeper, but I slept so soundly I would get. Five hours is huge for me. I was dreaming for like the first time in 30 years. This is profound. Was it the EMFs? The lack of? Was it the nutrients that was in the food? It was so high in magnesium, potassium, all of these wonderful things that help with sleep. It was profound.

Speaker 4:

But again, my look at all the tribes, including in Africa, because there were some tribes that were more plant-based. So here's, for example, the Datoga. The Datoga, I thought, because everything I researched, were going to be very much like the Maasai. They live mostly on meat, milk and blood. However, one of the tribes we live with, they were blacksmiths. I didn't think about this until I'm there living with them. They don't have time to be out with livestock. They're working all day long with making metals and making jewelry or the arrowheads or the axe heads or whatever it is for the different tribes, and so it makes sense. They don't have time to be out walking 12, 15 miles a day tending to all that livestock.

Speaker 4:

And so there were two young boys that were in their thirties and their grandfather was 102. He taught them to be a blacksmith and I said to them thinking, and I said so what do you? What's your diet? And this is all on video. You can see all this and they're all like we mostly eat ugali and maconde Now maconde. Ugali is the flour and cornmeal mixed together. Maconde is red kidney beans boiled together with corn and that was their diet. It was hardly. Basically they're vegan. And I said but there's some goats out there. They said we might have milk, but very rarely, and maybe we might have meat, maybe once a month.

Speaker 4:

But their teeth were good. They were good looking. They're very thin, very lean, but not like what you would see with Maasai, they were not as robust. Now. Now the grandfather I've got a whole video with him. He was 102. When you compare his teeth, he had all of his teeth, but you compare them to the hundred-year-old Masadi, or just, it was a night and day, night and day, and yet he was very spry. He was crawling, jumping up and down, showing me all the things he could do. You know, and I said it was again, this is just because of how I live. No one's ever asked them can you still squat to go to the bathroom? Because people don't think about that unless you've done it. I mean, I have a squatting. I squat here when I go to the bathroom. I know it's probably too much information, but this is very powerful information and as part of being human, we have to squat and if you aren't squatting every day, then you're not in optimum health. This is more important than some of the. You know all these people are bodybuilders and stuff. Squatting is. This is part of being human and it's also better when we evacuate, when we have to go to the bathroom. It opens up the colon for complete evacuation. I know these are again as a researcher. This is powerful. I've been researching this for decades and this is what I've been doing. I'm a squatter.

Speaker 4:

I used to teach my children in a squatting position because I wanted them to understand. This is what humans do, and by the time a child is five years old, they can no longer squat because your Achilles tendon shrinks up and they can't go to a full, complete, flat foot squat. I have a flat, I have a squatting bench, so when I'm usually on my computer, I'm squatting and so the Achilles tendon will shorten and you can't go squatting onto your toes. That's not what you do. You have to go to the bathroom. You can go. You're flat foot in your complete squat. Have to go to the bathroom, you can go, you're flat foot in your complete squat, and that's what we have to do and it's part of so.

Speaker 4:

I said that to the elders. There are hundreds. Think guys of your parents, think of anyone in their forties, fifties. Can they go into a complete flat foot squat and how long can they maintain that? Most Americans can't. But this is something I keep saying to everyone. We have to be putting these things into our life, and I know people say, well, we don't need to, we've got toilets. But again, we're human and I think we need to start thinking about what is it to be a human? It's not just about our food, it's about our environment and being out in nature and grounding. Now we can't ground in Africa.

Speaker 4:

I wrote about this the other day. I'm telling you it was scorching and I wear barefoot shoes and they thought it was nuts. They said nobody comes to Africa with those kinds of shoes. You have to have really thick soles because there's thorns even in the ground. I said I'm sorry, I'm sorry guys. I said didn't you used to wear hardly no shoes because now they're wearing tires, they buy tires and they cut them and that tread their shoe. And I said and I've got videos asking the elders why did you change? Why are you no longer wearing just a thin piece of skin? Because I've got those kind of shoes here too. And he said you know it wasn't comfortable because of the thorns and it's very hot and when they get wet they're very slippery. And he said this is just better for us now. But I wanted to experience it because that's who I am and I did have times where massive thorns were going right up through my foot when we were out, when I was out hunting and stuff with the hodzobies and it was, ah, but it was so hot.

Speaker 4:

So there are some places that we really can't ground, except right around your camping area where their huts are. It's very dirt, it's just more dirt because they've worn it down for many years. You would see them barefoot in that region. You wouldn't see a lot of barefoot with a Maasai because you know there's in their Boma region, so their Boma is where their hut is and also their animals all live within that region. So you may have your baby goats and sheep and your chickens living right in your hut with you, and then the older cattle and the sheep and the goats and the donkeys. They're all out in their corral that's been made with, you know, acadia, thorn bushes and so forth to keep the hyenas out.

Speaker 4:

But so they might. You really didn't see them going barefoot because the animal feces and everything is kind of everywhere, and so they really were. I didn't see them barefoot at all, but I did see the Hadzabi a little bit in their region going barefoot. But so when we talk about grounding it depends on the region, because sometimes you just can't. It's just it's so hot, there's so many thorns, there's these little barbs that are just on everything. They're just getting all over me and they're just there. It's painful, it's painful.

Speaker 3:

The plants that you mentioned. You know that they're eating. Is this is wild vegetation or have they developed sort of agriculture in their planting?

Speaker 4:

No, this is what grows, Especially the bark and the trees. They grow right there. It's right in their regions, everywhere that they are, and they will just go out, cut it off and come back and they smash it. This is the Maasai and the Datoga and people like that, but even the Hadzabi. They all go and they pick plants, leaves, roots, tubers. They all are medicinals but also nutrients that they're getting from it as well, Because there's, I mean, polyphenols huge in them. You know their favorite fruit is the wild plum, including Maasai. It looks very much. I've got pictures of these. It looks like a little cherry tomato and they're just like, oh my, this is my favorite, it's my favorite.

Speaker 4:

Just eating it. I'm thinking it's going to be really delicious and I was like, oh, it was so sour and bitter. I was like really, I was like whoa, it was so potent, so potent. But again, when you think about the bitter of it, it's a bitter, so it's a digestive. It helps them digest their food better. It helps to create more bile acid. So everything that you're doing is so profound. It's in nature. Everything we need is there and, yes, I do believe that we probably can overdo it. I think, especially when you get to bitters and things. I think a lot of things can be overdone, and but they know what they're doing. And the Messiah don't eat meat every day, and anyone who thinks they don't. They're mostly milk-based Milk is everything. Milk, Milk, raw milk. The women will drink about four liters a day, and then men will drink six to eight liters a day.

Speaker 2:

And this is cow milk.

Speaker 4:

It could be cow, it could be goat, it can be sheep, mostly cow. But I know that the chief and I are very good friends now. I went to. It was so exciting I was invited to go to the highest chief of all between Kenya and Tanzania, of all the Maasai, and he was being inaugurated and I was invited to go, and so now he's very good friends of mine now and his favorite is sheep and that's what I do. I do raw sheep milk and his favorite is raw sheep milk as well.

Speaker 4:

The cows that they have are very different than what we have we do and they're called the Zebu, the Maasai Zebu. They've got the hump on the back. So we do have a variety, a version, a couple of versions in the United States of the Zebu. It's higher in fat. The typical cow would have about 3.5% fat. The Zebu can have about a 6% to 7% fat, so it's much higher in fat content, the lactose that's in it.

Speaker 4:

Again, people think that the Maasai are low carb. They are far from low carb. The women are getting at least 200 grams of carbs just from the milk a day. The men at least 300 grams just from the milk. And so it was everything. It was not what I had ever studied and that's why we have to go and see it. I kept saying but is that just now, or has it always been that way? And they said milk has always been.

Speaker 4:

We don't really want to kill animals, they said. That's why we don't hunt. We want to live one with nature. They are so about keeping everything so as God designed everything, and they don't want to kill. But the reason why they have the sheep and the goats is because the cow is so revered. Like the Danny tribe with the pig, the cow is all that's their money. A man's wealth is based on the number of cows that he has, and so they really don't. The only time they will kill a cow is during either a ceremonial wedding, and I went to a Maasai wedding. Talk about unbelievable. You see all these warriors coming in and they have walked miles and miles to come to celebrate this. It was just unbelievable.

Speaker 4:

But so the cow would be like that. They would kill a cow for a wedding, a circumcision, something like that, but normally two to three times a week they would slaughter a sheep or a goat, which is what we were doing. So most of what we were consuming were sheeps and goats, which are small animals, and if you're cutting up those animals and you're dividing it between everyone in the group, there's not a lot of meat you're getting. We're not eating pounds and pounds a day. It was just a small portion and pounds a day, it was just a small portion. And the beautiful thing is, everything is divided up to different sectors, different genders. For person, I mean brilliant. The women will get the liver from the cow and the sheep. The liver from the goat goes to the older men, the elders. Think about the nutrients, think about how they know who would probably need these the most. It was powerful.

Speaker 2:

Did you ask them why they did it that way?

Speaker 4:

And I said why do you? They said we just know that they don't know, they can't verbalize it, but they said we just know that this is what they need. This is powerful stuff, this is powerful. And so they can't. They don't know the reason why. I just posted one today where I was asking them about blood, because blood is huge for them, especially when you're a warrior.

Speaker 4:

Now the warrior period this is something a lot of people don't understand. The warrior period is for a male when he turns 15 and it extends to 30. So for a 15 year period they're in this warrior stage and that's where they go to their slaughtering camp. Now there's a slaughtering camp that you have every week in your home region, in your tribe, for the whole tribe. When you go away for about three weeks to a month with six men, 10, 20 men they are all in a warrior period you will take three, four, five cows with you. You'll go far away and all you will do is just gorge yourself on meat, fat and blood. No milk there is no milk during that time. And they believe the reason why, especially blood. They think it makes you mentally and physically extremely powerful and very courageous to be able to kill a lion or whatever you need to do, because that's their whole goal is. We are to protect, this is what we do. It was just phenomenal.

Speaker 4:

And then to meet the warriors warriors, they're a different breed. They really don't want to be, especially with me, because I was a woman, that I was actually being allowed to enter a slaughter camp, because women are. They're very separate. The um, the hadzabi, are monogamous. They only have one wife. All the other tribes I've been living with are polygamists, so the man can have as many wives as he wants. But it made sense once I was there. They've got so much to do with all of this massive amounts of livestock. Starting about the age of three or four, a little boy already has a spear and has already been trained to not fear anything and he's out walking all by himself. I have a video of a little four he wasn't sure how old, but he's not maybe four or five years old all by himself walking. You were, I mean, we were out cutting wood and it's well. You can just see the elephants had just come through and just pushed over trees and you know.

Speaker 4:

I'm like oh, can I go pet them? Oh, my gosh, are you kidding me? They're destructive. I'm like, oh, I thought they were so cute. They said, oh no, are you kidding? This little boy was walking along all by himself, no adults with him, walking miles from his home to go and release someone to tend to the flocks. We're years old and I thought this is what's wrong with our world.

Speaker 4:

I remember growing up as a little girl, back in the sixties, you know, and I felt, climbing trees with our raccoons. They would. They taught me to climb trees. I'm hanging from them. My mother never worried whether I was going to break my neck or not. You know, children nowadays don't haven't been taught to have a common sense, to be able to assess the situation, because everyone's always watching over, hovering and now of they're all on their tablets and all this. They don't even have a life anymore. But these children are so profound, it was just remarkable. Remarkable how sharp they are, how brave they are, the respect I'm going to be posting this one tomorrow about respect. It is so beautiful. Every time a young child enters into the presence of the elders, they lean forward and they bow, and then the elder touches their head. Once you turn 16, 17, 18 years old, then you shake the hand. It's just always this honor. I never saw anger, I never saw bitterness, I never saw hostility, jealousy. The peace that is among the tribes across the board was profound.

Speaker 2:

What do you attribute that to?

Speaker 4:

They just don't believe. And for me, I think it's because, first, I think that the more and more we have social media especially, I look at the children. I look at what my students were 30 years ago compared to what they were when I retired. It was like night and day and I remember I kept telling once, once, technology kept infiltrating my classroom and I kept trying to push it back. No, I don't want to use this. My children were coming in. They couldn't even give me eye contact. Here's an interesting thing, because children are so much now raised by looking at a screen, they no longer are having face-to-face contact with humans.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 4:

I could not believe that my students didn't know where to put their tongue when they were talking. So when I'm teaching them how to read and I said, what does an F say? They're like they didn't know what to do with their tongue. What does a TH say? They had no idea where to put their tongue because they hadn't seen it. How shocking is that it took me three times longer to teach them to read than 30 years prior when children were having face-to-face contact. It's the same thing with the tribes they don't have. They don't have. Some of them are starting to get cell phones, but they're not the smartphones. They just want to be able to call people. So they're just the little, tiny little things that they can just call. But most of them do not have cell phones and they're just it's again. But most of them do not have cell phones and they're just it's again, going back thousands of years ago.

Speaker 4:

There's no electricity eyesight. No one wears glasses. The night vision was on and this is the thing that's important. If you aren't living with them, you don't see this. So we're out 11 o'clock at night. I have a flashlight because I can't see it and there's rocks every all over the place and I'm trying to see they. It's like they can see. I'm like you guys, how do you know that? How do you know there's a rock? We can see it. I'm like you can see that it was profound, profound. And these are in their hundreds as well. You know they don't have walkers. There's no arthritis, there's just no disease.

Speaker 2:

So draw some conclusions for us. You've given us a whole lot of data points, but maybe you're not at the point yet where you can draw some conclusions. But draw some conclusions about the various experiences, the various data points that you have and how they apply to us.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, and the follow-up. As part of that, I'd like to hear you know what have you changed? You know in your habits yourself. You know after, after going through these experiences.

Speaker 4:

Okay, here's a picture I said I've been living in essentially most of my life, so this is. It was not a new, the only bit. The biggest thing I've changed is I was eating a ton of ground beef when I was there and, of course, because I have histamine issues, I never did until I became a carnivore and then I started getting huge histamine because the meat I was eating and the raw organs are so high in histamine because they're aged, even though the organs are, but they're so high in histamine. Then I started realizing a few years ago I need to get unaged meat. So I had to make sure that any of the butchers I'd get my meat from freshly slaughtered freeze. It quickly changed everything for me, but I'm still doing ground meat.

Speaker 4:

When I went, especially with the Maasai, and I'm eating their meat and watching their jaws I have cameras where you can see I'm going into their mouth to watch, especially the Hadzabi. Their jaws are so powerful they could devour. It was taking me forever to get to. I'm like, and I thought, oh my gosh, I'm like a weakling here. My jaw cannot do what they're doing. They're pounding through bones, grinding it. I'm like my golly. No wonder there's no need for braces. No wonder their teeth are pristine because they're chewing this, going through this stuff. So now I no longer do ground meat, I'm buying the toughest meat. I wrote about this on someone's site the other day. I'm doing the toughest meat I can find and I'm chewing on bones. Now I'm just, I'm doing everything. I want to have that jawline, I want to have and I don't. You know, I I've got pretty, I my teeth. I think pretty good. I mean I'm 63 and I think that they're. But I felt like a wimp watching them power through their meat and the bones and the fat and the ligaments and, just, you know, the trachea there's.

Speaker 4:

I was again in awe. So that's one of the big things for me. I changed um, and I'm more getting dirty, more. I mean I've always been dirty because I mean I'm always out work tending to my land. It's what I do. But now I'm even more. I don't, I really don't even. I mean I clean my house, but I was so pristine about everything. I was on the floor washing everything.

Speaker 4:

I just like people I don't say when they come in, I don't even. I will say if I know that they've been near someplace that has glyphosate, okay, so that I fear coming into my home. But if I know we've been out hiking in the mountains and so forth and our shoes just have that kind of dirt on them, I will just say, don't worry, it's real earth, it's real dirt, we need to be in dirt and I'm always breathing in soil. I'm breathing in soil. It's very important, it's our microbiome, it's not just our food, it's our environment.

Speaker 4:

But I think the key takeaways, I think is and I'm trying so hard to get this out there, guys we have to understand yes, our plants are dangerous, but these plants without them, coupled together with animal and this is again well, this is going back to when humankind began we had the intuitive ability to understand if we don't consume these plants, we're going to die, and every tribe said this. And I believe because I think they're in my paper, I'm rewriting, I will be putting this out there I will be able to tell us what plants that we have in our regions replicate the same things that plants in every single region. We have very similar plants that do the same. They have these polyphenols, these saponins, all these wonderful components, compounds. They're healing and will prevent disease. Without them, I mean, can you imagine being infested with parasites all the time. Can you imagine being malaria? Can you imagine all the diseases that they could be getting? But they didn't because the plants. Without the plants, I don't believe that we, our humankind, would be living anymore. I think we would become extinct.

Speaker 4:

And I think that this is a powerful piece that we have to remember, that it's important, and I'm hoping that when I can bring this out, that anyone who's consuming a high-lute-based diet will start to think about gee. Maybe that there's something to this. Start to think about gee, maybe there's something to this. Lowering cholesterol, lowering LDL. There's even some of the plants that can lower blood glucose all of these things and I was doing their blood glucose levels. I was doing all the tribes' blood glucose. They were only pristine, and so I really think that these are things that I hope that when I come out with the information of what the plants are and showing it's research based it's not just what I think highly research based exactly all the compounds that are healing in specific plants, and I'm going to talk about all the different, not just the tribes I've lived with, but in all of the regions China, japan, asia, they all got these.

Speaker 4:

And you look at the Ayurveda, the Ayurvedic people. They understand thousands of years of using these medicinals, and so I think this is a big piece that we need to and again, movement. If we're gonna eat high animal, you wanna have wide arteries that are gonna. If there is some kind of blockage going on in there, we can survive it because our bodies are designed to have wider arteries allowing it to open. But there's also some of the plants that are showing they can actually cleanse the arteries as well. It's remarkable what the investigation is coming up with. So it's just I mean I hope I'm giving you guys enough information.

Speaker 2:

Now this is talking with. Suzanne is drinking from the fire hose, so but it's really, it's profound.

Speaker 4:

But again, I you know, and I'm, and I'm now incorporating more tubers into my diet. I had stopped because I was so concerned about the oxalates and I kept asking all the tribes aren't you afraid of oxalates and lectins and phytates and solanine and all the nightshades? And they're all like what. They thought it was crazy. But plants, they said. Plants are good for us, and even the Maasai. Now they don't ingest a lot. They will do fruit seasonal, it's seasonal. They will do honey seasonal. And honey is not consumed. Even in the Hadzabi it is not consumed every day Because when I was there and I have videos you can see they work so hard to try to find honey. There wasn't any because there was no plants out, there was no flowers to get the nectar from and so forth. So there's no honey.

Speaker 2:

So any of these? I was going to ask what makes honey seasonal.

Speaker 4:

And it's the flower, it's the plants, and so any of the gurus who are out there trying to say, oh, I gotta have honey every day. I'm sorry, ancestrally we do not have it every day, and so that it's just. There's so many powerful messages that the tribes were telling me and they were so excited. And when I talked to the, the messiah, and I said you know, what do you think is so powerful about blood? And to see these elders that are, they look, they're like looking at each other, and they kept saying, oh, we don't know, we never really thought about it. We just know. You know, we thought maybe it was, you know, replenishing our blood, or we just thought that we just know there's something powerful in it, we know what it does for us. So then I started explaining to them it it's high in iron, you know sodium. These are all powerful things that we need. It's got wonderful. It's got minerals in it, you know. And they were like they were, oh my gosh, they were thanking me because they now that it was like something we never thought about. This is so powerful for us. We were right, we were right, we knew there was something about it, but they couldn't verbalize it, and so it's just profound.

Speaker 4:

You know, I think again to say that and I will say in all my research there has never been a vegan and there has never been a fully carnivore tribe. Do not say that the Inuit were carnivore, they are far from it, because they were finding any possible way they could to have plants and they were eating the digesta, they were fermenting, so that when they would ferment food, they would collect, they would go to the mice or the voles, the rodents, their nests in the fall and they would collect all of their tubers and all the things that they had gathered and they would go and freeze them or they would ferment them. And those are things that there there's so much that we don't know about and we can all make these assumptions and just say I say just that I'm sorry, it doesn't cut it, because the ruminants, the ruminants were consuming plants and we've always had the ruminants because that's what we're eating yeah and, yeah, the woolly mammoth, these are all ruminants.

Speaker 4:

It's just a lot of things that we have to think about and we have to be careful what people are saying, because assumptions get us into trouble. And you know, when someone the other day a big guru was talking about eating raw meat and I said that's a very dangerous thing to say Because the plants, maybe the tribes and our ancestors may have consumed raw meat, but they were also consuming it with plants that would kill off the parasites or anything else that you might get from that meat. So we have to be very careful, you know, and most of them do not eat a lot of raw meat. They really prefer, especially the Maasai, they prefer to boil. So there's just so much I could tell you guys. I mean the information. Just, it's just so much to share so much.

Speaker 2:

So how are you putting all this together and how can we benefit from what you have, from the work you're doing? What's the next step?

Speaker 4:

I hope that people will start to somehow slowly incorporate being a human. We've got to get out of these cages that we're in. We've got to get all these cages that we're in got to get off our screens. Put them down. Start with our children. Teach them from the beginning what it means to be human. It's a gift. We are such an intelligent species, but now it's like we've become this insane species. It has no clue and it's just so profound to live with people who are so majestic.

Speaker 4:

I just kept saying you can hear me on the videos oh, I feel so alive. It's like you've been searching your whole life to feel. What does it feel to be a human, to be so free, so free, I know this sounds, sounds goofy. Even you're out going to the bathroom in the bush and you're still afraid. Is there a cobra? It's your python. You know if they're gonna come and get me. I just felt so alive. You know I'm being a human. This is what it's all about, you know, and you have no water to wash with. You know you're just kind of dirty. You know I would just that's then you wonder why they shave their heads. You know, you're just kind of dirty. You know, I would. Just then you wonder why they shave their heads? You know, because it's one less thing to clean. So it was just. There's so much.

Speaker 4:

I think it's simple, little things. I have so many people contacting me, but how I have to go to work, what do I do when I'm at work, you know. And when you go to work, go to work, park far away and walk, take the stairs, don't take the elevator. Ask, tell your, get your group. I mean, I used to do the same thing in the school I worked at. I lived nearby school, so I ran into school every day with my girls and we were always running. I would do the same thing with my children, my students. I was always having them outside running, playing.

Speaker 4:

You know, we'd squat during sitting instead of sitting in a chair. We were squatting. Do these things, ask your, the heads of your board or committees. And all these means let's go outside and have our meetings, let's go walking and have our meetings. I said there's so many things get people squatting more. We've got to learn to squat, you know, and I've got videos to teach people, because people cannot squat. They get a hold of me. I don't know how to do it. The pain is horrendous.

Speaker 4:

I've got to show us how to squat again. It's powerful. You have to believe how incredible your body will feel. Your hips, everything just open up. It's amazing. It's amazing. But I think the key is however possible we can reduce all, no process, none whatsoever. I wouldn't even go near anything that man has put into anything he had to do with. You know, eat as ancestrally as you can. It doesn't mean we have to have tons and tons of meat. The Messiah are not eating tons and tons of meat, like we've been led to believe. Only unless you are a warrior, and that's only a few times during the year. Otherwise they come back and they're eating, they're doing their milk and so forth forth. They're out tending to their flocks and so forth. But the pounds and pounds of meat that we're told that they're eating, and everyone who's saying oh, everyone eat three, four, five pounds of meat a day. They aren't doing that. Think of the animals that they would have to slaughter to do that and the messiah is so against that, and the hadzabi hardly even.

Speaker 4:

It was horrible, they, they hardly even had the opportunity. It was such slim pickings. You've got the little bows and arrows. They're just trying to shoot anything. You know, and it's not me every day they survive. And they and I said do you think that plants are disfellows at food? Do you think that they're just? No, they're important to us. They're so important to us, I think.

Speaker 2:

I assume you haven't specifically articulated it, but I assume that as a rule, you observed very good health throughout all these primitive tribes.

Speaker 4:

Extreme, except if I look at the tribes who had the Denitron, which was mostly the sweet potatoes. They were healthy, they did not have disease, but they were frail. They did not have teeth. They did not have disease, but they were frail. They did not have teeth, they were just very frail and aging rapidly. And if we don't want to age rapidly, you know we do need animal. And for those of you who are vegans I was vegan for almost 30 years have some. Have at least something once a week, if you can, Whether it's fish, eggs, something we need. The nutrients are powerful and we were humans and that's what we've had through our life. And even the Danny tribe will have a little bit of meat once or twice a month. I think if they had a couple of times a week, they would change their health, would profoundly change.

Speaker 2:

Lifestyle of these folks is primarily hunter-gatherer. They're not really doing any agriculture.

Speaker 4:

No, the only hunter-gatherers that we have left would be the Hadzabi, and sadly, guys, there's only 800 of them and only about 400 of those are living still out in the wood and out in the bush. Half of them have left. Some of them that were with the tribe that we were living with had gone to live in the cities and they came back because they were getting sick. And I said so, you didn't like all the modern technology? And they said no. They said this is how we're meant to live. And I said even in harsh conditions you have to work so hard. I said we love this. I said you're not in stress at all because it's so hard you have to find your food every day. Stress, no, we live for the moment because we know we have food. We will always have tubers. Tubers are 365 days a year. It's not seasonal.

Speaker 2:

They will have that every day, I guess the Masai are herders.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, they're pastoralists. So pastoralists, like the Datoga, they're the pastoralists, so they're the ones who are having the goats, the sheep, the cows and the donkeys help. And of course, they've all got their dogs and some of them are now getting chickens. Now the Maasai will not eat chicken, they will not eat chicken or fish, they will not hunt, but they will raise chickens now because they want to be able to sell the eggs to make money, so they can buy more cattle, and so they are scientists, but they will not consume them. I asked the Hadzabi how important are eggs to them and they said if we find them, we don't find them very often. So they didn't think that it was some big. You know, the baboon rear end and brain was most important to the Hadzabi. I was like, really, I was like all righty.

Speaker 2:

Baboon butts and brains.

Speaker 3:

I love it. Haven't heard that one before. I was like all righty, that might be our mic drop moment there. Um, yeah, just let people know you know where they can continue to follow up on all of this. I know you've kind of been releasing this and you mentioned that you're writing some papers and stuff. Where can people follow along? As the best place to find me?

Speaker 4:

is on instagram, because that's why I do all my live chats and so forth, and I still continue to do live chats with the tribes because I still stay in touch with them. I still do that on instagram. It's suzannealexander.104. I'm on facebook and twitter, but if you want really to get the live chats and be able to to actually communicate with the tribes, you can ask. Yeah, you can be part of it and you can ask your questions and they'll answer them right there for you. So it's pretty nifty to do something that's hasn't been done before.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, Wow, I've done a little bit of wandering around on Suzanne's Instagram site and there is a ton of stuff there, so, yeah, definitely worth following up on. We'll make sure that information shows up in the show notes.

Speaker 4:

Thank you so much guys and I appreciate this.

Speaker 2:

Thanks for having me on again. Thank you, Great seeing you. Thanks, guys. All right For Suzanne Alexander and Dr Philip Ovedia. This has been the Stay Off my Operating Table podcast. We appreciate you joining us. We look forward to talking to you next time.

Speaker 1:

Chances are you wouldn't be listening to this podcast if you didn't need to change your life and get healthier. So take action right now. Book a call with Dr Avedia's team. One small step in the right direction is all it takes to get started. Contact us at ifixheartscom slash talk. That's ifixheartscom slash talk.

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Dr. Philip Ovadia

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Jack Heald

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