Page 71 - Spring2020

of the fat-soluble vitamins that comes in these people are not runners. These are just people who have a tendency to eat
fats is vitamin K, specifically K , which is really a carb-heavy diet. They’re young people, so they don’t seem to show a
2
high in animal products and is responsible for lot of the negative effects that might be coming down the pike. Are they
depositing minerals in the bone where they’re still doing damage to their heart?
supposed to go and not in other tissues. If we
want to prevent calcification in our arteries, then SH: I think so. They’re training their bodies to be dependent on carbo-
getting lots of vitamin K from animal fats is hydrates. Even in the presence of glucose, our hearts will prefer to use
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really important. fatty acids. But if we’re setting up our whole system for burning carbs
The other aspect of this, the other part of as we age, and our body is not able to burn fats readily, then when other
heart disease that is really important, in looking things happen, like oxidative stress and imbalances in our autonomic
at heart attacks (the Weston A. Price Founda- nervous system, and we’re not fat-adapted and can’t easily burn fats for
tion and Dr. Cowan speak a lot about this): the fuel, that sets us up for heart attacks because the heart is being forced to
heart, interestingly enough, prefers to burn fat burn a fuel source it doesn’t want to.
for fuel—fatty acids and ketones—which is dif-
ferent from the rest of the body, where if glucose HG: Can you explain about free radicals and why we need more fat in
is present, it will burn that first. I have countless relation to that?
studies that show that even in the presence of
glucose, the heart will choose to burn fat over SH: There are a lot of problems with free radicals. Every time our body
glucose. One study showed that when glucose is burns a fuel source, whether carbohydrate, protein or fat, it makes energy,
present and they put ketones in there, the glucose but it also makes waste products. Water is a waste product. That can be
utilization of the heart went down by 30 to 60 helpful for our body—we can use it in other places or we can breathe it
percent because the heart wanted the ketones. out. We make carbon dioxide, and we breathe that out as well. But we
The heart is a special organ. If the heart is also make free radicals. I call them the “exhaust” that we make—like
forced to burn carbohydrates more than it wants when a car burns fuel, it has a waste product. Free radicals are supposed
to because we’re not providing it with the fats to be taken care of by the endogenous antioxidants that our body makes.
it needs, bad things can happen. One of those And the two main antioxidants that it makes are glutathione peroxidase
things is a heart attack. Special circumstances and superoxide dismutase. So those are made in our bodies.
cause heart attacks. One of these special cir- What’s interesting, though, is that when we look at burning a carb
cumstances is the heart being forced to use more versus burning fat, or having a carbohydrate-burning metabolism versus
glucose than it wants. a fat-burning metabolism, we actually get less energy from burning car-
bohydrates. That’s why, when we eat carbohydrates, we’re hungry two
HG: I think you break this topic down in a way hours later—because we don’t make as much energy and we burn through
that’s easy to understand. Every time I turn it quicker. The fat gives us more energy, more molecules of ATP. With
around, I see people carb-loading. And these carb burning, we also get more exhaust—the free radicals. This has been

THE WISE TRADITIONS PODCAST: TALK TO US! WE’RE LISTENING!
We had some unique episodes this past summer:
• RFK Jr. on vaccine safety (#193 “RFK Jr. Speaks Out”).
• Dr. Geraldine McGuire on restoring a rainforest in Australia (#199 “Harmonious Living”).
• Hilda Labrada Gore (our podcast host) offering her top picks of what she’s learned from the show (#200
“Holistic Hilda’s Health Tips”).
• Leo Sharashkin on bees and the art of beekeeping (#198 “The Buzz on Bees and Honey”).
• Steven Sashen on minimalist footwear (#195 “Feet First”).

What else would you like to hear on the podcast? We are open to your suggestions for topics and guests.
Email us at podcast@westonaprice.org to tell us.
If you have ideas for who should be a guest on the show, please fill out the application on the podcast page on our
website (just under the listener survey): chapters.westonaprice.org/podcast-guest-suggestion/.

SPRING 2020 Wise Traditions 71