Theresa Piela  0:00  
All right, welcome to the bioenergetic view. I'm your host, Theresa piella, joined as always, by Jay Feldman and Mike Fave today, we'll be responding to Justine's response video to our first comment on one of her clips, which will play to refresh anyone's memory if they didn't see episode 19, and then diving into a success win from a follower and closing the podcast with a Q and A let's get started from around the internet with that previous clip.

Justine Stenger  0:33  
I thought Ray Peat had things all figured out. You know, when someone sounds so intelligent, precise, so well referenced that you actually stopped questioning the lens that they're using. That was me. I was fully bought into the idea that carbs were essential to lower my stress, to protect my thyroid, protect my brain and prevent catabolism. But here's what I didn't see. Repeat is a biochemist. He's not a physicist. He sees the body as chemical reactions, not as a quantum electrical system that's governed by light, water and magnetism, and that changes everything. Glucose metabolism pushes electrons through complex one, which is the leakiest, most reactive oxygen species, prone entry point within the electron transport chain, peak called Sugar anti stress, but in reality, it just props up a broken redox state, one that can't handle fat because the mitochondria are too compromised, but when you restore redox, the system runs much cleaner on fats. Complex two entry is tighter, it's more coherent, and it generates way more ATP with much less damage. So what did Ray Peat really do for us, he gave people with a broken metabolism a dietary roadmap, and I don't want that for you. What I want for you is for you to rebuild your electrical terrain so you finally know what it feels like to live inside a metabolism that actually works.

Theresa Piela  1:54  
So before we continue, just to give a little background, she is a self proclaimed cellular health expert. And if you go back to Episode 19, we break down some of the claims in in her video and and just give you an explanation so you can do your own research and understand it for yourself. To shift into the next video where she responds to our response in Episode 19. Here we go.

Justine Stenger  2:25  
One of the challenges of working in this online space is that instead of engaging in respectful dialog, some people choose to use their platforms to discredit and smear and of course, that's disappointing, but let's set the record straight with the biochemistry here.

Theresa Piela  2:39  
All right, Jay, jump in. Yeah. So,

Jay Feldman  2:43  
you know, we saw that earlier clip, and we spent a lot of time dissecting it in the last episode where we took issue with, I mean, first off, even just to step back from that, she made it sound as though she was very familiar with Ray's work. She was fully bought in. She had an understanding of it. And then came to find out that it wasn't actually accurate physiologically, because he was missing some really big pieces in his lens. That was basically what we heard from her, and that's important to keep in mind, because a number of the issues that we brought up with that ended up being confirmed, one of them being that it sounded like she wasn't very familiar with Ray's work, because what she was describing it as was not really a good reflection of what it was. And as we'll see a little bit later on, she does actually acknowledge that she's not familiar with Ray's work. In addition, we talked through the issues we had with what she described as the biochemistry of fat versus carb metabolism, and we did so in a respectful way. There was nothing personal that, you know, we brought up. We actually made a point multiple times to mention that this wasn't personal toward Justine. There was nothing, as far as like discrediting or smearing, which is what she's accusing us of in this most recent clip, where we weren't we didn't make this about her credentials, or you know that, you know there's something about her that is unbelievable, and so don't listen to anything we you know that she says. We just made it about exactly the things that she did say, and nothing more. There's nothing beyond that. And there were some very clear points that she made in that first clip regarding the biochemistry of fat versus car metabolism that we disagreed with, and we would say is very clearly incorrect, and that's what we were responding to. There was no discrediting, no smearing. And yeah, I mean, kind of ironically, in the first video, she was basically trying to discredit Ray by saying that he was a biochemist and not a physicist, so he doesn't actually understand human physiology, and he doesn't see the body as a quantum electrical system, so he can't know or understand the differences between carbon fat metabolism and the way that's important. So she was doing some discrediting and smearing in her original clip of Ray's work, which. She's later admitted to not even be familiar with, but when it came to our response, our commentary on her video, there was no smearing, there was no disrespect, there's no discrediting. So I wanted to just take a moment to point that out, because it comes up kind of a couple other times in her caption and in the comment that she left on our video that we'll discuss and where she's essentially playing the victim, as if we went out and attacked her out of nowhere, and we made it this personal situation. But the reality was, she put out information that we would regard as very obviously incorrect and harmful to people, and we were pointing that out. And so there's, there's no inherent problem with that from my perspective.

Theresa Piela  5:43  
Yeah, I think part of our duty and mission is to provide the truth, or as close to the truth, as we currently have access to. And you know, if we're finding people that are maybe describing things in ways that we have clear issues with, we just want to provide our perspective and again, then people can take what they want and decide what they want with the research that they do. Mike, what was your reaction to her response? Or, I guess, well, before we get further in that video, but her reaction to, yeah, just the way we commented on her work.

Mike Fave  6:18  
For me, when I you see somebody who comes out and creates a perspective, as if she spent time understanding Ray's work, right? So that's what she started with. I understand Ray's work. I thought he was a genius. I was super engrossed in this, until I under came to this new understanding, which was that he's not a physicist. And you know, physics, Trump's chemistry, biochemistry is basically this perspective that she's generating. And then from there, she goes on to, in her initial quip clip that we quoted, talk about biochemistry incorrectly, she doesn't understand the biochemistry as a purported, you know, cellular energy specialist or expert. I don't know what the specific titles are. And then when she gets called out because she's putting this publicly right, this public's year, it's social media. She gets called out on her information. Specifically, she doesn't get called out as a human. She doesn't get called out for her credentials. She doesn't get called out anything like this. It was very much about the information and the perspective that she was sharing. She then goes on to say that she's smeared and discredit and and presents herself as a victim. For me, that's like, I have zero respect for that. Because if you're going to put your information out into the public sphere, for me, for all of us, you are going to get hate if I make a video about some carnivore influencer or I talk about some perspective that's different. I know people are going to come back and say, You don't know what you're talking about. This is how it works. This is, it's how it works. This is the foundation of intellectual discussion and all of this in general. So you can come out and say whatever perspective you want, but then don't get upset and play victim and and act like somebody smearing you when you get corrected on the information that you put out. This is just how it rolls and then doubled. And then here we're having this doubling down and presenting things again, like as if you know we're coming at her personally, and this is actually like, now she's gonna go on here and quote biochemistry again, still in this frame that physics Trumps biochemistry, and then just basically repeat to us what we already corrected her on in The previous episode in our response to her first video. So this, this the whole dynamic here for me, and then she leaves a comment under the video with this shaming tone. It's like it, I have no respect for that at all. She could have just said, Hey, like, I got the biochemistry wrong. This is actually what goes on here. And yeah, I'm not really super familiar with Ray's work. And I'm like, Fine, cool. Like, thank you for, you know, being straight up about it, but this whole like, I need to now act like I actually know the biochemistry change my perspective, and then act like, Oh, I'm the victim here. I'm being discredited. I'm being smeared. It's like you if you were right the first time around, if you came out with the correct information the first time around, and you didn't try to present yourself as you now know physics, and you supersede Ray's body of work, while at the same time completely disregarding Ray's body of work. This would have never happened. So it's like, you you make the bed you lay in, don't, you know, put your hand in the flame and then get burned, and then be like, Oh, I shouldn't have got burned. This is unfair, or I'm being smeared like I don't respect that. I think that that is I think that it's disingenuous, and I you know it, if you didn't understand Ray's work from the jump, like, then just don't come out and like, talk about, you can pick a particular piece that you don't under, that you don't agree with, and talk about that specific piece that would be intellectually honest. Not. Ray's a biochemist, and he doesn't understand physics, and I understand physics, and this is how things work, and then get it wrong. Like, it's like, the worst thing that you could have done is to then get the not only, like, say physics is better, but then get the biochemistry wrong underneath. So it's like, you need to go back to biochemistry, understand the biochemistry, and then you can grab. Graduate to physics, and then you can spend time understanding Ray perspective, Ray's perspective, and then you could take it down fair it's all fair game. This is how it works. So for me, this is, yeah, this is, and I think, you know, I think she was gonna the comment, like, think, hope that we're gonna come back and not, like, double down on what we said. And it's like, no, like, we're gonna double down here and be like, Look, this is what the deal is. So for me, when I saw as like and to be fair, the other thing want to mention, we didn't, Jay reached out to her and did invite her to come on the show, so she had the opportunity to come on with us and speak directly about this. This was post facto. It wasn't for the initial episode, to be fair, but it was for this episode. We asked her if she wanted to come on so she could have spoken her piece. But I, for me, I still would have said the same thing here. It still would have been the same response, because it's, again, like, this is not about it's not about the person with everything we're doing. We're not it's not about, oh, this person's this. They're an idiot. They're this, or that it's this is there's nothing about that. It's like, about the specific information. Because I think we as people who are disseminating information online, have a responsibility to put out information that that is as close to truthful as possible, because information is still unfolding. We're all still learning as we go, and that is reasonable and is able to help people. So these are things that that's a responsibility as somebody who is disseminating information. And so yeah, it's like to sit here and be like, Oh, well, you can't, like, come out and attack what I'm saying. It's like, no, no. That's the point of this is to get as close to the truth as possible by putting ideas and information out into the public sphere and having it test the fire of the public sphere. That's how it goes. This is, that's the nature of any type of scientific or intellectual discussion, at least from my perspective, right? At least from my perspective?

Theresa Piela  11:43  
Well, yeah, and I don't think our intention was never to attack. It's just to say, Wait, we understand it differently. Let's break it down with the biochemistry to show our perspective. I mean, there's no fighting or attacking or violence in this. And I, and I would hope people would do the same for us, because, you know, with the platforms that we have and as health educators, with the intention to help and save people time from all the chaos in the wellness space, if we were saying something that was inaccurate, I would love to be corrected so that I'm not harming people or sending them down a pathway where they're doing serious metabolic damage to their body, because, you know, they think they're doing what they need to do to get better. I know we've talked about this before, but people get so desperate to feel better that they'll they trust these people with huge following. So we just, you know, our goal is to to make sure that people are getting the full story and yes, as close to accurate as possible

Jay Feldman  12:44  
if you're dealing with low energy symptoms like chronic cravings and hunger, low energy and fatigue, joint pain, weight gain, digestive symptoms like bloating or issues with motility, brain fog, poor sleep or insomnia, hormonal imbalances or Various low energy chronic health conditions like autoimmune conditions, high blood pressure, insulin resistance and on. From there that head over to J Feldman wellness.com/energy, where you can sign up for the free energy balance mini course. In this mini course, I'll walk you through the best diet, exercise and lifestyle strategies to resolve these low energy symptoms and chronic health issues. These strategies are all centered around how you can maximize your cellular energy to resolve these issues. So again, to sign up for that free energy balance mini course, head over to J Feldman wellness.com/energy I mean a couple points. One is, you know, to your point, Theresa, people have critiqued our content plenty of times, and some of it we've discussed, you know, in previous episodes, we discussed an article from Marty Kendall. There's, there's been a handful of other situations, and, yeah, it's, that's a part of putting information out in a public setting, is it's subject to critique. And as Mike was saying, that's a part of the scientific process, and that happens with scientific research as well. It's, it's a part of the situation. And it does bring us to something that I think, you know, Mike, you were touching on, and that's there's a level of responsibility here. And this has come up in some very telling situations. We talked about this in the David Stevens episodes, a little bit like these situations where people are making really ridiculous claims that have no basis in physiology. We're not they're not saying something that we just don't fully agree with, or that they're misapplying, you know, like we've talked about Ken berry saying that fructose is more glycated than glucose, and there's truth to that, like there is that is coming from some sort of scientific accuracy, the question of whether that's relevant to consuming fructose and whether we shouldn't be eating fruit and all the rest is a different story. And that's, you know, where we have most of the have most of those disagreements, but at least there's something there. But on the flip side, we've talked about situations like with Anthony Chafee saying that most animals on Earth are in ketosis. We've talked about this situation with David Stevens saying that don't consume sucrose because it can't cross in the blood brain barrier, and so it can't fuel your body or your brain. I mean, there are some blatant, just purely inaccurate statements being made that are coming out of thin air, that have no basis in physiology. Are very simple to verify as well. And there is a responsibility here to do, to actually verify your information. Put thought into it, think critically about it. And that's skipped over in this, like, modern social media world, because every post that these people with large followings make brings them in 1000s and 1000s of dollars. Like, I don't think people realize how much money is in this for these people with huge followings, especially, and so there's this and also on the at the same time, social media really pushes, like, consistent, constantly putting out content, which means that it ends up being diluted, like there's a drive to put out poor quality, diluted content, whether it's right or wrong, and to say dramatic, bombastic things to get clicks and to stir up controversy. And, you know, we talked about it with candy Frazier, where she seems to say the primal BOD, where she seems to say, like, the most outrageous things, just to elicit a reaction. And even though a lot of her comments on her videos, you know, are very strongly disagreeing with her, at least in some of that, she's getting massive amounts of views, and I'm sure, making a lot of money as a result. And so there's this huge incentive to not think about what you're putting out there and just pump out content. And I think that this, at least in some ways, is a product of that, like this post here from Justine, the initial one, and I think I mean, most like influencers fall to this, to this trap, but there's and I think because of that, this responsibility to put out legitimate information that has some support and making it clear what it's supported by, and if it's supported by an anecdote, that's fine. If you want to say this is your experience, that's fine. Don't lie about your experience. Don't say that you read all of someone's work or followed their work, or understood their work and applied it and it was wrong. But like, if you want to say this is my experience, I tried adding in carbs because someone told me to who said that they were doing this based on repeats work, and I didn't feel as good as when I took them out. Fine. That's fine if you want to say that, but don't, don't be dishonest about the anecdote, and then don't cite biochemistry that you don't fully understand incorrectly. Along with that. I just take a huge issue with this, and it's not I mean, this goes far beyond Justine, I know like she is prompting this conversation, but the number of people that are just putting out entirely fabricated or blindly parroted inaccurate information is absolutely insane, and it's so damaging to people because they have a lot like people who aren't spending their lives or their work Understanding these things, can't easily tell the difference, and so this is really, really harmful to like, the population who is trying to get, like, help for their legitimate health issues from this information. So yeah, it just is highlighting this much larger problem. There's, there's no solution to it with the current setup of like, what social media is, but I hope that it discussing this at least encourages people to take a much closer, more discerning eye and be a lot more careful about claims that people are making. I know I'm going on a little bit of a tangent here, but we've talked about this in terms of, like trying to verify other people's information and the problems with using AI and you know, it's it's not an easy thing to navigate, and the people who are putting out this information are part of the problem, and it's a massive problem for people.

Mike Fave  18:27  
I want to add to this too, because I think this is actually a really important conversation outside of like this specific context. But when you think about like the social media algorithm, like even as a as somebody who's creating content, you feel the pressure that you have to put stuff out consistently because the the algorithm drives it. And then there's topics that you want to talk about that you know are helpful, but you also know will not drive traffic, because it the making it relevant is difficult to like what people are being pushed to regularly and what they're being focused on. And I say this not to be like, Oh, it's so hard being a creator. No, no, it's not. It's not that like, it's this is not this argument. It's more that when you start doing it, you start to see, like, where the industry is pulling you. There's an industry pulling you to make rapid content that's very short, has no context and nuance, and goes out consistently, all the time, all the time, all the time, and is inflammatory, because that's what generates people's views, generates attraction, generates clicks, all of this type of stuff. And then even if you look at metrics for social media and these components, it's geared towards that. It's an intention game. So the value in social media, and I think people because human when you know from a general human psyche, you look at somebody's YouTube channel, Instagram channel, whatever the thing is, and you see millions of followers, there's an implicit assumption that they must have valuable information at that point. And often that's not actually the case, because what social media is looking at is a. Attention, not quality of information. So the algorithm is geared towards who keeps people on the platform the most, the longest, scrolling, the most clicking, the most all this type of stuff, so that they have their ad revenue that they can generate off that, not which information set is the most like valuable niche, specific bet, well, most brawl, research, etc. So you have, I think if you understand this, this piece, then you understand the social media game a little bit better. And like, for creators, like, it's the same thing, like, you get pushed into this direction, even if you look at YouTube video, like, even metrics. If I'm looking at my own videos, it's like, people want 10 minute videos. When I select a video, I want a 10 minute video because I know I don't have time to watch a 30 minute video. But not every topic can be covered in 10 minute chunks. It has to get fully flesh something out. It needs that time. And then there's going to be pieces that you're going to have to unfold. So it's the social media in itself, I think, like you have this mass exposure of information for people. But the way the platforms, algorithms, and I'm not an expert on this type of stuff, it's just from being in it that I kind of get a gage that it pushes a particular type of content and pushes creators in a particular type of direction. So you have all this exposure to information, and people are talking about, well, there's, you know, we need to disinformation and misinformation and all the these terms are they creating? It's like, this is a feature of the system, because the system is not geared towards harnessing, like, what is the highest quality information? It's geared towards attention. Now the next thing is, and this is for people in general, you have this, this dynamic where it's like, we need a centralizing body that's going to, like, determine which information is actually the best information, or you need to have, like, the more grassroots level, where you have the individuals need to make the determination. From my standpoint, and this is why we always talk about this on the podcast, I think fundamentally the individual needs to develop the ability to discern the information. Because the thing is, you're going to have to outsource, right? I'm not a tax professional. I'm not a business professional. I'm not going to be an expert in US tax code, and, God knows, whatever other countries tax code. So I need to not develop the skill of being an expert in tax code, but develop the ability to discern who knows what they're talking about, who actually has an understanding of what's going on, and think this is one of the fundamental skills that we all have to learn. And it's even like, if I'm going to look at other information understanding and what's going on economically, like I need to figure out who are the people who know what they're talking about. And it's not their follower counts, and it's not their it's not how many posts they do on a weekly basis. It's not even who's the most engaging. Some of the best people are boring as hell, but they know their information. They know their stuff. And it's like about being able to discern who is appropriate, because we have to outsource. It's a feature of human society. We society as a whole. The way I see it is like, it's almost like the body, where you have different individual cells and tissues that are specialized in some particular area, and then other areas are doing other things, and it's a cohesion working together, because we can't all be experts in every single thing, and that's not even the point is for anybody to do that. Everybody kind of has a skill set in it in an area, and they have other skill sets in other areas, but some are more developed than others, and in some areas you outsource where you're not as developed, or you go to somebody else to learn, or whatever the thing isn't. That's kind of how things work. And I think that that's fair and fine, but I think the number one skill is to learn that discernment ability so that you can figure out, where do you get your information, who is it coming from, and is it valuable? And also, even for people, like, even if you're watching our content, you should be sitting there being like, does Mike know what he's talking about here, does this sound correct and be verifying what I'm saying? Because maybe 80% of what I'm saying is good, but there's 20% where I'm off, and that's the thing is like in each in each circumstance with each person that we listen to, even if somebody's 80% off and 20% correct, there's still gems and pieces in there that you can take from so it's about discerning who, on average, is going to be most correct overall, give you the the highest leverage information. And then even in that information, you still need to be discerning how much of that information is actually legitimate, how much of that information is is appropriate, and then go from there. So kind of like how we're setting up our diets, and we're controlling what we eat, we're trying to figure out what's the best combination of foods, what's the best combination, or how do we set up our and structure our diet? The same thing has to be done with information. We should still be looking out and creating an information diet and saying like, these are the sources that I trust, and then also verifying that. Because you can, you know, you can go out right now and you can go pick out, okay, juice is good. You go to the grocery store, you look at the back, okay. Why does this have cellular, you know, carrageenan and cellulose gum in it? Do you still have to verify each piece? And it's, yes, it's annoying, but at the end of the day, like, I think that's the only way we're going to realistically like as individuals, be able. To develop and grow and do things is if you have a centralizing body that gets put in control and making these decisions, well then, then you still have to even verify the centralizing body, because it's like, who is determining what the centralized body is saying is appropriate? And it's even dangerous. It's dangerous to put your eggs all in one basket. I think it's better that you as the individual are the filtering piece, and there's a lot of different baskets to choose from than it is that there's only one basket that you have to choose from, and then now you don't have to make any decisions anymore, because there's only one choice. So it's an interesting, interesting dynamic. But I think about this stuff quite a bit, even in creating content and like trying to find a divide where it's like you can get the information out there. It's interesting to people, but also, like, it's actually verified it's correct. And then, like, I'm putting the nuance and context in there, instead of just like, throwing stuff out, you know, like, oh, the "Ray Peaters", they like metabolism. So I'm going to go in, I'm going to act like I was a Ray Peater, make a post about it, and then transition to be how I know much more than the guru of the whole entire sphere, Dr Peat, I have more information than him. So I don't want you to you know all the people who are struggling on the diet. I don't want you to just have a diet, follow my specific X, Y and Z, course and program, and then I'll get you to this place and whatever the deal is. So it's like you could see the line of attack. It's like they like metabolism. Dr Peat knows about metabolism, but physics supersedes biochemistry. Inject that perspective, and boom, I know about physics. And here's why all your stuff didn't work, and you need to go in this direction. So it's like, it's just a clever, clever at least for me, I see this a clever marketing tactic, especially because we'll see here she comes back. She's like, Well, yeah, I don't really know Ray's work. And it's like Soul case, your initial post was a lie.

Jay Feldman  26:43  
And we'll definitely get to that caption for sure. Something that comes to mind here is that is the word careless. Like, I think that that's kind of, it really characterizes what social media is about right now. It's like just, it's like being careless about the content you put out there, just putting it out, and not spending the time to time and thought to validate, to try to put out accurate information, to make sure that what you're putting out is genuine and honest, and then to be called on on it and play the victim. I mean is, I think it's really just the epitome of what social media is right now. And to be honest, I think what it actually comes down to, and I'm not saying anybody, like everybody, should be able to post content like you know, that's fine, but maybe if that's not you, if you're not someone who's going to be able to put enough thought into this, then put out what you think and brand it as that, and say, This is just what I'm pondering. I heard this thing once, and I'm thinking this, and I heard this guy say this about physics, so that's what I think now. But maybe you shouldn't be the one saying, like, like posting that everyone else is wrong and that you're the expert here. Like, maybe that's not, that's not your place. If that's if this is how you're going to be posting and thinking about things. So that's, I guess I'll leave it there. Mike, I think you had a good number of comments here about just like, the state of things, being able to discern information, and that being a tough very tough to navigate right, far easier said than done. But in this day and age of not only what the type of content that's posted, but also how much people's attention spans are reduced and how little we're encouraged to really think, I think it's that skill is more valuable than ever. It's more unique than ever, and it's something that will help prevent you from getting dragged down by what is dragging the whole world down these days. So definitely easier said than done, but something that I think is a worthy pursuit.

Theresa Piela  28:53  
Yeah, you both remind me how that skill of discernment is part of what got us into this space, right? We maybe interacted with doctors experts early on in our journey, and we took their advice as the truth, right, without really even having access to thinking that we could question it or challenge it or maybe find another viewpoint. So I think leaning back from everything, questioning everyone, especially the people that are performing as if they are the guru or the expert you know, and really knowing that it is such a valuable skill to develop, even if it does take time, even if it feels like, oh my gosh, I don't understand this biochemistry. I'm not someone that you know has ever been good at discerning this type of science, being patient with the process, because, you know, it is, it is your health after all, and no one will come to save you. And like you both have said, we do need to outsource to some degree, but taking the time to making sure it's lining up and that internal compass will develop when you start to strengthen and notice, does the. Feel right? Does this check out? Is my body giving me the feedback that this is right? Or am I forcing myself to follow this protocol that actually my body is rebelling against, and I'm getting weird symptoms, but I feel like I should just push through, because that's what this expert said. So let's see what else she has to add. 

Justine Stenger  30:18  
Set the record straight with the biochemistry here saying fat is always a cleaner fuel or CARB is always cleaner, does ignore mitochondrial physics. And here is the reality, fatty acid oxidation raises the FADH2 to NADH ratio, so in an overcharged, sedentary or circadian mismatch state, this does push electrons backwards through complex one. So this is called reverse electron transport, or RET, and this is the single biggest source of mitochondrial super oxide. So in that terrain, fat is not clean. Glucose oxidation is more oxygen efficient per ATP, so it has a higher P to o ratio, which can make it cleaner in hypoxia.

Theresa Piela  31:02  
Okay, I don't want to skip over too much, just because I want to make sure we are taking time to dissect what she's saying. Is that a good stopping point for you, too? Yeah, yeah, that's for sure. Okay, let's, let's talk about her first point. Mike, do you want to jump in?

Mike Fave  31:20  
I mean, she's rehashing the points that we had responded to her so well, and there's some there's a point here that's important. So when she initially came out, she had positioned in the first clip as fatty acid oxidation, to some extent, as superior. And then we, basically, in our response, went back and said, look like. This is what happens in carb oxidation versus fat oxidation. And we were talking about the amount of oxygen consumed, how much ATP is produced. We were talking about reverse electron transport, Ros production. Because her initial claim was that burning carbs creates more ROS because complex one is leaky, which we were then like, no, no. Burning fat is essentially what drives more ROS production through reverse electron transport. And pushing for the burning of fat and creating an increased FADH2, to NADH ratio causes reverse electron transport, which forces complex one to become leaky. That's where you see. There's other mechanisms in there as well. There's a couple pieces as well that will increase ROS production. So like, her initial characterization was incorrect, we corrected the biochemistry in our response, and now she's rehashing the points. Let me set the record straight. No, no, the record has been set straight in our response, well, and now she's just telling us what we said in our response after saying that she's been smeared. It's like, this is, this is different than what was said initially. Now there's another problem that gets set up here in this in this situation, is that she was saying that when you're in an overcharged state, or you're in a circadian mismatch state, reverse electron transport will will occur when you're running fats instead of carbs. So therefore, in that state, fats are less clean. And then she goes on to say hyperglycemia and circadian mismatch. Then in that circumstance, then carbs will drive three oxidative oxygen species or drive oxidative stress. So it's basically like in no states can you eat fats or carbs if you have any metabolic dysfunction, is essentially the takeaway that we're getting here from her and to some extent, like, yes, you want the state to be improved. When you have metabolic dysfunction, using a substrate and running it through the mitochondria, you will create ROS for a variety of reasons, depending on what the driving component is of that metabolic dysfunction. Is there an issue at the electron transport chain in terms of an over reduction? Because he talks about his oxidate like an oxidative stress because of the reactive oxygen species, but it's driven by an excessive amount of reducing components in the form of NADH which it which is why you don't want to push fatty acid oxidation. Is there a problem with the antioxidant balance? Is there a problem with micronutrient status? Are the stress hormones themselves, glucagon, cortisol, adrenaline, growth hormone? Are they forcing things to into towards fat oxidation, which is exactly what they do. Is they force towards fat oxidation, which then creates issues with glucose oxidation, partly through some of the Randall cycle mechanisms, so that it's just this weird dynamic where it seems to me like she's a bit confused on what exactly is going on. It's like, well, in a healthy body you would want to run, you could run either carbs and fast. And it's like, Yes, that's true. But the question, the fundamental question here is, if you have somebody who's trying to repair their health, which fuel source Do you do you rely on? What are the components? How do you structure your diet? So trying to be like, well, in this context, in that context, like, yes, if there's metabolic dysfunction, both substrates can create issues. But the other fundamental thing that you don't, that we're not hearing, is that when you are under stress, when you have metabolic dysfunction, fatty ox fatty acid, oxidation reigns supreme. It's going to be the. Major source. When you're having hyperglycemia, you're having issues with glucose control. You have a state where either gluco neogenesis Isn't shut off and or fatty ox fatty acid oxidation is being pushed at the cellular level, or there's issues at the cellular level with the utilization of glucose. So it's like we need to fix those problems. And then fundamentally, in general, you want to be running carbohydrate oxidation overall, like from a CO two perspective, from an NADH to NAD plus ratio, from the FDH to ADH ratio, from the amount of oxygen that's produced from a glutathione status, all of these types of things for your hormonal balance, for keeping the stress hormones low and producing adequate thyroid all of these things are essential, and carbs are the central piece for that adequately using carbohydrate allows for all of those things to to work effectively. And her first post that she made, and this is why we even responded to it, these are things that Dr Peat directly talked about, that having adequate carbohydrates supports your thyroid function and it stops you from cannibalizing your tissues, which it does the breaking down your protein tissues to produce that carbohydrate. It's like, carbs stop that process. Like, yes, they do. And then she says, That's incorrect. And then now we're now, we're getting this side step of, well, in all these states of dysfunction, you have problems with X, Y and Z, and it's not carbs, or it's not fats, and it's like, so there's no answer from her perspective here, besides, and then it's like, okay, you need to get the state fixed. It's like, okay, what do you do? All circadian match and, like, expose yourself to light, I guess would be the answer here. But the question is still, fundamentally, what you eat, and that's going to be absolutely important. So I don't think this is where it's like, it seems to me like she's confused in her perspective here. And then the other thing that I think this starts to become inactivating for people, because it's like most people are dealing with circadian mismatch. Most people are dealing with metabolic dysfunction. How many people get a well lit, moving human with resilient membranes and added like optimal peroxisomal function and all this type of stuff. It's like no one in Western society, on at large, like is having this stuff go on based on a diet. So then the question is, for these people who are in this fear, who are trying to get better, and who are trying to help, what do we have them eat? And then the fundamental question comes down to, because there's only so much protein you're going to eat, right? There's only you're after a certain point, you don't need more protein. You're going to turn it into glucose. You're going to produce ammonia as a byproduct. So there's only so much protein. There's a limit to that, which we've established. The research, we didn't establish it. The research gave us a range, point 6.64, to point eight, two grams. That's the rough range based on a variety of reasons. So there's other episodes we refer to. So then you get left with carbs and fats, right? These are going to be the options that you have left now, it's not that you have to choose between them, where you can only have one or only have the other, but the question people want to know, and what she's getting at here is, which one is going to be my primary fuel source. And then what our perspective is, what Dr Peat's perspective, our opinions are based on reading the research is that carboxidation, for a number of reasons, is superior to fat. Oxidation doesn't mean you need to go on a low fat or zero fat diet, but if you're going to choose a fuel source, carboxidation is the best fuel source available. And like this is a very fundamental piece based on thyroid function, stress hormones, CO two, mitochondrial dynamics, etc, and so like her here, like this is where it's like, she's it seems to me, at least, that she's confused, and she's like, obfuscating the argument because she got the biochemistry wrong the first time around. So now we have to change we have to move the needle. We have to change the argument. We have to shift the dynamics and create all this contextual BS, when the fundamental question that people are looking at is, if I'm having health problems, what is what am I? How am I structuring out my diet? How am I getting to a better health state? What am I eating on a regular basis? To do this, am I going to be keto? Am I going do I have to go carnivore? Do? Can I have carbohydrates in my diet? These are the questions that people are asking, and it's like, Don't obfuscate the argument, because you got the biochemistry wrong. That's for me, that that's what I see happening here with this perspective and this and I don't appreciate it, because it's just like to say, like, look, I got the biochemistry wrong on carb versus fat oxidation inside the mitochondria. This is how things actually work, not let me set the record straight. The records already been set straight. We set it straight on the last episode, which I recommend was the episode 19. I recommend people go check it out and see what we talked about there. So that would be my thought process here, on her, on her statements about the mechanisms.

Jay Feldman  39:39  
Jay, anything to add, yeah, of course. So, I mean, Mike is, is, I mean, there's a couple things you mentioned here, Mike, one is, of course, the application side, and that's an important conversation. But you know, honestly, a lot of this when it comes to what's being discussed, there's, there is application in its extension, but potentially, more importantly, here. Or is and you pointed this out too. Is there a direct contradiction between the two videos? Now we're adding this context to say, Oh, well, you know saying carbs are always cleaner or fats are always cleaner, ignores my ignores mitochondrial physics, but the argument in the last video was that fat metabolism is cleaner than carb metabolism because car metabolism favors complex one, which produces more reactive oxygen species. It's leaky and fat produces more ATP at complex two, and so less oxidative stress. Like that was the argument made, which, again, there's like a half acknowledgement of here are these new mechanisms that that Jay Mike and Theresa were talking about that I'm going to touch on here, but I'm also going to change what my original argument was or not acknowledge what's what's different between before and and now. And the argument that she was making in the last video was that fat metabolism is inherently cleaner, let's say, than carb metabolism, and what we and now the comment is, you know that, you know we have to consider these different contexts. So I think that that's important to mention. And then I think it's also important to kind of reiterate our stance, which is that, and Mike, you mentioned this, that all things being equal, there are inherent differences between carbon, fat metabolism, and so you can actually say, kind of independent of the state that one is going to lead to more CO two production, or one is going to lead to more F, A, D, h2 production, or one is going to lead to more reactive oxygen species production per ATP produced. Those are inherent to the pathways that exist for the metabolism of these different fuels. And yes, different things happen in different contexts, but all other things being equal, there are inherent differences between carbon fat metabolism. And she mentioned, you know, FADH to NADH ratio, I think, and reverse electron transport, because those are things that we mentioned, but didn't actually acknowledge that these are inherent features of fat metabolism that are not inherent features of carb metabolism, regardless of the context, regardless of circadian mismatch or not, and that's important. And then to add on top of that, the other piece that we did talk about quite a bit in that last episode that Mike was touching on here, which is that fat metabolism is a direct feature of an impaired metabolic state like insulin resistance and heart failure and diabetes and fatty liver disease. And reducing the fat metabolism actually helps resolve the state, actually helps to reduce the oxidative stress, actually helps to restore mitochondrial function, so it is actually contributing to the pathology, which is the direct opposite of what she was saying in that last video. So that's important to acknowledge. There's also still, I think, a lot of mechanisms missed here that she's not talking about. And it's worth mentioning that reverse electron transport is not the only mechanism through which there's increased reactive oxygen species from fat metabolism. There's also more at complex two, and at the ETF protein as well. And and there's inherently going to be bottlenecks at the electron transport chain with fat metabolism, again, even independent of reverse electron transport. So, yeah, those are some inherent issues. And then Theresa, if we could go back maybe like eight seconds, to where it starts to talk about how glucose oxidation is more oxygen efficient. Because, again, it's another situation where it becomes clear that there's some in this case, biochemistry that's not being understood,

Justine Stenger  43:26  
that terrain fat is not clean. Glucose oxidation is more oxygen efficient per ATP, so it has a higher P to o ratio, which can make it cleaner in hypoxia or when your mitochondria are stuck in defense mode or in a cell danger response phase one, but in hyperglycemia or circadian mismatch, glucose drives reactive oxygen species via other pathways too. In a well lit, oxygenated, moving human with strong peroxisomal function and resilient membranes, fats oxidize quietly. There's a high ATP yield, there's low leakage, and that's when fat is cleaner clean fuel isn't about macronutrient ideology. It's about terrain and it's about timing. It's about light exposure. It's about circadian rhythm. It's about bile flow. It's about membrane integrity, and it's about peroxisomal load.

Theresa Piela  44:16  
Okay, I'm gonna pause it there just before we get too far ahead of ourselves. Okay, I need to take a deep breath. It's a lot. Okay, Jade, you want to jump back in to tell us more, from your understanding, your perspective, what's maybe not fully correct here? Yeah.

Jay Feldman  44:34  
So she stated that glucose oxidation is more oxygen efficient has a lower p to o ratio, which is true. I think we mentioned this in the last episode. It's not particularly relevant in most contexts, but it is true, it's not really responsible for a difference in the efficiency of ATP production or reactive oxygen species production outside of the case where maybe there's slightly less oxygen available. But she says this is helpful for hypoxia or in the cell danger response, and specifically. Phase one. So this is where, again, there's some clear conflation going on, some clear misunderstanding of how glucose is metabolized, because in hypoxia and in the cell danger response, what's being referred to there, what goes on in those cases, is anaerobic glycolysis. This is where you're metabolizing glucose without oxygen at all. You're converting it down to pyruvate, which is then being converted to lactate. It's not getting converted to acetyl CoA, entering into the Krebs cycle or citric acid cycle, and then continuing on through the electron transport chain. And that's where the oxygen is involved. You're just going through anaerobic glycolysis, and there's no way to anaerobically metabolize that and produce energy. So this is what we're relegated to in the case of true hypoxia, and this is also what happens in the cell danger response as well. It's something that's driven by inflammation, by irritation, by stress. It's also something that, of course, if we're doing really high intensity exercise, we'll rely on anaerobic glycolysis as well. This is different from glucose oxidation. She said, glucose oxidation is helpful in hypoxia, in the cell danger response, but that's not glucose oxidation. That's glycolysis. Glucose oxidation involves the use of oxygen and glucose metabolism, but then also the P to o ratio that she's talking about that's lower is in reference to glucose oxidation, not glycolysis, not anaerobic glycolysis. So that isn't relevant here when we're talking about these states of anaerobic glycolysis. So it's honestly her bringing these things up is entirely irrelevant to begin with, but she's again just stating them incorrectly. And it doesn't matter, like it's not a part. It's not integral to her argument. It has it's not integral to our argument, but it's again, just demonstrating the lack of understanding of mitochondrial metabolism and an energy metabolism. But then she does go on to state then in hyperglycemia or in circadian mismatch, glucose drives R, O, S through other pathways. Again, she's, I think, intentionally being non specific so that she doesn't have to explain. And especially at the end here, we see a lot of non specificity to make non arguments so that they can't be discussed. But in this situation, so first off, hyperglycemia, when you're talking about, like glucose overload, when there's so much fuel, provided that it can't be metabolized, and you have a backlog to a point where you're seeing hyperglycemia, this is a state where you're going to have issues metabolically because of just an overload of fuel. It happens, whether it's glucose or fat or any other like fuel that's being used. If you provide a an excessive amount, like way more than the cell or mitochondria and can handle, you will see oxidative stress. You will see problems there. But we weren't talking about hyperglycemia. We weren't comparing normal fat oxidation to what goes on in hyperglycemia. That's, it's that's like saying that fat in a healthy person is oxidized better than someone who's diabetic, not taking insulin, and who has who's just consumed hundreds of grams of carbohydrates. You know, we're comparing fat metabolism and healthy state to the glucose metabolism happening in this diabetic state. It's like, that's entirely irrelevant to any of the arguments being made here, it's just as Mike was saying, obfuscating the conversation, which really is coming back to in a context where all things are equal. What are the differences between carbon fat metabolism? And is what she said earlier in her first video, that fat metabolism is inherently cleaner. Is that correct? And it's not, and all the rest of this is obfuscation. And she goes on to double down on that claim at the end, which will not at the end, before all of the before all of the words at the end, non meaningful words at the end, she says, in a healthy state, fats oxidized quietly with a high ATP yield low leakage. And that's where fat is cleaner, where she is again repeating the initial claim she had in the last video we spent, you know, 30 plus minutes discussing why that's not correct, and it sounds like she's just ignoring that and doubling down while not acknowledging any of the arguments that we actually made describing why that's not correct. So we're it seems like we haven't evolved anywhere.

Mike Fave  48:57  
Oh, it for me, when I see this, it's like, let me create a bunch of contextual obfuscations so that these dynamics or these mechanisms that we talked about, they're legit, and I can't deny them, so I'm going to state them as if I understand them, and I'm going to create a bunch of contextual arguments to obfuscate the problem at hand so that I can then claim at the end Why was right in my first post. And like, get this conclusion that, well, yes, in a healthy person, you oxidize fatty acids, you know, without creating ROS whatever else, these other mechanisms we're talking about. And again, like, I think that this is like this, what I was talking about in my initial response to it is, I don't like this is not helpful. And this is, this is avoiding answering the direct question that people are trying to come to grips with and understand in terms of their implementation for their diet. And so the, I guess, the the important piece to talk about here, just and as a reiteration from our previous post, and then we're talking about here. Here all things considered. The ideal fuel source to use for a variety of reasons is going to be carbohydrates. And we can list off all those reasons if we want to. We've we've talked about them multiple times, but this is going to be these. This is the ideal fat source to use outside of fatty app, instead of fats, if you are under stress, if you have metabolic dysfunction, if you are sick, if you have diabetes, if all of these states are characterized by a push towards fatty fatty acid oxidation in general, and also overall impaired mitochondrial metabolism, and so pushing towards fatty acid oxidation using fats as your primary fuel in all contexts, will shift you to be having a higher have a DH to NADH ratio, which will drive reverse electron transport and will induce ROS production from complex one as well as what's it the the electron transport, flavor Protein system at complex two will also produce ROS via the over reduction with with F, A, D, h2, to NADH, and you will also shift the NADH to NAD plus ratio when you are burning fatty acids. So all of this will directly change what's going on inside the mitochondria, so that you get a higher production of ros, and you also get less ATP production, because as you, as you burn the fatty acid, you increase our OS, you you change the membrane potential, you start to uncouple, and you start to generate heat, so you get less ATP and you get more Ros. Even in a healthy person, when you push fatty acid oxidation, and in the disease states and in the stress states, you are pushing towards fatty acid oxidation. So this is like the foundational thing to understand what she which is what she's not understanding, to create these obfuscated arguments so that she can then say, well, we really want to be burning fats when we are burning carbs. Just as a general example for everybody, we get insulin signaling, which helps with electrolyte retention. That's going to be sodium at the kidney, pushing potassium into cells, you get a change in thyroid function. You're going to optimize the production a conversion of t4 to t3 and you're going to up regulate the entire thyroid axis. In general, you're going to lower the stress hormones, cortisol, glucagon and adrenaline, as long as like for cortisol, it's not being driven by an inflammatory response, if it's driven purely by a lack of carbohydrate and a need to break down protein and undergo gluconeogenesis that will drive up the cortisol levels, and then the carbohydrates will bring that down. And then on top of that, you have a circumstance where the carbs are going to help with glutathione production, and then the carbohydrates, and general in the mitochondria are going to, or overall, are going to allow for more CO two production, which is going to allow for better allow for better uptake of oxygen at the tissues, and has a feed forward effect on energy metabolism at the mitochondria. So through all of these mechanisms, and then, when you compare it to fatty acid oxidation, you could literally just get a piece of paper. You have the line down the center, and you look at carbs, and you look at fats, you will see that carbohydrate metabolism in general, is the optimal or is the optimal fuel source? Is what we want to be burning when we have it available, and when we do not have carbs available, or we are put under stress, or we have illness, our body will switch more towards fatty acid oxidation. It's not a complete switch. It's a spectrum of switching, right? We'd be 20% carbs, 80% fat, versus 20% fat, 80% carbs. So our body is toggling back and forth, but the disease states and stress states all push towards fatty acid oxidation. So this obfuscation that we have here of well in this context and in that context and in this context, this is where you know carbs and fats, like they all cause problems. It's like, this is just a shroud of confusion that is not central to the argument that we're talking about. And I, I don't know her motive behind it, but it's like, Let me cite the mechanisms create confusion here, and then, and then get to my, like, confirm my initial point, which was corrected by our video, and then play victim. That is, I think in a that's for me, that's what I see happening with her responses between this and then we'll see her her response under the video afterwards. So this, it's like, yeah, basically, the more she digs this hole, the more it's it's starting to become clear that she doesn't actually understand the system as a whole, and she doesn't understand the mechanisms inside the different sections of the system. Now I'm not waxing that we are the omniscient arbiters of biochemistry here, but just from what we know and from what we understand and from the picture that if she actually studied it, that Doc, that Dr Ray Peat laid out, she would see, oh, this actually makes a lot of sense. And it's when you start to get into you're like, oh, this actually, intuitively makes quite a bit of sense, and goes with, why do we crave carbs and sugars, and why do we feel better when we have carbohydrate? And what? Why do we see high blood sugar in these, these states of metabolic dysfunction? It's explained by Dr Peat's overarching model. So my recommendation is that she spends time looking at Dr Peat's work directly. Exactly, and gets to the biochemistry first before she gets too ingrained in the physics. Basically, you're all the way out here, and you're missing the car, you're missing the card over here. You're all the way over here. So that, for me, that that would be my, my thought process on this

Jay Feldman  55:15  
one thing I want to touch on real briefly first is that as I'm thinking through it, I'm wondering if there's it's, you know, in this last part of the clip that I was talking about with the glucose oxidation, and then conflating with glycolysis, it almost seems like throughout both videos, she's been conflating glucose metabolism with glycolysis, with glycolysis, and that's maybe what she was saying in the last one, where it's like sugar props up a broken metabolism. And she's talking about a severely impaired metabolic state where you can only run on glycolysis. Now, again, that wouldn't actually make sense in the first one, because you started talking about the electron transport chain, which isn't involved in anaerobic glycolysis. But that still doesn't indicate the possibility that that's that that conflation was going on. But I do want to make it clear that nobody, including definitely Ray, was saying that anaerobic glycolysis is metabolically optimal. There's a huge difference between glycolysis, anaerobic glycolysis, and glucose oxidation. And just want to make that clear, because I think sometimes in the low carb world, people don't like that. That conflation happens, like people who aren't familiar with the biochemistry and mitochondrial metabolism don't recognize that glucose can be fully oxidized. So there could be some of that going on here again. It would, that would be, I think, very concerning, considering a lot of the implications being made here, a lot of the other points being made around this. But yeah, maybe that's part of what's going on. I don't know.

Mike Fave  56:38  
I think that. I think she is making a variety of completions, because when she started talking about, well, glucose is better in hypoxia, it was just, well, it's almost like, in her, at least my like interpretation of what I could have seen going on her mind as well, if you oxidize carbohydrates, you don't require as much much oxygen. So therefore, you know, carbs be better in a state of hypoxia. But it's like, when you have hypoxia, you have what's it? Hypoxia, inducible factor one Alpha gets up regulated and then basically pushes you towards glycolysis, because you don't have enough oxygen to uptake into the cell to actually appropriate run mitochondrial metabolism. So it's like things like this. It's almost like there's it. It is like these, like loose, loosely associated understandings of things to like, put the picture together, instead of like, and it, to be fair, like, it is a complex system, because you have different types of metabolism happening in different areas under different circumstances. And so that's what makes it, I think, difficult, to like, put the whole picture together, which is why Dr Ray Peat's work was so valuable because it's like he spent years putting that picture together. And when you actually get engrossed with his work, it's like, do I accept every single thing that he says, No, but when I start to follow up on the lines of thinking and perspective that he built out, it's like, oh, there's actually a map here. Like, there's actually a serious map here, and it's not just a dietary roadmap of just have orange juice and whatever it's like, no like this is he's mapping out the system of overarching energy metabolism from the cell all the way across the body, and then he connected it into different functions of the body, and is providing justification for why you would want to have a Higher cellular energy metabolism, why you would want to oxidize carbohydrates, and then how that would improve your overall health, as well as your cognitive function and your potential as a human. So there's like underlying aspects of this that get brought into there, the like this philosophy he integrates with all this. So that, for me, is like, you have to get this foundational stuff right, because this, the fundamental principle behind Ray stuff is like this allows you to become a better person. This allows you because when you hear Ray talk about this type of stuff, what he was saying was, if I started with nutrition, so that I can get people to understand the culture and the the politics and the philosophy and where things were going, because if you get people to a better state, they would start to expand and develop and grow. And this is where he started integrating some William Blake's work and stuff like this. So it's like this stuff is actually we spend a lot of time focusing on nutrition and these components, but getting this stuff is absolutely essential, because it allows you to expand as a person when you start to get the systems working appropriately. And the basic principle here is that you want to make sure that you have enough energy at its core. You want you have enough mitochondrial produced energy to function appropriately. The more energy you have, the more complex you can become, right? So the more energy you have, the more structure you can build, the more structure you build, the more energy you can produce. This feed forward, upward cycling system and so like these, questions are actually central when you start to look at this, because like, well, do I What does my fuel source going to be to have the best energy production? And so that's why clips like this, like, yeah, we are going to spend a lot of time breaking down thought processes that if you start pushing people towards this other leg of metabolism, where you're prioritizing fatty acid oxidation, it's. To some extent, in the model that we're working with, it is counter to developing people to the level that we want. And that's why it's like, no, we have a responsibility here to actually talk about the biochemistry, lay out our perspectives, opinions, thoughts on this, and then show why we think it's wrong and why these other areas are better. And so, I mean, I'm guessing getting to like her response, but for me, that's how I see it. It's like we need to fundamentally know what we as humans need to eat, what our fuel sources are going to be, and how we can get to an optimal health state so that we can develop and grow and become better, and be able to discern our information sources and to develop skill sets in these different areas, etc. It's, it's a general framework of how, how do we get people better overall? How are people supposed to live so that they can reach their highest potential? Is like a fundamental underlying principle, at least from my perspective of Dr Peat's work, and also I see, partly, what my role is, is to help people get to this better state. So that's why, when I see this stuff, it's like, yeah, I'm gonna take I'm gonna go at it respectfully, but I'm gonna go at it.

Theresa Piela  1:01:00  
There's a deep core to what you were sharing in that when someone is so sick and so fatigued, they they see their potential. You know, they're they're seeking purpose. They're seeking meaning. They want to contribute, but they don't, you know, they don't have enough energy. They can barely function. So I think that's exactly it. How can we allow someone to get the energy that they need so that their life can feel worthwhile, so that they I'd say most people, when they have enough energy and they feel good, they want to help, they want to create, they want to connect. They want to lift other people up. That's not necessarily going to happen with a fat based diet, no matter what someone says, Jay, what do you

Jay Feldman  1:01:43  
think about that? No, I agree. I agree. No, I think you guys both summed it up. Well, okay,

Justine Stenger  1:01:51  
and once those are repaired, the body regains flexibility, the ability to use both fats and carbs efficiently without excessive oxidative stress.

Theresa Piela  1:02:03  
Okay, so with that word salad, what? What do people need to understand from that? There's, gosh, it is hard to take in, Jay, what was your response to that final portion?

Jay Feldman  1:02:18  
I mean, there's, as you said, there's, there's kind of a lot just thrown out there that isn't really an argument. I think if we were to summarize it very briefly, it's basically saying, if someone's in a healthy state, then you should be metabolically flexible and be able to utilize both fuels. I think that's like, if there's an argument being made here, that's what it is. And we agree that there's a lot more to health than bat and carbs, like, which, like, which fuel is being used. Is not the end all be all. It matters, but it's, it's, there's a ton of other things to consider when it comes to health. Totally agree that being said, whether you're like, if you're in the most optimal state, there will be some amount of fat metabolism going on and some amount of glucose metabolism going on. Generally, you don't want more fat metabolism going on. You don't want too much of that because it has an inherent cost to it. It's inherently less efficient and going to lead to more oxidative stress regardless of how circadian matched you are, regardless of your peroxisomal function, regardless of your nutrient status. Obviously, everything being compromised, it's going to be worse. But in this state where, let's say we're in optimal health, yes, we want some amount of fat metabolism, but on the whole, we generally want to favor glucose metabolism. So I think we would generally just disagree with the statement. It's not backed by anything. It's just, again, her kind of doubling down on on the comments she made prior, but it's not actually a response to any of the points that we made.

Mike Fave  1:03:46  
Yeah, go, if you were in a healthy state, the goal would not be to then force fat metabolism. That's basically the point. That's why you're saying, Jay, is that correct me? If I'm wrong, but it's like, that's not, we're not saying, like, if you're if you're in a healthy state, sure, you can toggle before between both fuels. But that doesn't then mean that you want to push towards bad metabolism. That's the like, that's thing you would want to push towards carbohydrate metabolism if you're in a healthy state, and if you were in an unhealthy state, the goal would be to get to a state where you can adequately utilize carbohydrates, not just cut them out. And then your numbers on your blood values like your hemoglobin, a 1c or fasting glucose, whatever, look good and your insulin is low, it's like, no, no. You want to be able to actually maintain an adequate a 1c fasting glucose, insulin, etc, and where you are actually utilizing carbohydrates, that is the optimal state that we're shooting for. Instead of saying, Oh, well, if you're healthy, you can use both fuel sources, it's like, yeah, we know this. Like, this is not a question. The question is, if you are healthy and you force fatty acid oxidation, what happens? And then what do you do if you're unhealthy, and how do you determine where you are healthy? That's why the her conversation is an obfuscation. It's like a, it's a nothing burger argument here that just like, if you're if all the things are really good, then everything works. It's. Like, yeah, of course. Sure, awesome. I agree with you. But it's like, how do you get somebody who is not doing well to that state? Does light and circadian rhythm and all this stuff play an important part? Yes, it does. But also some of the most foundational things, some of the most core things in conjunction with those, is, what are you eating on a regular basis, and how are you structuring your diet? And that's one of the major doorways in I know, I think she's under Jack Cruz's tutelage to some extent, but it's like diet being the sixth most important thing. I would disagree with that, and I think Jack isn't a isn't a statement of that, like he's exemplary of why diet is not the sixth most important thing. It's one of the top, top most important things, and even ranking it in order is not helpful. It's like all of these things are important to get under control. We want to take all the things that we have agency over, that we have some control over, in our lives, and harness these things, harness our environment to give ourselves the best opportunity possible. And how you set up your diet is one of the core, major essential pieces to that. And again, we see that all of us see that day in and day out, harnessing diet and and some of these different components with people that we're working with on a regular basis makes massive improvements in their health. And it's like, Yes, I could, you know, you can get morning sunlight and stuff like this, but I'm going to be fair here, I haven't seen somebody just focus on, Oh, I get morning sunlight, and I wear my orange glasses at night, and boom, my health was solved. There's a lot that goes into it, and diet is one of the, actually the most foundational pieces to get this stuff under control. And which fuel source is utilized is essential to that, and being able to oxidize carbohydrates effectively in the mitochondria is key to getting this stuff under control. So this like obfuscation of your health. You can use carbs or fats, whatever, like, sure. But how do I take somebody who's unhealthy and get them healthy so that they can use carbohydrates? And then if I have somebody who's healthy, how do I not only maintain their health, but enhance their health further? And so these are the questions that we're trying to answer here, not double down on the initial statements that were made or obfuscate the arguments. Like no no, like the line in the sand is carbohydrate oxidation from my perspective, and I think from your guys' perspective as well, is the optimal way to generate energy in the body period. That is the statement here. And we provided the reasons why, and we provided why our statements here are direct opposition to what she's saying, and we explain our rationale. So for Justine, we wait, I wait to hear a counter argument about why carbohydrate oxidation is not the central piece for health and overall and energy production. Provide me the rationale, and then we can have a we can have a discourse on it. I'm happy for that. That's what I would look forward to, not this other stuff,

Jay Feldman  1:07:44  
or more so the direct comparison between carbon fat metabolism and what situation is glucose oxidation inferior to fat oxidation, and why is that? Why would that context be relevant and all of the rest basically a refutation of what we described about the inherent differences between carboxidation and fat oxidation. And just to be clear also, Mike, what what you're saying here is that, yes, if we're in an optimal state, we can utilize both carbs and fats. That doesn't mean that there's not consequences of those things still. It doesn't mean there's still not going to be more oxidative stress from utilizing fats. It also doesn't mean if you deprive yourself of carbs in an optimal state that there won't be inherent costs, not only metabolically, but then also as a down product of that, in terms of stress hormones, in terms of thyroid hormone conversion, in terms of detoxification pathways, all the things you were touching on earlier. So again, we can talk about this in different states, but it still doesn't change the value and the importance of carb metabolism, and it still doesn't change the inherent differences between glucose oxidation and fat oxidation,

Mike Fave  1:08:42  
and that the goal is to get somebody to use glucose effectively. If you come from this perspective, if you're healthy, you can use both fuel sources, then you miss the most fundamental piece here is that, as practitioners, our goal is to take somebody who is having metabolic dysfunction and repair their metabolic dysfunction. So what does that actually look like? And that's being able to utilize carbohydrates effectively as a fuel source that is one of the foundational pieces of getting somebody to a metabolic healthy state. Because when they are doing that, thyroid is optimized, stress hormones are kept low, ATV production is higher, and the amount of oxygen that's utilized, it's a more efficient process in terms the amount of oxygen, oxygen that's utilized, more CO two is produced. You have adequate glutathione, all of these things we are trying to get to this state. This is the goal state. So if you come from this perspective of, well, you can use either source when you're healthy, it's like, then where's your target? Where does your target become? How are you getting this person to this health, to this health state, so that they're, they're utilizing glucose as this primary fuel source, or as the major fuel source to generate ATB in the body, so that this is where it's like, it's actually a foundational disagreement that's extremely important, and you can't just wax it over like, well, there's these different contexts. And. And if you're healthy, you can use both. It's like, that's not the question at all. So at least for me, at least for me, I don't want

Theresa Piela  1:10:06  
to speak, yeah, it's, it seems like the frame is, use fat. If you're really sick, use fat to then get to the point where you can burn both.

Mike Fave  1:10:13  
That's the argument across the low carb spheres at at large, is that if you are and you see this in even our comments, you see this all, well, I'm I'm overweight, I have type two diabetes, so I need to go keto, so then I can be healthy, then I can utilize carbohydrates. And then it's like, the thing is, like, then people like, well, you guys say that keto isn't work. It's like, keto works. You want to go keto. You want to lose a bunch of weight, you want to see your numbers get in a better spot. You want to do carnivore. Whatever the deal is, it works. You will lose weight. You will see your markers change. But is it because you don't have carbohydrates that you are getting this outcome, or is it because you just massively changed your diet and lost 100 pounds? And it's like it's probably the latter and not the former, because you there's research and an indirect experience, I've had clients lose hundreds of pounds, 10s to hundreds of pounds, improve glucose utilization while still eating carbohydrates. So the question is not, is it like, do you do you need to go keto or go carnivore or burn fats to get this outcome? It's like they're changing a lot of things at at the same time. That's getting you the outcome, and that what's wrapped into that is not having the carbohydrates. So that's why delineating the context and the interventions becomes very important here, and also understanding why you would want to have carbohydrates on board. Because we also have a lot of clients where it's like, yeah, I just did keto and carnivore. I'm wrecked, and it's like, now we have to recover from the Keto and carnivore. Because it's like, yes, there's a cost to not having carbohydrates, and that cost is at your mitochondrial energy production, and through the stress hormones and the lack of CO two production, the impacts on thyroid hormone, the impacts on electrolytes, etc. So it's like, we want to create a dynamic where you are getting to a healthier spot while having carbohydrates, so you can minimize the downsides. That's the goal. Is you don't want to, yeah, I got to my goal, but I, like, lost all this stuff along the way. It's low. I got to this goal with the minimal amount of stress and damage to the system possible. That's the thing, not just the goal, like I hit the goal. It's like I hit the goal in the best way possible. What is the means of achieving the goal? I think is exceptionally important. That's why we spend so much time on the nuance of all this type of stuff. And also, because all three of us did it, we did keto, carnivore, low carb, fasting, all type of stuff. And it's like, this was for at one point, is like, this is the way. Like, I'm 6% body fat, I'm shredded up, I'll look great. And it's like, I feel terrible. So it's like, these are the things like you, once you go through it, and then you start to understand it, it's like, yeah, of course, we're going to create a perspective where it's like, okay, like, there's another way to achieve health and and hit these targets that doesn't have this heavy cost that comes with it, the stress cost. And that's what we're shooting for. That's what all of us are are shooting for within the the pro metabolic, bioenergetic perspective, at least in my understanding, right? I mean, I mean, I know, I think you guys think you guys think similar, but I don't want to speak for

Theresa Piela  1:13:04  
you, so I think you made a correct assumption.

Mike Fave  1:13:07  
Okay, awesome.

Theresa Piela  1:13:09  
So in Justine's caption underneath her video, she says, a resilient human can run cleanly on both substrates, which we talked about. We don't idolize one fuel. We condition both switches. I'll be transparent. I haven't studied Ray Peat's work directly, though I respect his intelligence, but based on decades of research synthesis, I do not agree that relying on glucose as a year round primary fuel is optimal. Biology designed us for adaptation to flex between fuels depending on environment, season and circadian context. The carb versus fats debate is a dead end if you don't understand redox state. And redox isn't governed by glucose, it's governed by light, oxygen, mitochondrial electron flow and membrane integrity. If you miss that, you miss the engine. I'm here for the people who want to learn mitochondrial medicine, not just dietary hacks, because if the engine is broken, no diet alone will fix it. If you want to learn mitochondrial medicine, drop a me too in the comments, kisses and hugs. Okay, so I'm glad she admitted she hasn't read Ray Pete's work, which we touched on a little bit. Jay, what was Yeah, I know you were the one that originally sent us this, this caption and highlighted to us that she was admitting where she's at in her understanding. Anything you'd like to comment on here,

Jay Feldman  1:14:32  
yeah, so, I mean, we already touched on a little bit, but I think it's worth highlighting again. I appreciate her honesty here, that she's being transparent and saying that she hasn't studied Ray Peat's work directly. I appreciate that for a couple reasons. One, it was something that we suspected and mentioned a few different times in the last episode. And, you know, we were anticipating that that was the case, and so I'm glad that she was honest about it, and to be to be fair, like that's not an easy thing to do, so I know that she's doubled down on all of the other points. Points that she made, but at least she was honest about this. But I do think it's worth highlighting that in her original video, because she's she's being transparent about that, but not acknowledging or apologizing for the last video, all of the whole video was more about seemingly playing the victim and saving face and doubling down on her perspective, as opposed to addressing any of the legitimate criticisms that we brought up, which again, were criticisms about her, the content, the things she stated, not about her as an individual. And in addition to not responding to that, there's like this response about the repeat piece. But to be clear, in her last video, in the initial video we were responding to, she said, I thought Ray Peat had things all figured out. You know, when someone sounds so intelligent, precise, so well referenced, that you actually stopped questioning the line. Stopped questioning the lens that they're using. That was me, can

Mike Fave  1:15:46  
you just play this clip and you just play the beginning clip of her, just the first section,

Theresa Piela  1:15:52  
absolutely. Yeah, ironic. This

Jay Feldman  1:15:55  
is what she said in the first video. Yeah.

Justine Stenger  1:15:57  
Let me just I thought Ray Peat had things all figured out. You know, when someone sounds so intelligent, precise, so well referenced, that you actually stop questioning the lens that they're using.

Jay Feldman  1:16:11  
So again, I appreciate the transparency after the fact, but that means that this was the entire premise. The crux of this initial video was dishonest, right? That she didn't she's never studied Ray Peat's work directly. So she's talking about Ray Peat's lens. She's talking about how she was so bought in. He sounded so intelligent, precise, so well referenced. And yet, now we're hearing that actually, I don't know anything about Ray Pete's work other than what's been filtered to me through other people.

Mike Fave  1:16:40  
Well, let me connect with the audience of people in the bioenergetic sphere who are having a hard time with a pro metabolic diet, but are interested in mitochondrial energy, metabolism, whatever else. So I can move to this. Then I can become the authority of the of this group of people. I can harness this group of use the same thing as a low vitamin A stuff, where if you're gaining weight or you're having problems on in the bioenergetic sphere, it's just because you became vitamin A toxic so it's going into a group, finding the people who are unhappy with outcome, and then pulling them into this new camp. At least. I don't know if that was the direct intention, but that's how it seems to me. It does

Jay Feldman  1:17:18  
seem that way. But also, if she were to say, I was bringing in carbohydrates based on what influencers who followed repeat were saying or what repeat influencers were saying, I brought carbs in and it didn't work for me. That's fine. And if she wants to say didn't work for me, and here's why it might not work for you, that's fine. We wouldn't have had taken issue with her talking about repeats lens and him being a biochemist and not a physicist, and him his entire lens being that carbs are anti stress. Like none of there wouldn't have been an issue there, but we still would have taken issue with the latter half of of her post, of her video, but at least the initial part would have been totally fine. And I think that's a an important difference. And again, speaking of like this, goes back to the responsibility of I mean, for one, honesty, but then also, like putting out accurate information and coming back to this, this, like carelessness that is just throughout social media. I mean, I don't know what else to say.

Mike Fave  1:18:14  
The hook could have been that. I don't I do not agree that rely on glucose as a year round primary fuel is optimal. That could have been the hook. Not that Ray Pete is a biochemist and doesn't know anything about physics. And I, I was in this, the sphere of and I was following Ray, and I, like, after falling with him, like, I was completely disappointed with the results, and then I had to switch into this other direction. It could have been like, I don't think using glucose as a primary fuel source is, is optimal? Like, fair point. Like, make your point, make your claim. Like, that's what I were actually asking. That's what I'm asking for. Is, like, Okay, why? What's the rationale for why you don't think that this is the case? And then, you know, she goes here and she touches on points that we've talked about at large. I don't know if you really want to open up that can of worms. I'm assuming no, but it's like biology designed us for adaptation of flex between fuels depending on environment, season and circadian context. So it's like, it's that same frame. It's the same like, it's almost like a hormetic frame of like, we need to go into these we need to always be adapting and and going into these different these different areas and switching fuel sources. It's like, did biology design us so that we would have to, like, adapt fuel sources, or throughout time, as we were exposed to different environments and different fuel sources, did we have to develop pathways and systems to handle a lack of some of these sources? And then that brings the question is, is that even ideal, because there's this implicit understanding, it's ideal that you have to be forced to switch adapt between fuel sources. But then when you start looking at the difference between carbohydrate oxidation and fat oxidation and mechanisms we talk about, it's like, well, it's actually sub optimal be forcing fatty acid oxidation. And it's question of, just because you can, does that mean you should? And that's like the fun that. One of the fundamental arguments here is, like, we, we don't just because you can oxidize fatty acids, doesn't mean that and you can switch between fuel sources, doesn't mean that you then want to be constantly switching between fuel sources, especially when you look at the difference between carbon fat oxidation. And that's like, that's the that's the whole point here. And this is, I know Jay. This is like, your your baby, this hormetic, this like hormetic perspective, but it that's what you talk about a lot. That's what we've talked about a lot. Like, it doesn't mean that you need that you need to do this thing. And then she goes on, she says, the car versus fat debate is dead. Is a dead end if you don't understand the red ox state, and it's like, no, if you want to understand the red ox state, it's essential to understand the difference between oxidizing carbs versus fats, because they directly control the red ox state in conjunction with the stress hormones that are up regulated when you don't have carbohydrates. So it's like, if you really want to get the red ox state, then you need to foundationally understand this type of stuff. And she said, red ox isn't governed by glucose. It's governed by light oxygen, mitochondrial electron flow and membrane integrity. And it's like mitochondrial electron flow is dictated by fuel sources. Oxygen Consumption and utilization is dictated by fuel sources. So like, you need to understand fuel sources, and then also membrane integrity and structure is dictated in part by genetics, but also in part by diet. So it's like you need to understand whether you're using fats or carbs, because they are essential to this type of situation. To this type of situation is like, you don't need to understand how you're you know, you don't need to understand what fuel to use in your car. You need to understand what the engine's made out of. And but it's like, your tank is empty. You have no gas in the tank. So it's like, well, why isn't my car running? Well, it's the engine. There's something going on with the engine. It's like, no, no, your gas tank is empty, or somebody put diesel in your car and it takes gasoline. These are we need to get the foundational pieces down first. So it's like, even that there these statements indicate a lack of understanding of just how important utilizing carbs versus fat is in terms of determining energy metabolism at the cell and also oxygen uptake at the cells. Like, I don't know that many people who are that are dealing with like, states where they are hypoxic because of, you know, these specific like, because they don't have enough oxygen in the environment. It's like, maybe they have blood flow problems because of diabetes or cardiovascular disease. But then at the same time, it's like, for most people, what's going to determine blood flow to a large extent outside of the cardiovascular component, is going to be CO two availability at the tissues, which is going to drive oxygen unloading at the at the mitochondria. So it's like, this is a fundamental point, and what creates the most CO two is carbohydrate oxidation. So it's like, it's a weird statement to say, like, don't worry about carbs versus fat. Worry about these other things that are controlled by carbs versus fat, with the exception of light, right? And again, like we get this in the comments all the time. You guys don't talk about light. And it's like we are fully on board with with, like, optimal light exposure. And Dr Peat in a number of his articles, at the bottom list, red light and the as like a primary tool to use to improve people's health, and also directly talks about the toxicity of different wavelengths of blue light. So it's like, it wasn't like the guy wasn't aware of what was going on, and he was directly talking about physics in his work. I was reading an article recently where he was talking about that smell is essential to the central like, one of the highest adapted forms of the central nervous system, because it's not just a chemical piece. It's about like the the emission of the like, I forget specifically how he was describing it, but it's like the frequency produced by the particle was sensed by the nervous system, and then that was what, how you determine cell like, this is a this is moving into the realm of physics. This is not biochemistry, and he was getting into all of this type of stuff, or even the structuring of water, like he was one of the first people I ever heard talk about that. So this, it's like that he like the whole premise here. It's just like, No, no. He was talking about physics to a really high level before anybody else was. Because he was writing about this decades ago. His articles are in the 19 what, 1980s 1990s 1970s before the internet was even really a thing. So I don't know. That's my that's my take on on her the statements there,

Jay Feldman  1:24:12  
no, it's a great point. And it's basically saying, if you're saying that glucose and fat metabolism doesn't impact the redox state or doesn't impact structured water, then you don't understand redox, or like mitochondrial function or energy production or health. Like to say what she states here, which is that redox isn't governed by glucose, it's governed by light oxygen. Mitochondrial electron flow and membrane integrity is again demonstrating a lack of understanding of metabolism of fuels and how it does impact those things and or the flip side of not understanding Redux. So I appreciate you bringing that up. Mike. I don't have much else to add there, but I do think it's worth going through her comment here, which is a comment that she left on our last episode, on episode 19, when we were discussing her initial video. And.

After the comment, you did reach out to have her come on, but you didn't hear back. So she said,

yeah, yeah. So I did reply to this comment. She mentioned wanting to have a real conversation. We can talk, talk a bit about that, but I offered to have her come on, and this was a few weeks ago, and she didn't respond. So that's why we recorded this, assuming that she didn't want to come on.

Hey, Jay, I'll be honest, this was disappointing to see you could have easily reached out directly if you wanted to have a real conversation. This was a 75 Second Reel, which means, of course, I can't unpack all the biochemical nuance in that format. It's no secret that I'm not aligned with the ray peat diet. My perspective is that it overlooks key layers of nuance, food as form of light information and its role in circadian biology, and it doesn't fully capture the complexity of energy metabolism, in my opinion, and understanding, my expertise is in lipids, and that's where I've dedicated my study and teaching. Because of that, it's natural that we'd have different views on glucose metabolism versus fatty acid oxidation. That said, I actually appreciate seeing this, because it reminds me of the kind of educator I want to be, one that supports people in learning, and when I don't align with someone else's teaching, I simply move along, rather than publicly dismantling their work. I hope you'll consider that in the future, because this kind of approach doesn't feel good, and I can assure you, it doesn't build trust in this space. I wish you all the best. Well, I mean, it's good to expose hypocrisy and in writing, right, in the sense that if you claim to be someone that just walks, walks on by and doesn't try to dismantle someone's work, and then does it? It's, it's very interesting to see that blind spot in in health educators, but that's my sense. Jay, what's, what are your thoughts?

Yeah, I mean, I do think that's one of the clear things that jumps out. You know, at the end, we have this virtue signaling about the kind of educator that she wants to be or is, and she would never, you know, publicly dismantle someone else's work, she just moves on instead of, you know, if she sees someone else's teaching, she doesn't line with but obviously that wasn't the case here when it came to repeats information. And this was not the only video, by the way, that she's put out about, you know, criticizing Ray Peat's work and not putting up legitimate criticism either, right? Like we're putting out pretty dishonest criticism and then also inaccurate criticism at the same time. So yeah, I mean, I think that part at the end, as you were saying, Theresa, is very hypocritical. And I guess I'll just kind of touch on the other part that you mentioned, not at the end here, before coming back to the beginning. But you mentioned this kind of approach doesn't feel good, and it doesn't create trust in the space. So I want to touch on this a little bit, because it comes back to something we were talking about earlier with, you know, responsibility and that this doesn't feel good. So for one, we definitely made a point in that last episode to not make it personal. We didn't criticize her intelligence. We didn't create there was like, No, there's it wasn't about her. It was about the comments that she made. And of course, you know, it doesn't feel good to have your information critiqued. And we've, we've all experienced that, you know, not only in comments, but there's been videos made, there's been articles written about things that we've said before and people who disagree with it. And I understand that that doesn't feel good. It kind of but it comes with the territory, right? When you're putting out information in a public space and telling people that there's something that is right and something that is wrong, you're going to that information is going to be prone to people's discussion, and if they don't think it's right, then they're going to put out critiques around it. And that's a part of the job that it comes with the nature of of this sort of posting, and if, by saying that this doesn't create trust in the space, if what that really means is you're going to think twice before posting something like you did last time, then I would say that's great. Like you shouldn't be carelessly putting things out and not considering the consequence that someone's going to actually pick apart what you say and think about it and say, if they think of that, it's wrong. Like that should be something that does go through your mind when you put information out, and hopefully that you hold your yourself to a higher standard and actually put some care and thought into the information that you post, like that's kind of the point. And again, as you know, I replied to the comments said that we'd be happy to have her on, and that still stands if she wants to come on. But, I mean, I don't know what else could be implicated as far as when it comes to, like, not building trust in the space. But yeah, I mean, that's my feeling there. And you know, again, just the last thing to mention. And then I'm sure you guys have some comments to mention as well, but in the beginning, you know, she is talking about how this is just a 75 second reel, and she, you know, there wasn't enough opportunity to discuss all the nuance of her opinion. And it's, you know. So for one, there's more of this, like, kind of playing the victim, as if someone made her put out a 75 Second Reel that didn't encapsulate her view. So. Uh, you know, I think that's something that that you should consider if you're going to put out 75 second reels, is that make sure that it's something that you're comfortable with somebody evaluating as its own piece of content. But also, there were very clear points made in that reel. It's not like she made a bunch of half points and we were just assuming what she meant by them, like there was very clear claims made about carb metabolism versus fat metabolism, and the difference of, you know, and reactive oxygen species production from different complexes. And that rapey didn't consider physics like there were very clear points made within that 75 seconds. And so in, you know, the other thing is, if she's recognizing now that she doesn't actually stand by those points and stand by what she put out, then I think it would be great for her to say that. And you could, she could take it down if she wants, or she could just say, like, you know, I put out this reel before, and actually don't agree with what I say to there. My thoughts have evolved since then, and that's awesome. I mean, we would applaud that, like any problem with that. We're not holding this against her. But, yeah, so, I mean, that's my main thoughts about her comment.