Eric McFadden, a fitness enthusiast and diagnostic imaging supervisor from Richmond, Virginia, has an inspiring story that challenges the myth that high-protein, meat-heavy diets are the only path to health. In a recent episode of The Glen Merzer Show, Eric shared his journey from debilitating autoimmune conditions to vibrant health—thanks to a plant-based lifestyle.
Eric’s story begins in his late twenties when, despite being a committed bodybuilder following ketogenic and paleo diets, he was hit with severe health issues. “I was eating six eggs every morning,” Eric confessed. “I thought I needed all that protein, but my immune system started attacking me.” Diagnosed with multiple autoimmune conditions, including psoriatic arthritis, thrombocytopenia, and hemochromatosis, Eric knew something had to change.
He began questioning the “bro science” dominating gym culture and explored plant-based nutrition. His breakthrough came when he learned the dangers of consuming heme iron from animal foods. “The problem with animal-based iron is that your body absorbs it whether you need it or not,” Eric explained. “With plant-based iron, your body only takes what it needs and discards the rest.”
Eric gradually shifted away from meat-heavy diets, experimenting with pescatarian meals before fully embracing a whole-food, plant-based approach. The results were astounding. His autoimmune symptoms began to improve, with his ferritin levels dropping by over 100 points per month—something his doctors couldn’t believe. “They said I’d need phlebotomy every few weeks, but with plants and nutrition, I proved them wrong.”
Today, Eric thrives on a plant-based diet and advocates for using food as medicine. His journey highlights the pitfalls of keto and paleo trends while proving that men can achieve strength, health, and resilience through plants.
Catch the full interview on The Glen Merzer Show and discover why Eric now proudly embraces the motto, “Carbivore, not carnivore!” You can also follow him on Instagram @RainnandReed and @CarbivoreFitness for more insights.
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DISCLAIMER: Please understand that the transcript below was provided by a transcription service. It is undoubtedly full of the errors that invariably take place in voice transcriptions. To understand the interview more completely and accurately, please watch it here: Eric McFadden Overcomes Autoimmune Conditions and Keto Nonsense!
Here's the transcript:
Glen Merzer: Welcome to the Glen Merzer show. could find us across all your favorite podcast platforms. You could find us on YouTube and please remember to subscribe. My guest today is Eric McFadden. Eric is a diagnostic imaging supervisor in Richmond, Virginia. He is on the he has a plant based journey that he's going to tell us about. He's an expert on healthy vegan traveling and he has Instagram accounts at Rainn and Reed, that's R-A-I-N-E and Reed, R-E-E-D, and Carbivore Fitness. Eric, welcome to the show.
Eric McFadden: Hey, Glen, I just want to thank you for letting me on today and letting me get to tell my story about what's been going on in my life the past six years. I really appreciate you having me on.
Glen Merzer: Well, it's my pleasure and I'm eager to hear this story. I know that a lot of it involves overcoming autoimmune conditions. So tell us about that. Tell us when you began your plant based journey and what the autoimmune conditions had to do with it.
Eric McFadden: Yeah, yeah, this excites me to talk about it because I, you you're a Titan in the community and I read your book, Own Your Health, and it's a lot like your wife's story where you're trying to overturned some issues with autoimmunity through food. So I know I'm sure you've dealt with Food Over Medicine by Pam Poppertue. Yeah, that was an exciting book that I read. But I was I was kind of clueless when all the autoimmunity started Glen, was real into the bro science of eating a half a dozen eggs every morning and
Glen Merzer: A half a dozen eggs?
Eric McFadden: yeah, gotta get your protein in Glen.
Glen Merzer: Now were you a weightlifter with something making you eat half a dozen eggs?
Eric McFadden: Yeah, so that was really my passion was the the whole bodybuilding thing. Picked it up really hard when I was about 21 years old and I just did a lot of the ketogenic and paleo diets, rotating them back and forth and trying the whole biohacking movement, if you will, listen to a lot of guys at the gym about how you need protein, protein, protein and kind of obsessed over it. And maybe I took it too far, but that's probably why I started having terrible autoimmune issues before 30 years old. I was I was pretty messed up with my immune system.
Glen Merzer: Well, what was going on with your immune system?
Eric McFadden: So I had a handful of things going on. It really started out with facial rashes everywhere, which wound up being psoriatic arthritis. So I kind of had some arthritis symptoms as well as the rashes. So that's kind of the diagnosis they slapped on me.
Glen Merzer: want to show an image of that?
Eric McFadden: Yeah, yeah, I got one on my phone right here. My face was covered. And that's, I mean, if you're going to get a rash somewhere, getting it all over your face is definitely something that's hard to deal with. So For me, there was definitely an obsession with root cause. What can I do that's going to overturn this that's not going to be a medication? Because I was in the medical field for 15 years and I just kind of saw some of the breakdowns of the system and I wasn't really confident in utilizing anything that has to relate to our Western medicine system. Everything is treating people in silos and not ever getting to the root cause. Yeah, I had the psoriasis and because of that too, had a terrible, terrible joint pain everywhere. It had gotten so bad in my feet. They were so swollen that I was cutting new pairs of shoes open just to give myself a little more breathing room in my feet. Had a really hard time walking. And, to me, that was, that was the indicator I needed. I needed to see what was going on. I needed to start going to the doctor and getting.
Glen Merzer: So you were an otherwise healthy guy around 30 or so.
Eric McFadden: Yeah. But yeah, a little before 30.
Glen Merzer: 28, 29 and you're a weightlifter.
Eric McFadden: I'm still going to the gym a lot. Yeah.
Glen Merzer: Everyone would say you're a really fit guy.
Eric McFadden: Yeah.
Glen Merzer: You're suffering.
Eric McFadden: Just throw some lotion on your face. You'll be fine. That kind of deal. But I knew there was some underlying stuff going on.
Glen Merzer: Yeah. So what kind of doctor did you go to and what did the doctor say?
Eric McFadden: So it started with the hematologist, getting the blood work, found some pretty terrifying results, and then going to a rheumatologist. I had high CRP, which is an inflammatory marker. And I thought to myself, how could I be inflamed? But this is what it all comes down to is the whole inflammatory process. So just taming the immune system, you're inflamed. And it got scary, Glen, because as we did more blood work, I kept finding more and more things out. So it got to the point where I was stacked up with at least three autoimmune diseases, psoriatic arthritis, thrombocytopenia. And then the one that really freaked me out was hemochromatosis.
Glen Merzer: OK, so tell us about those other two conditions, thrombocytopenia and hemochromatosis.
Eric McFadden: Yeah, so thrombocytopenia is low platelets. It's really difficult to find a root cause for that. It's they just say sometimes your immune system can attack your platelets. So, but like I was figuring out my immune system was attacking pretty much everything. The hemochromatosis, not even sure if you can really call it an autoimmune disease per se, but I can tell you that as a cardiac MRI technologist, I was scanning people on the regular who had this hemochromatosis. And what you'll see is your ferritin levels will be off the charts, 600 plus, at least mine was. you'll see-
Glen Merzer: Too much iron.
Eric McFadden: Mine was around over 600, yeah. So, And I was scanning people who had this in the, you know, in a cardiac suite, an MRI and, their myocardiums were damaged. Their, their livers were dark, from all that iron overloading. and I know here in America, push iron, iron, iron, take your iron tablets. have SES over it, but a lot of people actually have this iron overloading, issue. And I had done a 23 in me, DNA tests around the same time that showed I had an allele that could be activated epigenetically, to be prone to iron overloading. So when my rheumatologist or my, hematologist pointed this out, you know, I, I kind of told her it was a possibility. And then she wanted to do the DNA testing. I'm like, can already tell you, you know, I've been taking health into my own hands a little bit. I could tell you that I know I'll probably have a genetic predisposition.
Glen Merzer: So, so what did you do when you found out? that you have these three autoimmune conditions.
Eric McFadden: Well, I was scared, man. I was thinking I'm way too young. I had a daughter on the way. I really, really was scared, you know, having a family and whatnot. I wanted to figure out what was going on. And like I said, being obsessed with the root cause. I knew that if I had iron overloading, it must have been coming from something I was ingesting. You can't just be iron overloading, right? So it led me to start studying deep into JAMA and all kinds of, just studies that, cause I wanted to know the truth. It was no longer, I'm going to follow someone and listen to what they say. I need to start learning how to read studies. So what you find with iron overloading is a lot of people are able to reverse this when I was reading about certain plant compounds like quercetin, which is an apples and red onions and then rosemary and rosemary. And I thought to myself, wow, you know, all these foods have the same thing in common. They're all plants.
Glen Merzer: You never find magic compounds in sausages, do you? You never find the medicine in the meat, do you? There are no magic compounds in scrambled eggs.
Eric McFadden: Nope, nope. Antibiotics, that's about as good as it'll get. it led me down this path of not only having to really research, know, food can be medicine, but how do I know that the studies are real? Right. So how do I, how do I know that they're double-blind, placebo controlled, randomized with crossover? I mean, I spent every minute breaking into this stuff, breaking it down. And never did I think I would have to get this deep into it, but I really wanted to figure out what's going on.
Glen Merzer: So did you find that you were able to tell when you're reading in the Journal of the American Medical Association, different studies that you were able to discern this study is more credible than this study?
Eric McFadden: Yeah, so thank goodness. A shout out to Dr. Greger, who really kind of takes you down the path of understanding what you should trust, right? Biggest thing for me was, and I was already doing it, are these studies funded by a certain interest before I go down this road, right? Because you can get a lot of conflicting results from just the wrong crowd of people telling you what to do. yeah, was really who funded the study. And then like I said, double blind, placebo controlled, randomized, no corporate interests.
et cetera. So yeah, I was blessed. I was blessed for him to start releasing books right when I was going down this path. It really expedited the process for me and allowed me to, to find out more truth in what I was studying and more confidence because I mean, I think we all know that the hardest thing about nutrition is people, they just, they, don't know 100%. They don't have any solid info. It's very nuanced. So by default, you just start listening to someone who you think has the best ideas or the best physique. And that's why my Instagram is kind of a little stab with the Carbivore fitness instead of Carnivore fitness. There's just a lot of charlatans out there and it's sad.
Glen Merzer: So you, you start reading these studies and what do you conclude?
Eric McFadden: It's, all just goes back to the, to the plants, Glen. It's, it's so what I started to do is basically convert. I was still scared to give up meat due to protein. I still enjoyed the bodybuilding thing. So was a gradual move of pescatarian. So I began to eat tons of fish and, long behold, you know, a cardiologist I was working with at work, he was, you know, a big proponent of the Mediterranean diet. And so, you know, I thought it was perfect. The blood work was straightening out. My, hematologist was blown away because I had two phlebotomy sessions to lower my ferritin count. They each, should have come out to be about a 30 point drop in ferritin after phlebotomy. And I was seeing drops of over a hundred points a month in my ferritin through Joss eating plants and an occasional piece of salmon or two during the week.
Glen Merzer: Right. And of course, the way this works is that when you eat heme iron, animal iron, body absorbs it. The proponents of the animal, of animal based foods think that this is a selling point. They say our iron is more easily absorbable. Yeah, that's the problem. That's the problem. You don't want to be absorbing all this iron. You want to absorb only what you need. So when you eat non-heme iron, plant iron, the body stores it and absorbs what you need and the rest it gets rid of.
Eric McFadden: Absolutely Glen. I think that You know, if you look at a lot of the vegetarian populations, I was finding that hemachromatosis was nil. It doesn't exist. It's, another fabricated disease from overconsumption, over consumption of animal foods. Right. So, yeah, gradually began to wean those things out and my hematologist was blown away. She didn't believe it. She said, there's no way you can be dropping a hundred points. A ferritin with one phlebotomy session. and I told her, said, you know, I'm, I'm using means of nutrition as well to chelate the iron out of my blood. I'm eating a plant-rich diet that has got a lot of specific things in there that were found to kind of push the iron out of your system. I was doing tons of wheatgrass. That was another one that I know helped for sure. Because I don't think, you know, it's crazy to think that if I stayed on the path of Western medicine, I would have been doomed to doing phlebotomy every few weeks and they hit you with a...I believe it's a 16 gauge needle, which is very large and that's got to sit in your arm while you drain blood. To me, this is all just a waste of time. I'd rather be reading about root cause things that would take care of this than sit there in a recliner and let them poke me to pull iron out of my system. I I was reading about all kinds of things with mineral metabolism and how copper can help, you know. iron homeostasis, I was getting deep into the weeds, but it doesn't have to be a complicated message. It can really just be eat plants and it'll sort itself out.
Glen Merzer: Now, you were reading these studies that that you use to deduce that you should have a plant-based diet. But did you also see documentaries or read books or anything else introduce you to the plant-based diet?
Eric McFadden: there was all kinds of breakthroughs I was happening. So, like I said, Dr. Greger was really helping me to differentiate on the lies and whatnot. But I started to, and you could see this on my Instagram, I have read well over a hundred books on nutrition because, I mean, you're talking to a guy who was ketogenic before everyone else. I was obsessed with it. to pull myself away from that and try to completely reframe all my beliefs, was really difficult. So I just was beating a dead horse and just reading book after book after book, proteinaholics from Garth Davis. That was another good one because, you know, it was intertwining with my interests of bodybuilding. And I was worried, I'm not going to get enough protein. I'm not going to get enough of this. I'm not going to get enough of that. What you find is you actually have a better nutrient profile as you move toward plants, because the only reason why you're getting those nutrients is because the animals are eating them in the first place. And it starts to become such common sense, but I think it's difficult for most in America to make those connections. I got to admit, I was a blessed man. My wife jumped right on it. My kids, my kids have been plant-based since day one, seven years old, five years old, never had any meat, never had any dairy. We won't let it happen. My wife has made a cookbook and we have a lot of fun with it. The other big thing there is we travel a lot with the kids too. So we've come up with a lot of recipes that it's all just a lot easier than people think. They're scared of it, I think, because they think it's so complicated when it doesn't need to be. Also, my brother-in-law jumped on, sister-in-law, mom, mother-in-law, everyone's jumping on, the whole family's getting into it, and they're all finding that they're curing all these ailments.
Glen Merzer: We need to put you in charge of the whole world. A lot of other people out there, if you're doing a great job of recruiting, as it were. Yeah. Just by example, I imagine. But did all three autoimmune conditions resolve the platelets?
Eric McFadden: So it was it was miraculous. And it was the changes started occurring within the first three weeks. You could say that I guess it was severe to cut out all meats and all dairy and just leave salmon. But it really wasn't difficult and the lab work was straightening itself out rapidly. CRP drop plummeted to nothing. Platelets were rising back up, iron overloading. Ferritin levels were coming down. No more breakouts on my face. Hasn't occurred since I made the switch. So no more psoriasis. It's just miraculous what it can do. You know, I always kind of felt like food was medicine. But when you really put it to the test and you really learn a lot of it is more so what you're taking out as opposed to what you're putting in, that's when the magic starts to happen. So not only was the blood work straightening out in the overall health, but all of a sudden I went from a waist size of 36 down to 30 and my strength was going through the roof. So all of sudden my hobby, which really is only bodybuilding, just got better. And I would have never thought that I was terrified of being
Glen Merzer: even the bodybuilding got better.
Eric McFadden: Yes. Yes.
Glen Merzer: That's with less protein,
Eric McFadden: with less protein. And so about that, what do you know? The carbs are magic. I deprived myself from them for so long. All I ever craved was a sweet potato and more apples and just more of the stuff that I couldn't get in my diet because I was so hyper focused on the eggs, the chicken, the steak, know, eating
Glen Merzer: So is it possible, Eric, that the muscles build up because of the resistance training and not because of the chicken?
Eric McFadden: I 100 % think so. think it's, this comes down to stimulus. You know, it's the training, the training volume, and then how you fuel yourself. You need that carbohydrate intake. The glycogen goes right into the muscles. mean, this is, it's not rocket science. You need carbohydrates. You thrive off them. And like McDougall's always said, you know, eat the foods you love. This is what you love. You just don't know you love it because you don't eat it enough, you know? And we're still, how many years later here, people are still terrified of carbohydrates.
Glen Merzer: Well, let's see what they're afraid of. The word is carbon from carbon, which is the stuff of life, and hydrate from water, hydrogen. So carbon plus water equals carbohydrate. I don't know if they're afraid of the stuff of life carbon or the stuff of life water, but if you're afraid of that, you got a problem.
Eric McFadden: Absolutely, Glen. And let's take it a step further. know, everyone on their fitness journey obsesses over the protein and the fat. But when we look right to, you know, calories per gram, carbohydrates down there at the bottom, the more carbs you eat, the less the less calories you're taking in. And then not to mention, you can almost negate the fiber count into the calories as well. So I spend the majority of my day, Glen, eating oats and rice and apples and potatoes and all the stuff that I love an excessive excessive amount.
Glen Merzer: Well, it's clearly not excessive because you're in good shape. So but the point is you could eat as much as you want.
Eric McFadden: Yes.
Glen Merzer: And you said that your condition started to resolve when you went pescatarian. I'm assuming you gave up the fish at some point. So how long did it take you to give up the fish and why?
Eric McFadden: So once I got a little deeper into Dr. Greger's book and started reading about the TMAO and some of the deleterious effects that can occur from fish, it was a little alarming to me. But, you know, fish wasn't something I desired the way I liked my eggs and the way I liked my shrimp and things like that. So it actually wasn't that hard to get rid of it in the diet because you know, you also want a diet to be simplistic, right? So a lot of my stuff, I can grab all those carbohydrates out of my pantry and all my fruits out of my freezer. There's no preparation to it, but with the fish, I felt like I was seasoning and standing over a grill constantly and Like I said, my family were big into traveling, so we like to have stuff on the go. You're not going to pack salmon in your suitcase for the airport, you know? It just became something where it was kind of a nuisance to have to go get it fresh and organic. And people think that you're buying these cuts of meat and you know everything about them, but you just don't.
Glen Merzer: You don't. You don't know if that salmon is wild caught or from a really sick fish farm where all the fish are being...concentrated like they concentrate pigs and CAFOs.
Eric McFadden: I think people are too trusting in where their food is coming from. So for me, once I ditched the fish, I felt even better once again. it's just it's really what you're replacing. How far can you go with it? And now it's been a good six, seven years and I continue to just feel better every day.
Glen Merzer: So. Well, that's a great endorsement for the diet. And when your wife went along on this journey with you, it sounds like almost from the start, right?
Eric McFadden: Very supportive woman. Yes.
Glen Merzer: Did her health improve in any way or she was feeling fine all along?
Eric McFadden: You know, Glen, I feel like she downplays it. She's got all the all her genes are from Sardinia. So she's she's an Italian woman and. She's never really had health issues. She's never been an extremist about health like I have. So she's never overindulged and she's very level. she saw a couple changes, like she had a rash of some sort on her hand that went away and her energy got a little higher and a couple of things like that. she enjoys it. She, like I said, she loves feeding our kids that way. She loves helping me prep all kinds of on the go meals for traveling, granola, cal chips, things like that. And we just, we're kind of minimalist in this household. So we find it fun to eat from the bottom of the food chain and make things simple. Every time we go to travel with other couples, it's, they're running around, where are we going to eat? Where are we going to eat? Where are we going to eat? Losing their mind. It's like, we're just going to grab some quick fruit and go back to a hike. Like for us, it's more about living in the moment, enjoying adventures than it is to obsess about. What restaurant are we getting to next to have a big slab of meat? You know what I mean?
Glen Merzer: Right. Now, your two children, five and seven, you said, right?
Eric McFadden: Yes, sir. They have been plant based all their lives and they are thriving. They are doing excellent. My daughter is one of the best gymnastics in her class. One of the best cheerleaders, the only flyer right now on her cheer team. She is excelling. They are healthy, homeschooled, happy. They are doing great.
Glen Merzer: That's great to hear. Now, when they interact with other kids whose parents are not feeding them as good a diet, how do you deal with that?
Eric McFadden: Glad. Good question, man. That is that's a hard one for me, a harder one for me than than most things with this dietary pattern, because everywhere you go, we were at a birthday party yesterday and, you know, the kids are going to be eating all kinds of cake and ice cream and pizza. And so what we found is the best for that predicaments or that specific scenario is making sure the kids get a lot of fruit, tofu in them and stuff like that before we go to the parties. We'll also make sure that everything is, you know, like vegan snacks. We'll get them vegan cupcakes and stuff like that and just bring them with us.
Glen Merzer: So they bring their own healthier cupcakes.
Eric McFadden: Bingo.
Glen Merzer: So they don't feel. completely left out, right?
Eric McFadden: Right.
Glen Merzer: And so they're they don't feel like they want to indulge in the unhealthy foods.
Eric McFadden: No, we get them some pretty some pretty tasty snacks, some whole foods, cupcakes and things like that, some stuff that, you know, is it is it the healthiest thing ever? No. But is it going to take them away from, you know, the typical norm? Yeah.
Glen Merzer: Now, do they ever say to you, Daddy, can I just have some pizza or anything like that?
Eric McFadden: They're pretty good about it. A couple of times my daughter's got a little sassy like she's going to go eat some pizza or meat. Go ahead. You'll probably be sick to your stomach for a long time because I don't think the human body, when it eats as good as they do for so long, and then you go ahead and indulge in that, I don't think it's going to sit right with you. when a normal American is born and you're just eating bad from day one, you can't differentiate. And that was a lot of the things with this dietary pattern. As you go deeper in it, you feel better and better every day because you never realized how bad you felt to begin with. You thought it was the norm. Like I thought it was the norm to have psoriasis and arthritis and all these other things. It's not the norm. It's not the norm because these things went away once I made the changes.
Glen Merzer: You know, Dr. Michael Klaper, the iconic plant-based physician, has said thatWe need to do a study of people like your children because they're rare in this country, people who have eaten healthy human food from birth. keep track of their medical records. Dr. Klaper may love to examine them one day, their records. Because all the vegans I've met who have been vegan from birth, and that's not too many, They've always been an excellent help. They've always thrived.
Eric McFadden: Yeah, I believe it.
Glen Merzer: So I had an interview with Mark Huberman recently, who's the head of the National Health Association. He's been vegan from birth.
Eric McFadden: Wow.
Glen Merzer: And I asked him what he likes to drink. And he said, I don't like to drink. much. I said, well, just water then? He said, no, I don't really drink much water. He said, now, if I'm been hiking in the heat, of course, I drink water, right? He's not opposed to drinking water. But he doesn't do eight glasses of water a day. And I said, why not? And he said, because I'm eating plants all day long. They hydrate you. Yeah. So, You know, when you're eating grapes and watermelon and apples and leafy greens, you don't really need necessarily eight glasses of water, though I think there's probably nothing wrong with it.
Glen, I mean, I watch people at work bringing these Stanley cups in that they're the size of their body. And I think to myself, how do you guys drink this amount of fluid? If you were eating as many blueberries, apples and oranges and bananas as I do in the morning. Yeah. You just can't get this water in. Like, you know, I went through a couple of binges on watermelon where I ate a half a watermelon and sitting and, I realized I can't have another sip of water for the rest of the day. I'm just, my body doesn't want it anymore. But, but with that, you're getting all those vitamins and minerals. I mean, the three biggest things there that are downplayed are fiber, vitamin C and antioxidants. And that's in the plants. So I don't think your body requires this amount of water that people are drinking. It's, it's something. Yeah.
Glen Merzer: All right, we'll take a quick break and we'll be right back with Eric McFadden.
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Glen Merzer: OK, we're talking with Eric McFadden. His Instagram accounts are rain and reed. That's R-A-I-N-E and read R-E-E-D and Carbivore Fitness. Eric, let's talk about your traveling because you're something of an expert on how to do healthy, active family traveling. So what types of trips do you do? The hiking, the bike riding? Tell us about that.
Eric McFadden: Yeah. So with this dietary pattern change, you know, you want to you want to make sure that you're you're fed if you need to be. And when you're traveling, obviously that can be difficult. But we've been doing it long enough now where we feel it's it's really something that that's easy. So we've gotten good at making sure when we're on the road, we got some smoothies, some I make like 10 different granolas, all different types of kale chips, put them in bags, put them in the suitcase, and you got them on the go. And everyone's always gawking at you, like, how are you so prepared? It's just something for us that's gotten easy. So we've been taking our kids, because it's our passion, we've taken them to Hawaii, Costa Rica. We're leaving for Iceland in two weeks. We'll be living in a van, essentially. You know, we're going to have some food packed in there. It's not as difficult as you would think.
Glen Merzer: So now when you first flying to Iceland, there is there's only so much food you could bring on the plane. So I'm guessing you're going to be doing some shopping there before the traveling within Iceland, right?
Eric McFadden: Yeah, yeah. So I mean, I think a lot of people forget this. Everyone's always freaking out. What am I going to grab for a snack? am I fruit fruit? It's easy. You can recognize it. Right. Let's think about when we're going into Iceland. We're going to we're going to be looking at a language we don't we don't know reading packages where the words don't make sense. Right. So how do you get around that and still eat healthy? You grab the fruits right off the shelf. Right. You can recognize them. So and that's just another thing that's that's you know, that's God's dessert or God's snack is just sitting right there. Apples, bananas. It's easy filling. So, yeah, once again, we're going back to carbs.
Glen Merzer: OK. And when you when you go on a hike, you take a lot of granola. Yeah. Do you have a strategy that, you know, you just eat when you're hungry, you push yourself? What's? What's your strategy?
Eric McFadden: Well, my strategy is, you know, because I'm still reading books like a madman with all that energy the plant based diet gave me. I find myself eating in such a manner that I never really get hungry. I think a big, a big thing of health there is to eat the majority of calories in the morning. So when I wake up, I'm having a giant smoothie and a giant bowl of granola. And what I find is that usually keeps me full going up until dinner time. Drink some water or another smoothie later on in the day if you want, but you know around 3 30 4 o'clock it's time for dinner. That'll be more so hummus and kale chips or you know some garbanzo beans that are already air fried in a bag. Eat those to get a little more protein if you feel you need more protein. But like I said, it's all just a lot easier than people think and you could fit quite a bit in a suitcase. If you keep it all in baggies. It'll be enough. know, a lot of people have this misconception that I just can't eat enough food to feel satiated on a plant-based diet. Well, yeah, you've got to increase the volume once you drop the caloric load. It's kind of common sense. So it's sad when you see people walk away from this diet because because of that specific reason that they feel like they're just not satiated and the body will come around, you'll get satiated from it. I feel like I'm eating more than everyone else around me, but I'm consuming so much less calories. I just feel better off of it. You never really feel that bogged down feeling after eating a bunch where you gotta lay on the couch and be miserable. You know what I mean? The energy just, it's there. And that's why a lot of... the hiking and biking that we do as a family, it just gets better every day because we continue to have energy. We're fueled appropriately and we just feel good enough to do things like that. It's sad when you see, you know, other families that just can't they can't keep up because of nutritional issues.
Glen Merzer: Yeah. Now, what do you tell your children? What do you and your wife tell your children about the fact that other children and other people are eating animals and they're not. How do you explain that to a five year old and a seven year old?
Eric McFadden: Yeah, that's another good question. It really is. I think I think my kids have always just made that connection, maybe because the environment of my wife and I, it's just so foreign to them, right? They don't really see anything in our house that's like that. And when they see other kids eating it, they still to this day inquire like why? Why is so-and-so eating an animal, Dad? don't know, buddy. You don't need to eat an animal. And they just make that connection. They really do. I think kids, they're a little more intelligent than we give them credit for. The whole idea of eating animals is only a normal concept for us, because that's how we were all raised. If you weren't raised that way, I think you make those connections a little bit sooner. But you know why it's hard, obviously, because it's like almost everything these kids grab nowadays has got dairy in it. And if that doesn't tell the story, you know, what does?
Glen Merzer: And I'll bet a lot of the kids around them are overweight, right?
Eric McFadden: And that is, I try not to say that specifically to my kids, but I tell them, you know, I think you guys thrive because you're eating the better food, the fruits and the vegetables. And my son gets it. My wife sends me videos of him when I'm at work of him pounding broccoli and lifting weights already at five years old. And I think it's adorable. I think, you know, it's definitely the way we want to continue to go with these kids.
Glen Merzer: Yeah.You're doing the right thing. And, you know, I just kind of feel sorry for the parents who are raising kids and they think that they're giving them a lot of cheese and scrambled eggs and sausages, that it's healthy for the kids and they're making their kids fat and sick.
Eric McFadden: Absolutely. My nephew, my nephews have had some things going on and my my brother-in-law had GERD and they as soon as I had went. completely plant-based. remember I made a huge Moroccan sweet potato for them for dinner with chickpeas on it and everything. And they couldn't even recognize the plate. They're like, what is this? It had a little bit of sauteed spinach on it. They ate it and they loved it. And I started telling them about how I reversed some of my medical autoimmune diseases and my brother-in-law who had GERD and some other things going on as well. A little overweight at that time. jumped fully in that day. I remember we were eating dinner with them and he goes, told his wife, Lex, I'm in, let's do this. Let's do the same thing. Let's go 100 % plant-based, tell me everything. So I made this amazing connection with my brother-in-law that I never had, same age as me. Him and his wife jumped all in, their kids, all their dairy issues and all the issues that they didn't even understand what was going on, reversed my brother-in-law. No longer has GERD or acid reflux. Doesn't take any of those medications anymore. Dropped a ton of weight. Him and I ran a 5K together and we did phenomenal back in our hometown in Buffalo, New York. We, my sister-in-law does all kinds of cooking. They opened a plant-based restaurant in Buffalo.
Glen Merzer: A plant-based restaurant in Buffalo. What's it called?
Eric McFadden: Yeah. It's called the Flourish Cafe.
Glen Merzer: Okay.
Eric McFadden: And, my wife and I
Glen Merzer: still in operation?
Eric McFadden: It is. It is my wife and I actually opened a restaurant too, in Richmond, Virginia, when we first moved here. it wasn't at that point we weren't whole foods plant-based, but it was a juicery. Okay. I was called the pit and appeal juice bar and Bistro and, it's, it's not plant-based, but it was as cool at that time. We started to get interested in the whole juicing thing and, trying to make the meals as healthy as we possibly could. I think when you really look at it, though, the juice isn't going to be as healthy as the smoothie. You want to keep the fiber intact, et cetera. So I wasn't 100 percent there, but we were migrating that way.
Glen Merzer: So how did you like the experience of having a juice bar or restaurant?
Eric McFadden: know, Glen, it wasn't the best. think it took a big toll on my wife and I. At that point, like I said, we were wanting to have children. And my wife was just too busy. She was working 60 hours a week. And I think you and I both know this, that there's just not enough profit margin in health food to make things work. So our vision changed a little bit from us being able to make ends meet financially. And so we did away with it. It's moved on since it's still not a whole foods plant based restaurant, but at the
Glen Merzer: restaurant still exists?
Eric McFadden: Yeah, the Pitten Appeal.
Glen Merzer: But are you still the owner?
Eric McFadden: No, no.
Glen Merzer: OK, so you sold it.
Eric McFadden: Kind of. Yeah, we let it go. We let it go. But it still exists. Still exists.
Glen Merzer: So you let it go and it still exists.
Eric McFadden: Well, so someone took it over.
Glen Merzer: Someone took it over.
Eric McFadden: A friend of mine since then, though, they closed quite a few of the locations that were once open. I mean, economy, obviously, is just not calling for restaurants to the opening left and right, because my wife and I, mean, we do we wish we could set up that perfect little niche thing that was like a little breakfast or a little diner, you know. But I just I think you take a real gamble nowadays if you go ahead and do something like that. I think what our time is better spent educating others on just how to eat optimally.
Glen Merzer: Well, one way you try to educate others is through your Instagram accounts, right?
Eric McFadden: Yeah, I've thought about doing some coaching and stuff like that. I still work a full-time job, so I just really haven't taken it on. But I always will offer advice to people who want to listen, who want to improve their health. Because I've done it for my family and friends to the best of my ability. Some people just aren't going to be receptive to the message, as we know. But I think veganism is growing. It's growing. I'm optimistic about people making big changes, whether it be through you know, agricultural reasons or, you know, the environment or health. mean, for me, it's always been health, right? But you're only you're only helping things from every angle, the planet and animals, et cetera. Right. Everything gets better. Yeah.
Glen Merzer: But but here's the here's the concern I have to the extent that the vegan movement is growing. I find in health food stores, there's a vegan section. And everything is made with coconut oil. I have this theory that the meat industry is trying to kill us with coconut oil. I can understand why people would go on a vegan diet to get healthy and then eat this stuff where it says saturated fat, nine grams or something per serving. And then they have two servings. They're giving themselves heart attacks with coconut oil.
Eric McFadden: Absolutely. think we have revolts going all over the place where people are hearing about this plant-based movement and they think to themselves, you guys are eating food that looks like meat and it's chemically processed. Yeah, but if you look at the SWAT meat trial, people were doing better, better health outcomes from beyond meat than they were real meat. So anything we could do to get people to move in the direction of less animal consumption is huge. But now you're seeing this other spin off of, know, carnivore dietary pattern. And like I said, that's, that's, it's just so laughable because I've been there and I've done that and it doesn't work. leads you down a bad road. Right. So that's once again, that's why my Instagram is Carbivore Fitness, cause it's a, it's a little stab at the carnivore community. just don't think that these people realize what a big difference it can make to make some small tweaks there and get away from the animal products. And like you said, high saturated fat. mean, we know for a fact that is how you create microbiome dysbiosis and intestinal permeability. When you look at the studies, that's how they're doing it to mice to make them create more autoimmunity is through those, those channels of high saturated fat, high, just high fat diet.
Glen Merzer: Right. So what type of content do you like to put on Carbivore Fitness?
Eric McFadden: Right now, it's more of a photo dump. And so it's more of just here's a shot of me in the gym today. And you could it's for me to track my gradual progress. I don't utilize the account to the ability that I could. Like I said, I like to get into some coaching and stuff like that. But the majority of that is a photo dump to show for me to remember what books I read. And some of the meals I make that are quick, easy, higher protein, higher carb that can help with bodybuilding. So how colorful they can be. And this is a way for me to kind of, you know, remember some of the recipes and stuff like that.
Glen Merzer: Now you're still bodybuilding like you used to, but you're at a lower weight than you used to be when you ate meat. Right?
Eric McFadden: Yeah. Yeah. So I was as high as 205 to 215 pounds. Now I just float around 160. I mean, is it hard for me to accept that I've lost all that giant muscle mass and weight? Not really. As I get older, I find that I feel better being a little lighter. I still have a decent physique. I'm edging up on 40 years old and my energy is unbelievable compared to what it was when I was carrying around all that weight. And then once again, the waist size is smaller. So I think that's one of the more important things there. That's going to give you better health outcome. And the strength is still there. So at the end of the day, in the context of longevity, you need to keep the strength up with resistance training. That's the most important thing.
Glen Merzer: And you're still doing that. And I imagine if you wanted to bulk up with 10 more pounds of muscle, you could, right?
Eric McFadden: Easily. I would love doing it. Yeah, when you really enjoy your food, it's not hard to just take in more calories. I believe Joel Fuhrman had once said this, that he feels like you could probably eat as many plants as you wanted to and your body would still maintain homeostasis with the weight that you're supposed to be at. Sometimes you do find that, you know, I five, six banana ice cream bowls in a row and I think to myself, I'm going to pay for this. No, I just wake up with a better physique.
Glen Merzer: Yeah, I found that my weight, you know, I lost about eight or 10 pounds after I gave up oil. And after that, my weight just stabilized and it would be kind of hard for me to put on weight if I wanted to.
Eric McFadden: Yeah. So the oil is something I mean, I've always tried to do the SOS, the best of my ability. I lately saw my foods, oil. I'm with you. I really don't trust that oil is this miracle food that people make it out to be right. Even the olive oil. Why don't you just eat some olives instead and maintain the fiber that comes along with them. Right. So a lot of people, will also cry. We've got camps coming from everywhere. This is why you have to know how to read the science, but A lot of people cry about how seed oils are inflammatory and you're just not seeing that through the studies. mean, there was little to no effect on the immune system whatsoever, but from a macronutrient point of view, you're taking a whole tablespoon of oil, is going to be, you know, 200 plus calories with no fiber. You're probably going to pay for that in another, another type of way. You know what I mean? So you know, metabolically. It's not going to be the way to go. Oil just doesn't serve us to the point that people think it does. I think you would be better served with real food.
Glen Merzer: Sure. And the oil gets even worse when it's heated.
Eric McFadden: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Glen Merzer: Now, what about your rain and read Instagram account? What do you post there?
Eric McFadden: So this is the account that I'm more proud of, to tell you the truth. This is something that, you know, it's not my cheesy mirror picks. It's not my bodybuilding thing. It's more so something my wife's really controlled from day one. It's her recipes. She makes phenomenal food. When you see the pictures and all the color that comes along with it, it's about that, but it's also about how we get our kids involved. in cooking. So my wife's big into the sourdough. She has really taken that on. And it's a very healthy sourdough. It's made from acorn wheat, which is the non-hybridized original strain of wheat. So it's lower in gluten and glyphosate and all that. Just some water and salt. She does it all on her own and she does it with the kids. So a lot of the videos are the kids helping to make the sourdough and they're making a lot of ferment. She's always doing pickles and red onions and things like that. Cause what you find in the context of the immune system is it's, it's the fermented food that is really the healthiest of all. mean, that's King, right? And we're so blessed. Once again, a shout out to Dr. Bolswitz as well, right? Like a guy who a gastroenterologist who breaks out and wants to divulge the truth of how powerful nutrition can be. And time and time again, he's always explained that fermented food is number one. And that's what my wife does a lot of. She does a lot of the sourdough. The kids have learned to get in the kitchen, which basically a homeschooling class for us is to keep them in the kitchen and keep them educated on the fruits and vegetables and make it fun. Right. For my son, it's Tanner. How do you get stronger eyes, buddy? It's you know, it's not just carrots. It's also the green too, you know, and it's just constantly educating them on that kind of stuff. Because when you go to real school, I mean, are they teaching you that? Is there a nutrition class? We're lacking in nutrition and finance. Probably the two more important things we should all know, but we just don't.
Glen Merzer: Yeah. When I was a kid, my mother told me that carrots made my eyes blue. So I bought it and I think I learned otherwise when I was like 47 or so. Speaking of the sourdough and the fermented foods, my wife and I were recently in a vegan Eastern European restaurant in Pittsburgh, Apteka, I think it's called, and a fabulous restaurant. And they served us a drink that was somehow a kvass made from sourdough bread somehow. It was really delicious. so it was a fermented food sourdough somehow fermented into a drink and just fantastic.
Eric McFadden: Yeah, I heard of that before. That's that's one I like to try. I think it was like a big thing in Russia. I read once for them to drink that. I'm not 100 % sure. But the fermented foods, they're, they're king. They're up there. And there's another thing I want to say too, is, you know, since transitioning to this diet, it was no longer the standard six eggs for breakfast, two chicken breasts for lunch, tacos or shrimp for dinner. It was Let's let's get diverse in how we make food. So I try to every weekend, you know write down a couple different Cultures that we can indulge in cooking that way You know like Mexican one day Italian the next day Ethiopian Indian These are like things that we had never Thought about when I was just eating standard American diet And we're from Buffalo, New York. mean, there's only a couple of things you ingest there. It's chicken wings and pizza and beer. And that's it. There is no other food pyramid in Buffalo. So we just weren't diverse in that kind of stuff. And that's a whole nother thing that the plant-based diet has really helped us to indulge in since making that change.
Glen Merzer: Dr. Bolshevitz, who you mentioned before, his mantra is diversity of plants, diversity of plants, diversity of plants. And that's really the key to health. You just eat more and different plants all day long in whole food form. And you don't have to go to the doctor.
Eric McFadden: Yeah. I mean, I think that when you look at the medicine aspect of that, too, it's just the way food synergistically amplify one another. And when you mix them in certain ways, you get, better better health outcome and that's interesting stuff when we find out that stuff like what was the big one that dropped this year the or was it last year already the PPO enzyme of bananas and how they ruin the antioxidant capacity of smoothies. that was a hard one to swallow Glen. mean who doesn't like me about that one
Glen Merzer: that one passed me by. What was the story.
Eric McFadden: So there's an there's an enzyme inside of bananas. I can't remember exactly how to say it, perioxidase, something or other, it's called PPO. And it's, you see the brown in the banana, it's an oxidizing agent. And what it does is it apparently destroys a lot of the enzymes and antioxidants in foods like cacao and green tea and blueberries and things like that. So if you're throwing a banana in your fruit smoothie with all those antioxidants, you might be kind of putting them to waste. And so, I love that we're starting to do studies on, you know, exclusively plant foods and how they interact with one another and how I can change my diet to make it more efficient every day.
Glen Merzer: Right. All right. So don't put bananas in your smoothies.
Eric McFadden: Shoot for the mangoes or dates. I mean, they're sweet. They're thick. They'll help out.
Glen Merzer: Now, would the with the less ripe bananas be less of a problem?
Eric McFadden: I believe they were. also found that PPO was somewhat deactivated during freezing, but it was completely destroyed if you were able to boil or cook your bananas. I don't know who's going to do that.
Glen Merzer: I have never boiled a banana.
Eric McFadden: Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Glen Merzer: So I don't know anyone who has boiled a banana and I don't think anybody ever will boil a banana.
Eric McFadden: No, no, I don't think so. But I was thinking that's how I've been in some research yesterday on it and apparently PPL can be deactivated with certain enzymes in cinnamon and ginger could deactivate the PPL. maybe
Glen Merzer: there you go. Add the banana and put in some cinnamon.
Eric McFadden: There you go. Yeah. Hopefully that's the answer. Who knows? All right.
Glen Merzer: Well, Eric, I've learned a lot talking with you. Do you have a website where people can contact you?
Eric McFadden: I don't have a website for now. I just got the Instagrams up and
Glen Merzer: Yeah, I don't I don't know Instagram very well. Can people contact you through Instagram?
Eric McFadden: Yeah, they can message you a message Yeah, yeah.
Glen Merzer: All right. So the again the Instagram accounts are rain raine and read our EED and carbivore fitness and Eric it's been a pleasure speaking with you and getting to know you you too.
Eric McFadden: Thank you so much Glen. I appreciate it.
Glen Merzer: Take care
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