#21 How the Modern Health Industry Has Lied to You About Cholesterol, Saturated Fat and Eating Healthy

Craig Emmerich (0:02)

We base almost entirely how healthy you are on your total cholesterol number, and it says little to nothing about your actual health. Go back up and look at the inputs, go look at the source and see what is messing up the system and causing these bad outputs.

Siim Land (0:20)

That's the topic of today's Body Mind Empowerment Podcast, and our guest is Craig Emmerich. He's a nutrition author and also known as The Keto Dad.

Craig Emmerich (0:29)

If you've already got a lot of body fat on your body, your body is high fat.

Siim Land (0:34)

We're going to talk about how the modern health industry has practically lied to you.

Craig Emmerich (0:38)

It's not just a failure, it's actually corruption in that the sugar industry paid all these scientists to generate studies in the 70s that pointed the finger at fat as the enemy for heart disease when they knew it was sugar.

Siim Land (0:55)

So let's delve into the world of debunking some nutrition myths. Body Mind Empowerment.

SPEAKER_3 (1:05)

Get stronger, faster, smarter, quicker, friendlier, more helpful, more driven.

Siim Land (1:11)

Everything the body needs.

SPEAKER_3 (1:12)

Control your mind.

Siim Land (1:15)

Craig, welcome to the show.

Craig Emmerich (1:18)

Thank you and thanks for having me on.

Siim Land (1:20)

Yeah, I'm glad to have you here. And can you tell us a little bit about what made you become an author about nutrition?

Craig Emmerich (1:30)

Yeah, it's kind of a long journey. I started out my career as an electrical engineer and went into electrical engineering, moved on from there to product management for a lot of years. And product management is an interesting role in that you have to deeply understand the technology of what's going on, of the products, but then translate that into a language that's easy to understand for users, for sales staff and those kinds of things.

So that was an interesting role for me. And I think it kind of primed me for this role in nutrition. And what happened was my wife, Maria, started down this path a number of years before me. She started research, she went to school for health and human performance and started writing books and cookbooks and gained a lot of success. And it got to the point where I was kind of the guy behind the scenes, keeping the website going, our blog, all that kind of stuff. And then it just made sense for me to start working for our business. And so I left my field and did this full time.

And that freed up a lot of time for me to study and have a deeper understanding of our biology, how our bodies work.

And I've basically, in the past six years or so, been doing that 100% of the time.

Siim Land (2:58)

It's like some aspects of the systems we're thinking, they're very applicable to understanding the human body. Definitely, I can definitely see some application in there. And you also mentioned your wife, Maria, and she's also a best-selling author in the ketogenic diet.

So, what I like about authors like you and Maria is that you empower people with the knowledge that is actually practicable and applicable in their everyday life. And it's actually more congruent with, it's more realistic or more applicable than the common recommendations we get by the general health and fitness industry.

Craig Emmerich (3:41)

Definitely, that's part of it too, is we like to make it really easy to understand and apply to your life. So, we take some very complicated topics. When you look at the biochemistry of the body, it's extremely complicated. But if you're able to boil it down and understand the basics of how you can leverage that to make yourself healthier and to lose weight and reach your goals, that's what we try to do is boil it down, make it easy to understand. And then Maria is amazing at creating these innovative recipes that allow you to have the things you want, your traditional comfort foods, but just tweak it a little bit. Take out the higher carb ingredients, add something else that mimics the flavor and texture.

And she's just great at that.

Siim Land (4:29)

Yeah, it's true. You have to keep it simple and that's where the beauty is.

And I'm carrying on from my previous point is that it's almost as if the state and the government, they have kind of failed at giving the people the right advice about what's healthy and what not. As we see, we have more obese people than ever before.

Craig Emmerich (4:54)

Absolutely.

Siim Land (4:57)

You talked about this in your book about what are the failures of modern nutritional guidance. Can you tell us a little bit about what's the most common misconceptions you talked about?