#41 How to Live a Primal Edge Health Lifestyle with Tristan Haggard

Tristan Haggard (0:00)

They've figured out a way to make all of dairy and all of, you know, most of the Western, or at least American, system of agriculture dependent on three sources of food, corn, soy, and wheat, that are consolidated and monopolized by one company. We gotta do what works, because what works now might not work tomorrow. Oh yeah, eggs are the perfect breakfast, and I eat eggs every day for breakfast, and then like three months later, I'm like, fuck, I'm sick of eggs, but I think these are all social engineering tools, and when you really look at how much land is being used on the planet, it's in a school. It's really easy to convince people in big cities that the world's overpopulated. You know, yeah, look around, there's no space, everything's so expensive. This is like the basic fish level. You go beyond this, there's real philosophical issues that need to be explored that have to do with like just the nature of civilization and knowledge itself, the scientific method and where these ideas come from. I want living water that doesn't leave me thirsty after I drink it.

Siim Land (1:00)

Body Mind Empowerment.

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Siim Land (1:07)

Everything the body needs.

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Siim Land (1:12)

Welcome to the Body Mind Empowerment Podcast. I'm your host Siim Land and today from Ecuador with Tristan Haggard and his family, they run a website called primaledgehealth.com, a YouTube channel and as well as a podcast under the same name. After living in the States, they decided to move to the tropical Ecuador forests and start raising their children in a nature supportive environment. Tristan and his wife, Jessica, teach people how to live a healthy ancestral life by practicing the ketogenic diet and holding dear family values.

Tristan, thanks for coming onto the podcast and I want to welcome you to the show.

Tristan Haggard (1:50)

Hey, how's it going, man? Thanks for having me on. Just one little correction. We don't live in tropical jungle.

We live in the Andes, which for the large part, the Andes is not highly forested. They're more like, it's more like arid, not arid, but it's mountainous. The Andes mountain, they're very similar to the Alps in certain ways.

Siim Land (2:17)

Right. Yeah, I've seen some of your videos and when you do like drone shots over the mountains and it kind of looks very forested and it's a beautiful place.

Tristan Haggard (2:28)

There are eucalyptus, there are some little like forested areas in certain valleys and there's eucalyptus that was actually, it's non-native, that was actually brought here. Yeah, eucalyptus is native to Australia and California you see the same, like Southern California, the climate was completely different before it was settled by Europeans who actually brought eucalyptus and dried up a lot of the more swampy and wet areas in Southern California using eucalyptus. So I think some of the drone footage you've probably seen here were of the eucalyptus, I don't know if I call it a forest behind my house because it's not native, right? Like these are, it's kind of an invasive species in certain ways, which is a really interesting thing. But, you know, it makes good firewood, it's nice, dry, hot firewood and it's good to build with.

But the problem is it kind of throws off the soil microbiome a little bit in the area and it changes the acidity levels in the soil.

Siim Land (3:26)

Yeah, that's definitely a man. He's going to leave his mark everywhere he goes, you know.

That's quite unfortunate.

Tristan Haggard (3:32)

It's our nature. Sometimes we do things for better. Sometimes we stumble around and do things that are suboptimal.

Siim Land (3:39)

Yeah, that's right. So what made you move from the States to Ecuador?

Tristan Haggard (3:46)

It's really hard to answer that completely, you know. But we were at a time in our lives where we wanted change. We wanted something different. You know, we lived in California. I grew up in California in the suburbs and in a more suburban slash semi-urban environment.

And we finished university and we were both, my wife and I, being the other part of we, we were both wanting, we both finished our undergraduate degrees and we were both thinking about either doing more school, going back for, you know, getting a master's degree or I was looking at chiropractic. Jessica was thinking about becoming a naturopath and I was looking at getting into chiropractic. I was really into rehabilitation of the spine because I had had certain injuries and certain, you know, functional imbalances in my body that I wanted to correct, that I had been working years on to correct. And we were kind of caught between, you know, going into debt, going into a lot of debt to get more school and more education, which to me seemed like a nauseating idea at the time, having gone through the university system, especially, you know, the University of California system, which is, you know, I mean, when you look at it, yeah, there's certain, you can get a good education, and I'm incredibly grateful for the experience. But really, when it comes down to it, you're not being edu... The education is low level these days. It's more social engineering, worldview engineering, and I don't know, brainwashing. It's just, I didn't want... I've gotten a liberal arts degree, studied history, which was fascinating experience. I think the liberal arts are often overlooked, and the ability to articulate ourselves is very important, especially in the sciences as well. But yeah, I was taking more biology classes and stuff, because I was looking at going to Palmer, which was a chiropractic school, it would have required more of the sciences.