Plant Based Diets Won't Help | Peter Ballerstedt PhD

**Dr. Gabrielle Lyon** (0:02)
Welcome to The Dr. Gabrielle Lyon Show, where I believe a healthy world is based on transparent conversations.
In today's episode of The Dr. Gabrielle Lyon Show, I sit down with Dr. Peter Ballerstedt. We discuss the importance of ruminants on people and the planet. Ruminants are those animals included like cows, sheep, goats.
We discuss how protein is calculated in plant products and what does the impact of these calculations on you as the consumer.
We also discuss how Peter makes sense of the dietary guidelines and what he actually believes you should be doing for your own health and wellness. Dr. Peter Ballerstedt earned his bachelor's and master's degree at the University of Georgia and his doctorate at the University of Kentucky. He was the Forge Extension Specialist at Oregon State University.
Peter is the current president of the American Forage and Grassland Council.
What makes his perspective so unique is that he has reexamined the human diet and its impact on health. What he has learned doesn't agree with the advice given for the past several decades. Peter is an advocate for ruminant animal agriculture and the essential role of animal-sourced foods in the human diet. He strives to build bridges between producers, consumers, and researchers across a wide variety of scientific disciplines. And as always, if you guys like this episode, please like, share, subscribe, send it out to your family and friends. Your support means the world. Let's jump right in. Thank you to Paleo Valley for sponsoring this episode of the show. I love that they sponsored this episode of the show because their beef sticks are absolutely amazing. And when we talk about ruminants, we are definitely talking about beef. Paleo Valley makes some of the best-tasting, fermented, 100% grass-fed, grass-finished beef sticks on the market. They use beef sourced from small domestic farms in the US. They use organic spices to flavor these beef sticks. Everything that they have and they use is non-GMO. They ferment their sticks, which creates a naturally occurring probiotic. And just quite personally, the texture of these sticks are absolutely phenomenal. Not only will you get protein, but you will also get vitamins and minerals, glutathione, CLA, again bioavailable protein, omega-3 fatty acids. Who is this beef stick for? Anybody and everyone. My kids are obsessed. In fact, I have to hide my stash. If you guys are looking for a great snack, this is one to go to. Head on over to paleovalley.com/dr.lyon. You guys will absolutely love one of my most favorite products, Paleo Valley Beef Sticks. That's paleovalley.com/dr.lyon for 15% off. Thank you to Element for sponsoring this episode of the show. It is spelled LMNT and pronounced Element. You guys have heard me talk all about hydration before, and I guarantee you that if you have got your lifestyle right, you are training and sweating. This is why I love Element because hydration is everything. And Element is an electrolyte drink mix with a thousand milligrams of sodium, 200 milligrams of potassium, 60 milligrams of magnesium, no junk, no added sugar, no fillers. It tastes great. It comes in very easy to travel with, packets. So you can throw it in your bag, get ready to have it on the airplane, at the gym, you name it. And why is it important? Because hydration status, if you are depleted, if you are dehydrated, you can have headaches, muscle cramps, fatigue, you name it. You have probably felt the effects of dehydration. One of my favorite ways to rehydrate is Element.
Head on over to www.drinkelement.com/dr.lyon. Again, that's www.drinkelement.com/dr.lyon. And this product is so good that if you don't like it, you will get a no questions asked refund. It's so good that if you don't like it, you will get a no questions asked refund. And in fact, when you order using my code, you will get to try eight flavors for free. You will get an eight sample pack for free.
Dr. Peter Ballerstedt, thank you so much for joining me.
And I am really excited for this conversation. You have been coined, I don't know if this is a term that you called yourself, but the sod father of the ruminant.
Is that true? Is that how you're going with it?

**Dr. Peter Ballerstedt** (5:26)
Well, I'm not clever enough to come up with these things on my own. So yes, I've been given the title, Don Pedro, the sod father of the ruminati.
And basically, I think the ruminati came first, and maybe that was my suggestion.
Basically, you know, it seems like we know a whole lot about this wondrous creature or family of creatures called ruminants and all that they do for us. And then I got involved in the metabolic health space. And so it seemed like there was a lot of information that we knew that others didn't, so ruminati. And yeah, somebody gave me the moniker of Don Pedro at some point. So yeah, you know, we'll just lean into it real hard.