Phil Discusses how Plant Oxalates were responsible for plaque in his Arteries
Kurt Annaheim
From my Carnivore Mentor - Phil Escot
Carnivore Diet Benefits: How I Reversed
Neuropathy & Arthritis
Note: the video link above is cued to a salient point. (Watch it all) Phil Escott has been an advocate and practitioner of the carnivore diet since 2015. Over the years, he has dedicated himself to understanding and promoting the benefits of this diet through personal experience and extensive research. Phil's journey began after facing significant health challenges, including severe psoriatic arthritis, which led him to explore various dietary solutions. His shift to a carnivore diet marked a turning point, resulting in remarkable health improvements and the alleviation of his symptoms. With nearly a decade of following this diet, Phil has become a respected voice in the carnivore community, sharing his insights and experiences to help others who are looking to make similar health transformations.
Transcript:
**Serena:** Thank you for having me on your show, Serena.
I’m excited about this. You are one of the OGs that people
talk about. I was interviewing Mark the other day and he
mentioned that you were one of his first experiences with
carnivore and that he was involved with a group with you
years and years ago. So I was like, that’s it, I’m asking
Phil. I’ve got to hear all the stuff from the OGs. Let’s
start with your history because you used to be a plant-based
advocate. Tell everybody how that happened and why that
changed for you.
**Phil:** There’s a lot of things that con us into this
plant-based nonsense, whether it’s studies or animal welfare
or all of that. For me it was the spiritual side of it. For
30-odd years I considered myself a serious yogi and along
with that came, “You’re never going to get enlightened
unless you eat plant-based. If you eat meat you’ll never
ascend to 5D.” There are so many deceptions behind all of
this and that was the one that caught me.
I used to write books and articles on plant-based eating
back in the early to mid-90s. I ran a gym in the late 90s
and ended up really muscly and looked pretty healthy,
although the whispers were there — odd joint pain that
shouldn’t have happened. I thought, “Oh, it’s just the
training.” Then I gave that up, ate a load of crap — four
bowls of Crunchy Nut cornflakes and peanut butter with
cheese on for breakfast, pasta and cheese sauce for lunch,
then in the evening I’d think, “Well, I have to be healthy,”
so I’d make vegetarian Indian rice and dal. Then I’d spend
the night waking up taking antacids.
By 2010 things really came to a head. One ankle went weird,
then the other ankle, then my knee, then everywhere. That
year I also had iritis. The docs said, “Have you got some
arthritic condition?” Obviously I did but I hadn’t admitted
it and was covering it up with non-steroidal
anti-inflammatories that ruined my gut. End of 2010 I was
totally crippled, a big fat bastard and not well at all —
crippling psoriatic arthritis.
I thought, “I’m plant-based, so what I need to do is go even
more plant-based.” So I went vegan, then raw vegan, then
fruitarian. By that time I’d lost all my muscle, still had
the inflammation in the joints, gone barking mad, my teeth
had all de-enameled, and I had kidney stones from all the
spinach smoothies. I knew that was the wrong path.
Then around 2011 I discovered Natasha Campbell-McBride and
her GAPS diet. She became a hero of mine and really saved my
life with Gut and Psychology Syndrome. I got to get her on
my Red Pill Buddhist podcast recently — first time I’ve ever
been starstruck. She might come to our event in Spain later
this year with Anthony Chaffee and others.
I finally admitted we have always eaten meat, we are
definitely carnivores. I slid into keto first — of course we
need our fruit and veg, maybe not fruit because it’s too
sugary, but veg is great. I hadn’t figured out plant toxins
yet, but I had a few veg with my fatty meat. By 2013 things
were really reversing. I wrote my book Arthritis: The Best
Thing That Ever Happened to Me, which goes into all the
spiritual side, the comedy struggles with the medical
establishment, and everything I discovered — including Jack
Kruse, light, circadian rhythm, cold thermogenesis.
Everything worked great, but if I could put another foreword
in the book now I’d say: please everybody just go fully
carnivore, fatty beef and lamb if you’ve got autoimmunity,
and that will blow it up. I didn’t discover that till 2015.
That’s how I’ve eaten since 2015 except for one blip in 2022
when I was on tour with bands, eating out at festivals, and
thought eggs, chicken, pork and dairy were fine because I’d
been symptom-free for eight years.
It didn’t blow me up straight away. It took the whole
summer, but winter 2022-23 I was absolutely crippled — worse
than when I wrote the book. Lost 45 pounds, on crutches,
legs wasted away, suicidal pain levels. I went straight on
Anthony Chaffee’s channel because mine is horribly
shadowbanned, just to warn people. If you’re autoimmune you
really have to be that strict.
My good friend Sophia Clemens and the Paleo Medicina team in
Hungary — the results they’re getting on their Paleolithic
Ketogenic Diet (PKD) are night and day compared to ordinary
carnivore. I got rid of it in about three months this time
instead of three years. When I do consults now it’s all
about warning people how strict they have to be. All my
knowledge has come from being a complete idiot and taking
more wrong turns than anybody else.
**Serena:** (dog barking in background) Sorry, my husband
just got home and my phone rang. Okay, she’s done barking
now.
Tell me about your mom and how she beat cancer.
**Phil:** Leading up to the cancer, she was having really
bad reflux — everything coming back up after meals. I took
her to the gastroenterologist (a guy locally renowned for
being aggressive toward unusual ideas). They diagnosed
hiatus hernia and wanted her on proton-pump inhibitors. I
said, “How about we go really high-fat, bone broth, fatty
meat?” I was waiting for him to attack me, but my mom chimed
in, “So what are you going to do for me?” He said, “If you
listen to your son you’ll never need a gastroenterologist
again. You’ll never need any of us.” Blew me away. She did
it and all the gut issues reversed easily.
A year or so later she found a 6 cm lump in her breast, skin
starting to go weird. Oncologist wanted treatment, I said
no, threw everything at it — healing mushrooms, apricot
kernels, then full-on Rick Simpson cannabis oil (illegal in
the UK). She got too stoned so I stopped it and it started
growing again. Then we did an iodine protocol for three
months. I’d pretty much given up, but shortly after she
said, “Hey, the lump’s going down.” We went back to the
oncologist expecting to arrange mastectomy. He examined her,
stopped dead, turned around and said, “How on earth did you
do that?” I said, “I gave you the whole list of what we were
going to do.” He said it was the first natural cancer
reversal he’d ever seen as an oncologist.
She had it on a carnivore diet too — everything works better
on carnivore. The lump kept shrinking, skin healed. She died
in 2018 at 95 from two bouts of pneumonia, not cancer.
**Serena:** People can’t wrap their minds around how natural
things can work when we have modern medicine.
**Phil:** The thing that breaks my heart is when people get
sick they think the healthiest thing is still five-a-day.
They’re still taking in all those plant toxins. I should
have died of scurvy nine years ago, had heart disease,
cancer, everything — and how on earth have I had a poo for
nine years with no fibre? Yet here I am.
**Serena:** I used to teach homeschool PE and give kids
“five a day the colour way” colouring sheets. Then it became
seven a day. Now I’m zero a day the colour way and healthier
than ever.
**Phil:** My youngest has been carnivore since he was born —
breast milk and meat, occasional chocolate binge, no
vegetables. He comes out of school and I say, “What did you
learn today, Peter?” He says, “More bullshit.”
There is a huge war on health right now. Veganism being
pushed, fake meats, Beyond Burgers — a chemical storm. A
burger should be minced beef and salt. Beyond Burger? You
can’t pronounce half the ingredients.
All the studies that supposedly prove fatty red meat is
dangerous — have you ever seen one that included proper
carnivores? Never. And they say it’s because it’s unethical.
Isn’t it funny how all the things supposedly caused by fatty
red meat are reversed when all you eat is fatty red meat?
**Serena:** So many people say, “Oh you’re just lucky,” or
“You cut out processed food, that’s why it’s working — but
eventually you’ll get heart disease.”
**Phil:** I’m 61. At 50 I had calcifications in my arteries.
I don’t have any now. All the carnivores are getting clear
CAC scans. Luck?
On oxalates: they’re just one of the hundreds of plant
toxins, but one of the nastiest. They settle in joints,
organs, eyes as microscopic glass shards. The body dumps
them in waves over decades. Sally Norton’s Toxic Superfoods
is brilliant. In winter 22-23 I got another kidney stone
after eight years zero oxalates. I asked Sally if it could
be from the lethal-dose spinach smoothies I did in 2011 and
she said absolutely.
Ancestral tribes and modern hunter-gatherers don’t eat
stalks and leaves. No hunter-gatherer ever killed an animal,
brought it back, rejoiced, and then said, “Nope, but we need
a side.” You get more nutrition from a steak alone than
steak and salad because of the anti-nutrients.
It’s so easy to explain carnivore in five minutes, but then
you have to spend hours or months deprogramming the
brainwashing.
**Serena:** Even after two and a half years for me, some
friends still think I’m insane.
**Phil:** One of the first signs the gut is compromised is
indigestion, bloating, farting — we think that’s normal.
Half the ads on TV are for Gaviscon. When I was
vegetarian/vegan we’d come home from the meditation dome and
spend the evening lighting our farts. The house had its own
methane layer. As a carnivore it’s rare to have any gas at
all.
Most people come to carnivore in desperation after trying
everything else. What do you call a proper expert on the
vegan diet? A carnivore — because we’ve learned it’s
nonsense, then gone through Mediterranean, paleo, keto, and
finally carnivore.
People still trust the white coat and stethoscope. Doctors
get about an hour of nutrition training in med school — and
it’s the wrong training.
**Serena:** What do you call the doctor who graduated last
in his class? Doctor.
**Phil:** We keep chipping away at the dogma. How mad are
we? I’m still alive after nine years of only meat after
going into it really, really sick.
**Serena:** If you had a couple of book recommendations,
what would they be?
**Phil:** Natasha Campbell-McBride’s books, especially the
new Gut and Physiology Syndrome. Paleo Medicina’s cookbook
for what you can actually eat when autoimmune. But the one
I’ve got to mention is our own — The Red Pill Food
Revolution that Ben Hunt put together (I was one of the
contributors). It’ll be out in print soon, but if you join
the Big Fat Challenge at thebigfatchallenge.com you get it
right now as PDF and audiobook along with all the other
resources and Zoom calls.
It’s about the history of food and how we’ve been fooled by
psychopaths for thousands of years. Agriculture enabled the
rise of psychopaths — before that they had no place in
society. You hunt, you bring it back, you don’t ruin the
land, you don’t need armies. Start growing crops, you ruin
the land, you need people to defend it, then people at the
top own the land (ridiculous concept that we can own pieces
of the Earth). That enabled the rise of the psychopaths in
power.
Apart from books, just listen to podcasts. Put your phone on
airplane mode so you’re not scrolling rubbish. Listen to
Anthony Chaffee, Jack Kruse (takes you into light, EMFs,
water, magnetism — all the ancestral disconnects), and Dr
Sarah Pugh who simplifies the quantum health stuff
beautifully.
Carnivore is amazing, but if your circadian rhythm is shot,
you’re not sleeping, you’re not getting morning light,
you’ve got blue light and Wi-Fi at night — you won’t heal
well. All of it works loads better when you do all the
ancestral stuff too. We cover all that in the Big Fat
Challenge and have a lot of fun on the Zoom calls.
**Serena:** Tell everybody where they can find you.
**Phil:** I’ll send you my Linktree because links always
change. Main thing now is the Big Fat Challenge —
thebigfatchallenge.com — all our events, the books, the
tribe. My consults for autoimmune are on my website, but
everything’s in the Linktree.
**Serena:** All righty Phil, thank you so much for hanging
out with me today. This was very educational.
**Phil:** Serena, I’ve watched tons of your stuff, I think
it’s great, and I was really happy when you messaged me to
come on. Thank you so much.
**Serena:** I was honored to have you. It was really great.
**Phil:** You’re so welcome. Thank you for joining us.