This solo episode delivers a practical ranking of carnivore foods from most to least optimal, giving listeners a clear framework for making smarter food choices at any budget. Dr. Anthony Chaffee places wild-caught and grass-fed animals at the top, emphasizing that retaining subcutaneous and organ fat is critical since it carries DHA, EPA, and fat-soluble vitamins. A 2020 study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology is cited, confirming that saturated fat carries no increased cardiovascular risk and is actually protective against stroke.
The ranking descends through grain-finished ruminants, non-pasture-raised pork and chicken, minimally processed meats, and full-fat dairy (which can trigger inflammation and weight gain in some individuals), before reaching the most problematic options. A key warning is issued against ultra-lean protein diets, which can cause protein poisoning by overwhelming the liver's ability to convert ammonia to urea, destroying hormones and overall health. The core message is that any whole meat with adequate fat outperforms plant-based alternatives, regardless of where it falls on the ranking.
Key Takeaways
- Retain all fat from wild or grass-fed animals, including subcutaneous fat, kidney fat, and organ fat like the omentum and mesentery, because this is where DHA, EPA, and essential fat-soluble vitamins are concentrated.
- Grain-finished beef loses most of its omega-3s (DHA and EPA) after approximately 3 months in a feedlot, so supplement with grass-finished butter, grass-finished tallow, or wild-caught fish rather than relying on plant-based ALA, which converts to DHA and EPA at less than 1%.
- Eating predominantly lean meat with very little fat forces the body to break down amino acids for energy, producing excess ammonia that can overwhelm the liver and cause protein poisoning, including hair loss, hormonal disruption, and serious illness.
- Full-fat dairy ranks below whole meats because it can trigger inflammation, worsen autoimmune conditions like Crohn's disease and rheumatoid arthritis, and send hormonal signals that promote fat storage in adults, making it particularly counterproductive for weight loss or managing autoimmune symptoms on a strict carnivore diet.
- Wild Game & Grass-Fed Beef Ranked #1: Why Animal Fat is Essential
- Saturated Fat and Cardiovascular Disease: The Research You Need to Know
- Grain-Fed vs Grass-Fed Beef, Pork & Chicken: Omega-3s and Feed Lot Effects
- Processed Meats, Full-Fat Dairy, and Autoimmune Concerns on Carnivore
- Lean Meat Dangers: Protein Poisoning, Hormone Damage, and Why Fat is Non-Negotiable
- Highly Processed Meats and Keto Snacks: The Bottom of the Carnivore Food Rankings
This is an auto-generated transcript from YouTube and may contain errors or inaccuracies.
All right. So, here are all the different carnivore food ranked out in order of how I see it in about 10 minutes. So, first of all, are going to be, you know, wild caught, grass-fed, finished animals that are eating its natural diet. So, if you're a hunter and you're going out into good country where the soil's healthy and the land's healthy, the animals that are living there are going to be healthy as well. So getting one of those where you get a large animal that's eating what it's designed to eat and has all the nutrients that it's designed to have, then that's going to be the most nutritious and have the least harmful toxins as a result of that passing on to you. And the important thing is you need to make sure that you're cultivating the fat and keeping the fat because wild animals that are eating its natural diet, their muscles are lean and they're supposed to be lean just like our muscles are supposed to be lean. But if they're healthy and it's not like the end of winter or they're starving or something like that, they will have a lot of subcutaneous fat, even as much or more than you get in a well- marbled animal that has been in a feed lot. It also has a lot of fat in the abdomen. The um is an organ that's almost entirely made out of fat. So is the misenter, which is another organ, well considered an organ, but it's the blood supply to the intestines. And of course, there's fat around the kidneys and all these other sorts of places as well. So, you want to make sure you don't just strip that off and throw it away. You want to keep all the fat because that is extremely nutritious. You're going to get all the DHA, EPA, saturated fats, and other healthy vitamins and minerals that come with the fat. So, that's my number one. Number two would be grass-fed and finished pasture-raised beef and lamb with the fat. So, again, you want to get these animals, but it's the fashion that everybody just strips off all the fat possible. so that you don't get any of these things. And that was the fashion for a long time because they thought, well, lean is really healthy. We don't want to have fatty meat. But we know that that's not true anymore. We know that animal fat and saturated fats are actually very healthy. This was published in the journal American College of Cardiology in 2020 by Dr. Astrop and his colleagues showing that in randomized control trials and meta analyses of randomized control trials and systematic review looking at all of the above, they found absolutely no increased risk of cardiovascular disease from increased consumption of saturated fat. And in fact, they found that increased saturated fat consumption was protective against having a stroke and that less saturated fat consumed increased your likelihood of getting a stroke. And also animal fat and even butter are not entirely saturated fat. There are a lot of monounsaturated fats and other fats that are actually very healthy as well. And it's not just saturated fat. Coconut oil actually has more saturated fat than beef tallow has. And olive oil is very similar amounts of saturated fat to beef tallow as well. So don't let that hang you up and get the fat. I just want to let you guys know about an event I'll be at in Bosezeman, Montana for July 4th with Bella Steak and Buttergal that if you can make it will be a great time. So, there's going to be fireworks, a panel, and other sorts of events that you can take part in. And of course, we're all going to be there interacting and hanging out with people. And obviously, there's going to be a lot of meet uh specifically from Macafferty Ranch right there in Montana. From what I've heard, it's absolutely fantastic. So, I'm really looking forward to that as well. There will be people such as myself, obviously, Bella, Dr. Baker, and my fiance L, and many others. So, if you're able to make it down, it would be great to see you there. And you can get your tickets at spg.events, events and hopefully see you there. Next down the list would be pasture-raised animals eating their natural diet with no grain or feed but non ruminant. So things like pigs, chicken, um those sorts of things and uh eggs as well. So some people have some problems with eggs, so that's you know maybe a bit of a gray area, but I have no problem with eggs and then so they're very very healthy. Um especially when the chicken is eating what it's designed to eat. the ruminant animals can thankfully filter out more of these toxins and so that's an improvement and also extracts more of the nutrients. But the non-ruminant animals, the monogastrics such as pigs and chicken, as long as they're eating their natural diet, they're still going to be very very healthy and they'll be able to filter out a lot of those toxins and extract a lot of those nutrients. So those are excellent source as well. And that's number three. Then you get down to the grain finish, beef and lamb and other ruminants. Uh, but you need to consider where you're going to get your omega-3 sources from because after about 3 months in a feed lot, most of the omega-3s like DHA and EPA are pretty much gone out of the fat at that point. So, you'll have to think about where you're going to get your fast source from for like grass-fed and grass-finished butter, grass-finish tallow, some wild caught fish added in to get those omega-3s that you need. It doesn't work coming from plant sources because the plant version of omega-3 is ALA which has less than a 1% conversion over DHA and EPA which is actually what you need for your brain. But a lot of people ask if it's okay to eat grain finished beef and lamb and yes of course it is because it's still very very healthy. I like to think about it as athletes in the Olympic Games and grainfish beef being silver medalist while grass-fed finished or wild caught animals would be gold medalist. And yes, silver lost to gold and that's sad. But the silver medalist also beat everybody else on Earth. So that's a pretty good position to be in. So next one on the list would be non-pasteurraised, nonruminant meat and eggs, but otherwise whole meat. So things like pork, chicken, things like that, other poultry animals that are nonruminant that have that monogastric digestive system and are being fed feed and corn and hopefully not soy, but you know, usually is. And so that would be next on the list. They're going to be filtering out a lot of those toxins and harmful substances, but they're not going to get out everything like a ruminant will or as many things as the ruminant will. And so, while it's extremely healthy, it's extremely beneficial, you still may find that some people have problems with it. It may not be as nutritious or somebody has autoimmune issues, they might have problems with that as well. So, next on the list would be minimally processed meats such as no sugar cure bacon. So these sorts of things would be meats, but they've been processed. So they've turned it into a salami or ham or something like that, but is minimally processed. So it's not adding a ton of sugar. It's not adding a bunch of weird artificial additives and and flavorings and preservatives and all these other sorts of things. There are preserved processed meats, things like pushcuto that may be just salt cured and those can be quite healthy as long as you're making sure you're not you're drinking enough water and things like that because these things can be very salty. So, next on the list would be full fat dairy. So, it has a lot of great nutrients, has a lot of great protein, a lot of great fats, and a lot of great vitamins and minerals, but it can also be pro-inflammatory for some people, especially those with autoimmune conditions. And they can get flare- ups of Crohn's, ulcer of colitis, rheumatoid arthritis, things like that. It can also trigger hunger signals. It can also trigger weight gain because this is telling baby mammals to eat more and to grow and to store energy. And so, if we're doing that as an adult, that can tell us to store energy and to grow. And unfortunately that we grow out. We don't grow up like kids. Well, however, it is still a very good source of nutrition. And if you're eating other things or a mixed diet, it can be a very, very positive addition to your diet because it is so nutrientdense. And the downsides of it are probably not going to be anywhere close to the downsides of all the other garbage that people normally eat. So, if you're doing a strict carnivore diet, dairy may hold you back a little bit, especially if you're trying to lose weight or you have an autoimmune condition. But otherwise, it's very healthy and has a lot of great nutrients. Next on the list would be lean meats such as skinless chicken breasts or lean pork or lean steak that has the fat all stripped off of it because fat is a a set of essential nutrients. There are essential fatty acids that you have to have or you will get sick and die. There are essential fat soluble nutrients that you have to have or you will get sick and die. It's also essential to get your nutrient source outside of just protein. So, if you're on a ketogenic diet, like a carnivore diet, and really what you're eating is protein and fat with minimal carbohydrates, you need to get the majority of your energy from fat because that is what your body typically uses for energy. If it needs to and it starts cutting into protein in order to generate energy, it has to break down those amino acids and pull off an amino group that the nitrogen group and then that gets turned into ammonia and that later gets turned into ura in the liver. However, if you're eating predominantly lean meat and protein with very little fat and even very little carbohydrates, you'll find that you'll get a buildup of that ammonia and it can overwhelm your liver's ability to turn it into ura. And so, you can get a serious problem with high ammonia levels, and this is called protein poisoning. People lose their hair. Yes, they lose weight, but they lose their health. They get very sick. This is what bodybuilders experience when they're in their cutting phase going towards competition. They cut out fat, they cut out carbs, and they just eat a lot of lean protein. And yes, they get lean, but they feel miserable doing it. And they all say, "You can't keep this up year round because you just feel miserable and you get too sick and it destroys your hormones and your health generally." So, when people are having problems with carnivore, it's often because they're listening to this horrible advice from people trying to sell you a $2,000, $3,000 program and weight loss package where they take other people's information and get it wrong and tell you to cut calories and eat ultra lean. And so, people, yes, they're losing weight, but it's like that bodybuilder cutting for a competition. They get very sick and they trash their hormones. So, people will say, "Well, this hurt my hormones. This hurt my thyroid." It's often the ones that are eating super low fat to try to lose weight because they think, well, if you have fat, you don't need to eat fat. Wrong. You need these nutrients that are in there and you need the energy to come from fat as opposed to protein. Next on the list, we have non-fat dairy because it's still a good source of nutrition and proteins. However, you taken out some of the best parts, which are the the fats, and you still have all the inflammatory potential and weight gain components that could go into it. And then next on the list is the highly processed meats with a ton of additives. You can see these on ingredients uh where it says like 75% beef or pork and then you have to think to yourself, okay, what's the other 25% that's in there? Obvious. It's generally fillers and additives and starch and garbage that you don't want and who knows what else. So, it's definitely better than not eating meat at all because it still has a lot of great nutrients. 75% of it still meat. So, it's still going to have very good vitamins, minerals, proteins, and fats that you're going to want to have. But depending on what's what else goes in there, it may not be optimal. What's not going to be optimal, certainly not as good as whole foods. However, the underlying all of this is that you want to eat the meat that you can afford, that you enjoy, and that makes you feel the best. So, if steaks just really aren't in the budget or even ground beef isn't really in the budget, just get the meat that you can afford and have access to and that makes you feel good because at the very least it's better than the rice and beans and pastas and things like that you could be eating instead. And then lastly would be all the various keto treats and snacks and things like that that may be low carb and predominantly meat, but sometimes not. Sometimes they're not even very low carb. and just say they are, but they might use a lot of sweeteners and additives and other sorts of things that are not all that great and that people can have a big problem with. Um, a lot of people actually find that they gain a lot of weight when they get these keto treats and snacks. Even though they're ketogenic, they're still not good for you. So, just stick to whole meats with plenty of fat and you'll do great. Hey everybody, as you know, I don't usually take sponsors, but I've been working with Carnivore Bar for a while because they genuinely care about quality and the carnivore movement. Obviously, whole food is always best, just making your meat at home and taking it with you. But if you are traveling, camping, hiking, or at the airport, or just need something on the go, these are really great. They have the traditional carnivore bar, but now they have the new everyday bar, which is smaller, but it's also a lot cheaper. It uses grainfinish beef meat. However, it also uses grass-finish talis, so you get all the omega-3s and vitamins that you would want from grass-finish cows. And of course, if you still want the full Cadillac carnivore bar, they still have the grass-fed finish versions as well that you can get. So check out the link below and use code Anthony for 10% off.