Transcription
Hey everybody! Welcome to Bioenergetic Basics. And today, we're going to do something a little bit different. We're going to do a Ray Peat substances tier list, as is the fashion on the internet these days. Yeah, let's jump right into it.
This episode is brought to you by Bioenergetic Basics, a course that I made about a month ago, and we'll get more into that later in this episode. But yeah, let's go over just the explanation for what this is.
And so, I'm sure a lot of you guys will recognize it, but this is obviously the best, like the super tier: S, A, B, C, and D. And I'm judging these things based on affordability, ease to obtain, effectiveness, what I've noticed myself, what I've noticed with other people, as it goes from S tier down to D. D would be like risky things, things that you have to troubleshoot often.
This is not some be-all, end-all list of my opinion, and so I'd encourage anybody to do this themselves. Okay, so let's jump right into it.
So, we have milk. I'm going to put this on A tier. A lot of people have issues with milk, especially these days, but I think if you can make it work, if you can overcome the obstacles in a person's way for being able to drink milk, whether it's UHT milk, raw milk, or pasteurized milk, etc., etc., I think it's worth it.
For example, if somebody is just not tolerating any type of milk, they probably have a bigger problem. It could be low thyroid or high estrogen, low progesterone, etc. And there's another Bioenergetic Basics episode on that, so it's worth trying to figure out, is what I'm trying to say. But it's not S tier because there's usually some troubleshooting involved.
Okay, so another thing I'm going to add to A tier, this is actually a grounding pad. It might actually be kind of hard to see. This is copper mesh with tape around it, and then you could wrap a wire to it, and you could buy a three-prong plug, pull out the hot and the neutral, and wrap it around the ground.
The reason this is getting such a high rating is it's so easy; you set it and forget it. And the more I listen back to that "Anti-Stress Home Strategies, Generative Energy with Ray," the more it makes a lot of sense to me to ground yourself, especially when you're sleeping, maybe even at your office.
I think EMF stuff is a problem for a lot of people, whether they know it or not. And I do think that grounding yourself, like Ray described in that episode, you give off a field, and then other electronic devices or what's happening in your walls with your outlets and the wiring, that's all affecting you. And I think grounding yourself as much as possible, especially while sleeping, it's probably just a good habit to get into.
And again, you're just making the screen, plugging it in, and forgetting about it. It's cheap, it's effective in the sense that you can test it with a voltmeter and make sure that it's working. But, yeah, anyway, so cheap, so easy that I just think it's a no-brainer. This is, where did I have this? Let's just put this at A tier.
So is calcium carbonate made from eggshells. You have to powder this to a dust for it to be effective, and you don't want it to be sandy at all. If it's too sandy, it will disturb the intestine really badly.
And if a person does not tolerate milk or cheese, this is the next best thing, I think. Again, if a person needs the calcium, which most people do, it's very valuable. It's more of a special circumstance type of thing, and so that's why I wouldn't put it on S tier, but it's pretty close. Like, this is very valuable. It's a basic thing. A lot of people don't get enough calcium, and if you don't get enough calcium, I think it's going to cause a lot of problems, same with not getting enough vitamin D.
So, speaking of vitamin D, and I bet anybody could guess this, but vitamin D is S tier. You can go get your vitamin D tested: at least 40, if not 50, and/or 55 or so. 40 is the amount that has been shown to suppress parathyroid hormone, and 50 or 55 is probably even better.
This brand that I have here is from Premier Research Labs, and I'm not affiliated with any of the stuff I'm talking about, and I don't make money through hawking products to people. But this is huge, and I mean, I think anybody that's following me for a while, they know how highly I regard vitamin D in supplemental form. And this is in olive oil, and I'm not confident in products in MCT oil, and I think MCT oil can really irritate the intestine in some people, whether they know it or not.
So, opposite spectrum, I'm going to put vitamin A supplement on D tier. So, this is super risky, especially when taking it orally. I think there's something about vitamin A that's just inherently allergenic. And Ray used to always have a—he said it multiple times—but that when he would put it on his hands and then touch his face, it would irritate his lips. And that's happened to me dozens of times; like, he's completely right. And so, there's something very irritating about vitamin A.
And then I have a reference from a guy named Montagna, and he says something about the inherent allergenicity of vitamin A. Getting it from liver, getting it from egg yolks, getting it from cream, those would be the best sources.
Your thyroid function, when it's very low, you might not need very much vitamin A, and if you get a ton, it will suppress your thyroid function. But as your thyroid function comes up, you might need more of it. But just as a general supplement for people, super hesitant. I think it can cause problems. It has to be proportional to your thyroid function, and if a lot of people already have low thyroid function, they're going to probably have issues with vitamin A, and I just don't think you need to supplement it.
It's nice to have around if you're suspicious, once every six months, if you have a vitamin A deficiency, and you can use it. But I put this stuff on my skin; I never eat it, and it smells like paint. And again, I would be super cautious with vitamin A supplementation.
So, vitamin K, I think that's going to be on S tier. Vitamin K is needed to take aspirin, which we'll get to in a second here. A very powerful anti-adrenaline, pro-relaxation vitamin. Couldn't imagine not taking it before bed anymore. Very fond of vitamin K.
For a while, I don't think I knew what it did, but then when I would put myself in stressful situations, being without it, it was obvious to me that it lowered adrenaline. For years, I had a horrific adrenaline problem. This was something that was very crucial to help take the edge off.
Okay, so the next one is going to be lidocaine, and I'm putting it on C tier for no other reason than I just don't have tons of feedback on it. I've used it myself; I haven't used a pure powder, only this injectable stuff, and I drink it, and I like the effects. I just don't really feel comfortable rating it super high when I only have limited exposure to it.
I would take it for a while and then just lose interest and do something else. It's possible if it became more popular and I started hearing really amazing stories from it, I would be more into it. That doesn't mean it's bad; it's just getting a low value mostly because of...
...Cyproheptadine. Let's put that at B tier. So, if you need cyproheptadine, it can be incredible. However, the thing many people say about it is that it causes them to become a zombie the next day. And I think that's because cyproheptadine is essentially an anti-stress drug.
And so, when a person has high stress but their thyroid function is low, cyproheptadine will lower their stress. It won't necessarily boost their thyroid function. They're running on nothing. I think for a lot of people, that's destabilizing. They will just be exhausted the next day.
But again, I've heard people say they saved their lives, so it's extremely valuable. It's not some ultra-safe thing that just everybody needs to take or anything like that. Like, that would be more reserved for S tier things. It's a specialized supplement that a lot of people could probably find great value in, but again, it is specialized, and it does demand that a person is paying attention to what's going on. And again, it could cause harm, like especially if you had to do something the next day, then you are exhausted.
Okay, so let's get to the next substance, which in this case is a food, and we are going to go ahead and put mushrooms in S tier. I hear so many good stories about mushrooms every single day. People say they solve serious problems, all sorts of colitis, depression, to stimulating the bowel, etc., much more than the carrot.
The biggest pain with them is cooking them for about three hours to get rid of the agaritine. And one other thing I would say, or suggest rather, is that people grind them, and so not eating like a big soggy mushroom. A very powerful medicinal effect from mushrooms, especially when adding the distilled white vinegar and a real olive oil to it. And so, I would recommend these to anybody with intestinal problems.
I don't hear many people talk about blood donation these days, but I'm going to go ahead and put blood donation in D tier. I think it's very risky. I don't trust blood tests that are interpreted in ways to say that the person is iron toxic or iron overload.
And I mean, there are exceptions where this could be safe to do, but a person would have to be feeling relatively okay. And I'm very worried about recommending underweight girls and malnourished men to go give blood. I think it's a really bad idea. This would probably be better for older people, albeit that they felt well.
Two years ago, there was a big fad for everybody to go give blood, and I heard tons of negative stories about that. It's like legitimately dangerous. There's a time and a place for it, similar to vitamin A, but it's very specialized, and I don't think everybody should be giving blood.
And if you give too much blood, like I have, it will make you fatigued for a week or two. Like, you'll just lose a week or two of your life. And for some people, you know, they can't afford to do that. And so again, this is a very specialized thing, and I don't think it's general, and I think it should be treated with a massive amount of respect.
Okay, so I am going to put carrot in B tier. It's like a gateway drug; many people get into Ray's stuff through the carrot salad. But I hear iffy stories about this, not 50/50, like 70/30 positive to negative. And sometimes it stimulates the bowel too much.
And for example, my digestion, it's worse. The carrot would set it off terribly, and then I'd stop eating it, and it would get significantly better. And the mushrooms didn't do that; they seem to be a lot gentler. And so, I am hesitant about the carrot.
And also, they spray carrots with a bunch of things, and so a person has to figure that out. I have more confidence recommending mushrooms to people than I do the carrot, although obviously a lot of people get into Ray's stuff through the carrot, so that's why it's not on C tier. It's good stuff, don't get me wrong, and if it got somebody into Ray's work, that would be fantastic.
Okay, so the next substance on our list, we have pregnenolone, and that's going straight to D tier. If you listened to Ray Peat the last, I don't know, five, six, seven years before he died, and you recall what he said about pregnenolone, he said it was very difficult to make, and that if it got over a certain temperature during the production, that it would ferment and make things that were like estrogen, and then that could cause like mania symptoms.
I've talked to dozens of people that have had bad experiences with pregnenolone, and I'm super hesitant in recommending it to people. I mean, I don't recommend it to people. And in fact, the whole progesterone DHEA mixture Ray told me about that in like 2018, and the whole reason for that mixture being popular was to replace pregnenolone because there were no good pregnenolone products.
I just am not confident in it. People tell me they get extremely depressed when taking it. One guy said it made him feel relatively okay, but he got ulcers all over his mouth from it. That could change if somebody makes some insanely good pregnenolone product, but I think it'd be crazy expensive.
Okay, so next substance we're going to talk about: milk powder pancakes. And that's going right to S tier. If you've ever had a milk powder pancake, you know what I'm talking about. We don't need much more explanation on that one.
Okay, another thing that fits the bill: perfectly safe, cheap, easy, good stories about, makes people feel good, low effort, easily S tier: incandescent light bulbs. They're becoming a little bit harder to find, but these things are, especially for older people, something you can do that is not invasive. These are so valuable, especially in wintertime.
I didn't have them last winter; it was brutal. And I mean, it doesn't even get that cold here, but this winter was much better with them. Huge. Couldn't imagine life without them.
The next thing we're going to talk about is gelatin, like hydrolysate powder. And this stuff, I'm going to put on—I'm going to go ahead and put it in C tier. So, the reason why I'm putting it down in C tier and not in D is it can help people. I have heard really good stories, especially people with liver problems, when they tolerate the gelatin hydrolysate, it can be valuable.
However, people get in a bind by adding it to their foods, and I think gelatin can stimulate insulin and it can lower the blood sugar. And so, if you have a tendency towards hypoglycemia, I don't think you're going to want to add a bunch of this to your food. There needs to be this attention when using it, and it could cause problems. And also, sometimes it just irritates people's intestines.
There was one time in my life I had maybe four or five of the powders available, and I didn't tolerate any of them. They set off my digestion one by one. And the thing I'd feel a lot more comfortable about recommending would be just food gelatin. So, gelatin from oxtail, gelatin from lamb shank, gelatin from beef cheeks, or gelatin from other cuts that I'm not as familiar with. But I would put that in A tier; it just seems a lot less risky.
I would not put bone broth in here. Bone broth can be contaminated. You'll want a certificate of analysis if you're buying it at a grocery store from a company, just to see what's in it, because if it was contaminated with heavy metals or something like that, it just wouldn't be a good deal.
Okay, where did I put antibiotics? I think I put them in S tier. So, this includes Penicillin VK, Erythromycin, Chloromycetin, Neomycin, Tetracycline, Doxycycline, Minocycline. The biggest hallelujah stories out of anything is from antibiotics.
Even I was just talking to somebody maybe a week ago. This person was more on the constipated side of things, and I did not think that antibiotics would help this person, but they wanted to try them. And when they got a hold of them and they took them, a lot of the rashes on their body just went away in like two or three days, and they had been trying to solve this problem for months.
I used to think that only a person with diarrhea would really benefit from antibiotics, but this person disproved my whole thesis. And so, if a person thinks they have a bacterial problem, they have gas, if they have vitamin K at their disposal, I'd investigate antibiotics. Super valuable. And a low thyroid person is likely to have some degree of bacterial overgrowth.
Okay, I'm putting progesterone. I think I'm just going to put it at A tier. For women, it's probably S tier. For men, it's, I don't know, this is like in between S tier and A tier, I think. But similar to thyroid hormone, a person has to pay attention to what they're doing. I guess there is a little bit more troubleshooting involved in this, and seeing how you feel, seeing how you respond to it. Of course, it's worth it, but it's not as easy as getting your vitamin D level up, or it's not as easy as eating mushrooms and it's stimulating the bowel and then noticing good effects from it.
In fact, sometimes if the person has been high estrogen for a very long time, their colloid, the protein around the thyroid, the breakdown of it has been inhibited. And so, when a person takes progesterone, it will lower the estrogen and then unload the colloid and make them feel very frantic, kind of like the adrenaline problem with when a person starts taking thyroid. And so, they have to be cognizant of that because things can happen when a person takes progesterone that if they're not familiar with what's going on, they will have a bad time.
For women, easily S tier. For men, it's a little bit more troubleshooting, seeing if you benefit from it. But as I get older, as I approach 40, it's been invaluable, especially with DHEA.
I would have put DHEA on C tier because I hear more bad stories about DHEA than I hear good stories, but that's mostly because people tend to take too much. But this is not something I would immediately recommend to somebody. This is something that is fun to experiment with when a person feels like they're stabilized. But I'm not saying it can't be very effective for lowering cortisol, improving libido stuff, improving testosterone stuff, and it's going to be a lot safer when taken with progesterone.
Okay, so thyroid hormone, where is this going? I think it's going A tier. So again, very similar to progesterone, it does require troubleshooting. It's not that straightforward and simple. I think I still get the most questions out of absolutely any substance, just how to take this, how to take T3, how to take T3 and T4, when to do it.
70% of the content I made in the last few years is about this subject, but it's still always a burning question that people have. And again, these two can require troubleshooting, but it's worth it. And it's not as easy as getting the vitamin D level up, but it's worth it. Finding the right dose of thyroid can change a person's life, and same with progesterone, it's always going to be worth it. It's just not as easy as these things above here.
Okay, so aspirin. This is easily going in S tier. You know what story really affected me? It was—it happened maybe about three or four months ago—and I was talking to somebody that felt like they had high estrogen. I think they were talking like a mile a minute when I first got on the phone with them, and the next time I talked to them, they were cool as a cucumber. They were very relaxed, and they told me that they were taking 500 milligrams three times per day, and they were convinced that that amount had lowered their estrogen.
It was just another common story of aspirin presumably lowering a person's estrogen and improving their quality of life, knocking out a list of symptoms that they had just with one substance, and taking it together with vitamin K. And I think there's less troubleshooting involved with aspirin than there is with thyroid.
However, sometimes a person will respond weirdly to aspirin when their thyroid is low. So if that happened, maybe look at thyroid and try to correct that first. I said it a long time ago, but aspirin is like a Swiss army knife, and if I were to have a bad day tomorrow, the first thing I'd probably think about is taking more aspirin. It's very valuable. Couldn't imagine life without it. That's why it's going in S tier.
Okay, sugar. Easy, easy. Don't have to think about that. Not even going to explain it.
Liver. Where do I—I can't remember where I put this. I think I put this in S tier. This is something else that when people avoid it for a long period of time and then find a way to eat it, that it's like life-changing. And not all liver is created equal. I think a lot of people are accustomed to eating bad, old liver, and that's why they hate the taste.
Northstar Bison and those other companies on the internet that are selling fresh liver, people will eat fresh liver, liver from Northstar, and then they'll be happy liver eaters. And as your metabolic rate comes up, you're going to need more of the nutrition in liver.
And oysters. Oysters easily go to S tier. I don't know of any other way to fortify a person's nutrition, especially when eating lots of sugar, other than adding these foods. And in fact, I would not consume white sugar if a person was not regimented with eating these foods. This could be a risk or a liability when a person does not eat these regularly.
And so, you really have to be on top of it because as your metabolic rate comes up, you're going to need more of the zinc, the copper, the B vitamin, the vitamin A, etc., etc. These things all work together. You don't know how many people I talked to that take a load of thyroid, eat a lot of white sugar, but they're never eating one of these foods or both. I don't know how they do it, to be honest with you, but it's probably not going to go well.
Okay, so unfortunately, I can't bask in the glory of Mexican Coke anymore. But, you could if you live in the US, because it's still available in the US, but it's not available in Mexico. They actually don't make it in Mexico anymore. It has sucrose in it, and it tastes like Diet Coke. It boggles the mind how Coke could change a recipe of Mexican Coke in Mexico, but they have. It doesn't exist, and it only exists in the States now, which is crazy, but I miss it so much.
Okay, it looks like we're all best here from this point. But coffee, S tier. Yeah, it's just an antidepressant, mood enhancer, increases vigilance, makes milk taste better. Can't say enough good things about it. Source of magnesium, that's the first reason I got interested in it.
I forgot where I put this, but we're just going to put fancy French cheeses also in S tier. I'm obsessed with Emmentaler right now. I think this is Comté, or C-O-M-T-E, however you say that. And Parmigiano Reggiano, one of the OG fancy French cheeses. Emmentaler are my favorite. It's the little things in life that you really start to appreciate. I love fancy French cheeses, even though they make me go broke. Oh man, another S tier.
Cherimoya, really any solid tropical fruit that you really enjoy. And so, cherimoyas are not available all months of the year, but cherimoyas, guavas, longans, lychees, if you have a good source of these things, they're totally worth getting. There's no downside. They could be not that affordable in some places.
You know what, let me make one caveat about coffee. If you are low thyroid and you're very hypoglycemic, you know what, let me put coffee in A tier, because there could be some troubleshooting with coffee. You know, I was just captivated by my own thoughts about coffee, but a lot of people I talk to, it does require quite a bit of troubleshooting. And so, I got a little bit overzealous with S tier, right?
But coffee could cause some problems. It can lower the blood sugar. It doesn't tend to cause problems if a person's using one ounce of coffee per eight ounces of milk with sugar in it, and I never recommend drinking black coffee, anything like that. If your thyroid function is relatively okay, a person is taking thyroid, they're doing all the things, coffee is the best thing ever. But if a person is struggling, then I would not recommend coffee.
But these things: Coke, cheese, cherimoyas, these things tend to be safe for whoever. But coffee does require a little bit of troubleshooting.
This is a negative ion generator. I'm just putting it at A tier. Seems like a great thing to have. Wein sells a 3500 that I have a few of. This is a Mystic Marvel's negative ion generator that's not sold anymore.
These things clean air in the room, and they're just nice to be around. And you know they're working because after a few weeks, there'll be a bunch of dust around the unit, and so they're pulling that dust and making it go to the ground.
Methylene blue. I'm going to put this in—I think I would put it in C tier. It's not the first thing I think of. I hardly ever think of it. I don't hear a lot of bad stories about it, but I am concerned about quality. There was a paper that said it could be contaminated.
I could see what I'm about to say as being interpreted negatively, but a long time ago, when Ray had just written a newsletter on methylene blue, and Andrew Murray on KMUD was like, "Okay, Ray, let everybody know how much methylene blue they should take." And Ray was like, "Uh, uh, uh, well, if thyroid and progesterone and vitamin D and calcium," and he listed like four other things, he's like, "Well, if those don't work, then 500 micrograms of methylene blue could be okay." So at that point, I was like, "Oh, Ray doesn't really consider it a frontline therapy."
I've heard good stories about it. I hardly ever hear it solving actual problems. I think it's just more of a boost, a person feeling good when taking it. I'm open to being wrong, but it's just kind of in the middle for me. If I wasn't doing this tier list, I'd constantly be forgetting about it.
This might be controversial, but I'm going to put olive oil in S tier. So, let me explain. So, one, you do not need much. Like, half a teaspoon can be very valuable for adding to your mushrooms or your carrot salad to increase the antiseptic effects of those foods. And I think this works better than coconut oil if a person is prone to infection or trying to get over an infection. And we talked with Ray about this on one of the Generative Energy episodes.
And so again, you do not need much. Half a teaspoon. It does not contribute massively to a person's PUFA intake. And if endotoxin is such a huge problem in the aging process, and olive oil is more effective at opposing endotoxin than other types of oils, then I would think this would be a net benefit. I was so jazzed on olive oil, that's what motivated my question to Ray, and then he expanded on it in one of the Generative Energy episodes.
And I'm not saying to cook with this. I'm just saying to use it very sparingly. And if it's used in a non-crazy way, I think it can be very positive.
This is fresh squeezed orange juice. If I had a photo of the tart, sour orange juice off the shelf, I would put it in lower than D tier. That stuff upsets people's stomachs really badly and bloats people like crazy. It's not even in the same realm as fresh squeezed orange juice that's sweet and neutral in acidity.
I mean, you can squeeze oranges and they can be acidic and taste terrible, but if you find good oranges that smell good before you open them, they taste neutral in acidity and are sweet, that's the jackpot in terms of just feeling good when eating a food. This, besides cherimoya or French cheese, this is pretty high up on the list.
This photo is perfect. This color of this cascara is too light, but I couldn't really find a good photo of cascara. And truth be told, I've never used cascara before, so I need to give everybody my Ray Peat fan card. But the reason I'm adding this, and this is really the only thing on this list that I have never used before, but the reason I'm putting this in S tier is if anybody listened to the podcast, I have heard so many good stories about cascara. It was the star of 2023, improving people's health.
You want it from Pharma Labor, Italy. The color is very dark, so this is a little off. Cascara for motivating bowel movements is powerful. And again, a lot of people are constipated, and a lot of people think that one bowel movement per day is good, which I don't think it is. I think you'd want at least two or three. I think a lot of people are surprised to hear that cascara is very powerful, very therapeutic.
Thyroid should motivate the bowel movements, but they can take a while to find the right dose of thyroid, and so in the meantime, using cascara, I think, is really valuable.
So, this is a photo of niacinamide, and I'm going to go ahead and put this in B tier. I don't think everybody needs to take niacinamide, but it's so cheap. It helps to lower phosphorus. It helps to oppose lipolysis. I think a person should try it, see how they feel.
I have heard bad stories, like using large amounts of this. I think it can send free fatty acids to your liver, and that can make a person feel nauseous. And also, I have a personal bias against niacinamide. I think it tastes so bad, so bad that I couldn't take it every day. I might be alone on this, because not that many people have told me they thought I was right about that.
I feel pretty much the same way about B1. It's pretty much a fad to take B1 right now, but I think it has a good basis of activating pyruvate dehydrogenase and restoring energy metabolism. I don't know if a person needs huge doses of it, but 10 mg once a day, or two times per day, or three times per day. Dodie on our Q&A episodes was talking about 50 mg three times per day for Parkinson's.
It's one of those things that's so safe and cheap that I'd probably just give it a go if you felt like your mental fortitude was declining. I don't have tons of experience with it. I think I've used it three or four times in 12 years. I don't have the strongest opinion on it, but I don't hear bad stories about it other than maybe it irritating a person's intestine.
Okay, guys, thank you so much. This episode is brought to you by Bioenergetic Basics, which is a course that I made about a month ago. I'm getting really good feedback on it.
It talks about nutrition. It talks about thyroid hormone. It talks about optimizing the home environment. It talks about optimizing digestion. It talks about different supplements and how to take them, etc.
And I created this course because I do one-to-ones basically all day and have been doing a crazy amount the last four or five years, and I've learned a lot, and I tried to compile it all in this course. And a lot of times, I'm talking to somebody, I see their eyes glaze over, way too much information too quickly.
I created the course so they could slow down, they could assimilate the information, they could stop it, they could start it, and it wouldn't be like a one-to-one to where when we ended the call, it was just over and they felt like they were left hanging. It's edited down from two and a half hours, I think, to one hour and ten minutes, so it's very dense. I've been hearing great things about it so far.
And if that doesn't sound like it's up your alley, I also do one-to-one coaching, and that's on patreon.com/dannyrod. And also, I do group coaching, and group coaching is awesome, and I think it's easily the most underrated thing that I have going for me. It's so fun, and the people on the call talk to each other. I think it's just a hoot. I think it's really fun. I encourage somebody to do that even than the one-to-one coaching, because I think that's really valuable for most people that just have a question here and there.
If you're a person that likes to research heavily, I'd get the course. If you need direct contact and help, you can book the one-to-one. If you just have a question here and there, I'd do the group coaching, and that's significantly cheaper. Yeah, that's it.
Hey guys, thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Your guys' support for this show is overwhelming, and it really makes me feel good. So thank you so much, and I will talk to you guys soon. Peace out.