96. Why You Don't Feel Like Eating Meat Anymore (And What It Means for Your Migraines)

Have you noticed that meat, chicken, beef, fish, just doesn't sound appealing anymore? That you'd rather have Greek yogurt, cheese, or pasta than a piece of steak?

That you used to eat a full hamburger and now a couple of bites feels like enough?

Most people chalk this up to personal preference or "just how they're wired." But this is actually a symptom, and it has everything to do with your migraines.

When digestive function starts to decline, your body does something smart but costly: it changes your appetite to steer you away from foods that are hard to break down and toward foods that are easy to digest, grains, dairy, soft starches. The dry chicken, the unappetizing steak, the cravings for chips and pretzels? That's not your personality. That's your digestive tract protecting you from the stress of breaking down food it can no longer handle.

The problem is that animal foods are your most concentrated source of protein and amino acids, nutrients your body desperately needs to handle the relentless physical and mental stressors of modern life, make neurotransmitters, regulate hormones, and keep your cells functioning. When protein intake drops and stays low for years, your health declines quietly, and migraines follow.

This episode explains why this is happening, why you can't simply force yourself to eat more, and how gently restoring digestive function naturally restores your appetite, without pushing your body into a migraine.

If you're experiencing 8+ migraine days per month and ready to address the root cause instead of just managing symptoms, schedule a free consultation below:

https://www.drlesliecisar.com/apply

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In health,
Dr. Leslie Cisar

Episode Transcript

hi there
welcome to the Healing Migraines Naturally podcast
I'm your host Doctor Leslie Caesar
and I am a licensed naturopathic doctor
former chronic migraine sufferer
and I have dedicated my life to helping other women
with chronic migraines restore their health
so their body no longer generates the migraines
and they can get off unwanted medication
and not take fistfuls of supplements
so welcome to the podcast um
today I'm gonna talk about a question
that comes up pretty frequently
so we're gonna cover it today and that is
how come I don't feel like eating meat anymore
and is that a problem does that resonate for you
have you noticed that you have less and a
less and less of an appetite for eating meat
like beef chicken
pork fish
shellfish okay
are you more
only feeling like eating maybe like dairy proteins
like Greek yogurt cottage cheese
you know hard cheeses like cheddar cheese or you know
you wanna put shredded cheese on a lot of things
that seems to be really appealing
maybe you feel like eating eggs
you know that that's a little bit more appealing
but now when it comes to eating like
you know a piece of steak or a roast cut
um definitely like chicken breast ugh
right seems really dry and unappetizing
have you noticed that as the years have gone by
you have less and less of an appetite
or a desire to eat meat or like animal foods or
you know maybe they just seem really dry
you know like
oh you know
a chicken it just seems so dry to me
the texture just doesn't appeal to me anymore um
I have to have a lot of sauce
or gravy on it in order for it to be appealing
have you noticed that if the
like if it's ground beef or ground Turkey
that's much more appealing to you
and you can eat a little bit more of that versus like
if it's that whole cut
like a steak cut or roast cut piece of chicken
it's not that appealing to you and you're like
not not so much um
have you noticed that you
the like
the quantity that you can eat has really decreased
over time so
you know you used to be able to eat like a full
you know hamburger from the grill
and now it's like half is really all I can eat
this phenomenon unfortunately
is many times blamed on quote unquote normal aging
right so
um kind of like the stereotype of like
an elderly person is that they're eating very little
and they're not eating a lot of meat or animal foods um
and that's attributed falsely to quote unquote
normal aging does this
does this resonate for you
it's a pretty common phenomenon
so we're gonna talk about what this means
because this is actually a symptom
and so
a lot of people don't realize that this is actually
a symptom um
they think that it's maybe just sort of
something inherent to them
you know this is just kind of how I'm wired
I'm just not a meat eater
or they uh
think that it's unhealthy to eat animal foods um
to eat meat so let's
let's dive into this OK
so I'm calling this what it is
which is a symptom and so
this might be a surprise to people
that this is actually a symptom
so we humans were omnivores okay
we eat a wide variety of foods
unlike most other animals who have to eat within a very
uh you know
specific frame you know
like I have two cats cats are carnivores
they're you know
dogs are much more omnivores than cats
you know dogs
they can eat bread and you know
they kind of forage you know
they left to their own in the wild
they'll forage things out of trash cans
and things like that
they can eat a wider variety of food
but cats are pure carnivores right
they really only eat animals in the wild
um and so most animals have a very
very you know constrained
um diet that they uh
can eat whereas we humans
you know we can live from the Arctic to the equator
and we can eat a very wide variety of foods
and flourish but part of the human diet is animal foods
so there's no naturally occurring culture
anywhere on earth where they're
not eating some animal foods
so that is to say a vegan diet
where you're not consuming any animal based foods
there's no naturally occurring vegan diet
ever documented by anthropologists
okay now
there are
cultures that eat what we call a vegetarian diet
but even those vegetarian diets are incorporating
animal foods
or animal proteins so hi there
I wanna jump in real quick and tell you about my client
Beth she was getting 15 to 20 migraines and headaches
per month and as you can imagine
this was impacting her work performance
and her confidence she also has two small children
and she was
starting to feel like she was a horrible mom
because she had nothing left for them
at the end of the day but she reached out
and she booked a free consult call with me
and after I asked her about her migraines
and her health history
I felt confident that I could help her
I help women uncover
the root drivers of their migraines
and follow a step by step plan to dramatically reduce
the frequency by up to 90%
without adding more medication
or taking a bunch of supplements
so we built her personal migraine map
followed the plan
and now she will get one to two migraines per year
which she uses ibuprofen to treat if she needs to
verses up to 15 to 20 per month
when we first started working together
that weren't responding well to any medication
she just reached out to tell me that
she got a promotion at work
she's on top of her career again
and has been able to come off all of her migraine
medication but most importantly
she's a confident mom again
and she's attending birthday parties at Jump Zone
with her kids and saying yes
instead of saying maybe later
I've worked with women like Beth
from all over the United States
who were told this is the best we can do
but they were still willing to dig deeper
so if you're serious about changing your migraine story
go to Doctor Leslie Caesar dot com slash apply
or tap the link in the show notes
and on our free consult
we'll map out why your migraines keep coming back
and the first three steps you can take
over the next 30 days
I do cap new client spots each month
so if the calendar is full
the doors are closed for now
but if you're done feeling helpless
and ready to do the work to heal
pause this episode for 30 seconds
and book that console call
now sort of a very famous uh
predominantly vegetarian culture is the Indian culture
the Hindu culture within that culture and you know
beef is definitely prohibited
and many sects within Hinduism will not eat chicken
or fish or other animal foods
but they will consume dairy proteins
and most will consume proteins from eggs okay
so there is some animal protein component
even within a vegetarian diet
so that has been documented
but there is no
naturally occurring vegan diet ever documented
now
even people who traditionally eat in a vegetarian way
they do better if they consume more animal protein okay
so again um
we sort of like in modern American culture
we kind of have this like
idealized notion
that everybody that lived prior to the modern era
was thriving and
you know everything was just sort of a paradise
and that's not true
there was plenty of disease and illness and sickness um
even when people were not living in this modern way
that we're currently living right
so you know
just to say that something
you know a way of eating is naturally occurring or
you know was in
in play you know
5,000 years ago or something
doesn't necessarily mean
that they were all in perfect health
and that you know
everybody was thriving
there could still be plenty of nutrient deficiencies
or nutritional deficiencies within that
you know sort of native diet
I I think in modern America
we are very blessed and that
we have access to food
that can be transported to us from all over the world
and so we have access to a tremendous variety of food
really unprecedented um
in the human experience and
you know
we really should be thriving much more than we are okay
because we do have access to so much wonderful food
okay so this is giving you a little bit of a clue that
you know
like particularly within the migraine community
what's touted is like special migraine diets and so on
so it's not about excluding foods right
we uh
should be able to take advantage of our ability in
in our society to eat a wonderful wide variety of food
so I'm just
I just want to put that out there just because
you know they ate a certain way in the Paleolithic age
doesn't necessarily mean that that
that they were thriving in the periol
periolithic age or that we should eat that way now
but in any case what I wanna say here uh
the overall point is that humans do very well
they should be eating animal foods okay
is part of their diet
animal foods are concentrated protein foods okay
so there are
there are proteins in plant foods that we eat okay
um
but animal foods are concentrated protein sources okay
plants have also carbohydrates
some plants there's gonna be some fat in plants too
but protein is very very concentrated a protein uh
source and again we humans I
I am convinced that we are going to flourish
if we incorporate some
protein from animal sources into our
into our diet when we eat the food that we eat
our digestive track has to be able to break
the food down and get those nutrients out of the food
and so if there's a
if there's protein within the food that we're eating
the digestive track
has to break that protein down into amino acids okay
and so the amino acids are
like the building block of the protein and um
we break that protein down into its
like little amino acid parts
and then we use those amino acids um
to do our cellular work and build our body up
and make hormones and
you know signaling molecules in the whole bit
neurotransmitters etcetera right
so we have a tremendous need for
amino acids from the protein that we've eaten
so when we eat foods that contain protein
particularly animal foods
which are very protein dense foods
um it's harder for our digestive tract
to break the protein down
then it is for our digestive tract
to break down carbohydrates okay
so it's more work for our digestive tract to break
protein dense foods down
and so when our digestive function starts to decline
our appetite changes
I've talked about this in my response video to
the recent changes in the FDA
food pyramid so check that podcast out too
we'll link to it in the show notes
but when our digestive function starts to decline
our appetite changes
and this is something that people don't realize
and they actually very rarely recognize
when it's happening to them
I just had this discussion with a client this week
because when we started working together
she had very very low appetite very
very poor digestive function
and she didn't feel like eating much at all
and her family was very concerned about her
and they kept telling her
you know mom you eat like a bird
you don't you think you should eat more
her husband was always telling her
won't you sit and eat with me
come on honey
I I think you need to eat more she said no
I I I
I ate enough I'm full after I ate
so she had no idea
that this phenomenon was happening to her
because it is very difficult for us to
to kind of realize it
so what happens is
when our digestive function starts to decline
our body wants to protect us okay
if we start putting food into our digestive track
and we can't break the food down
we're gonna have a we're gonna have worse problems okay
so our body says okay
how can I protect her from getting into worse trouble
well I'm gonna change what she feels like eating
and I'm gonna direct her to eat foods
that I can actually break down
that are easy for me to digest
I'm gonna make her want to eat those foods
and I'm gonna make the foods
that are harder for me to digest
I'm gonna make her kind of feel like ugh
I don't wanna eat that so literally
our appetite
will change to accommodate our digestive function okay
and this is one of the most critical
things to understand and most natural practitioners
unfortunately most of my naturopathic colleagues
don't understand this connection either
but this is a critical thing to realize
our body is always trying to function
and flourish at its best okay
I I know haha I know when you have migraines
it feels like your Ma
your body hates you and it's trying to torture you
but our body is always trying to flourish
in the conditions in which it finds itself okay
so if the digestive function starts to decline
our body says okay
well it's not optimal
but how can I make the best of this situation
well I'm gonna drive her to eat things
that I can actually break down
this drives a lot of what we call food cravings
our digestive function is actually a tremendous driver
of what we call food cravings
so when people start to crave things
oh boy pretzels
I just want something crunchy and salty chips right
sweets candy right
when we these are the typical things that we crave
right and that we're fighting ourselves over
we think when we have these types of cravings
we think oh
do I have some sort of mental and emotional you know
emotional eating thing going on here
if you know is it hormonal right
you know what's going on here
by and large
these types of food cravings are actually being driven
by our digestive function
so the foods that we typically crave
are usually very easily digestible foods okay
like grains are the most easily digestible foods
so things made out of grains
things made out of wheat flour or corn flour or rice
or rice flour so you've got your pretzels
you've got your you know
corn chips
popcorn right
corn is actually a grain it's not a vegetable
but it's a grain so um
think you know
pasta people right
made out of wheat traditionally
now it might be made out of
you know weed
alternative flowers
so all of these things that people kind of crave
or like white potatoes are very easy to break down
so now you've got your potato chip category right
so all of these things that people typically crave
are actually very easily digestible foods okay um
and protein animal foods
it's harder to break down
it takes a lot more energy
a lot more effort you need more hydrochloric acid
you need more digestive enzymes
to break protein down into amino acids
so if your digestion can't do that
your appetite is gonna make those types of foods
kind of repulsive to you right
all of a sudden the chicken tastes real dry right
well I don't want to chew this
it's too dry right
it's too tough
so you're just gonna eat a little bit of it right
instead of 4 ounces
you're just gonna eat an ounce and a half
cause it just seems so dry to you
so tough I gotta chew this so much it's unappealing
before you know it
you've only eaten a couple bites and it's like
yeah I'm done
I'm done with this right
we're gonna feel full faster
so we're gonna take a couple bites of a hamburger
we used to be able to eat a whole hamburger
now we take a couple bites
now I'm too full to finish the hamburger right
because that beef
it's harder to break down then the bun right
this is why you know people want that big
fluffy bun and they just want a little
little meat on the bun right
because that's gonna be a lot easier to break down
the bun is gonna be made out of grains
the bun is gonna be a lot easier to digest people think
well you know
I'm just I'm just this kind of person
you know I'm just this is how I've always been this is
you know my appetite
what can I do this is what I like this is what I prefer
right
we think that it's like some something inherent to us
and by and large it's not
it's a reflection of our digestive function
and our body steering us trying
you know steering us to success haha
it's trying to set us up for success and not failure
okay so that solves the problem in the moment right
for that meal it solves the problem for this meal
I'm eating what I can easily digest okay
but what about the next meal
what the what about the you know
next week next year what about a decade goes by
and you haven't been able to eat
a wide variety of food
you haven't been able to eat animal foods
and you haven't been able to get in adequate protein
okay
this is critical protein adequate protein is critical
particularly in our modern environment
so what I have been convinced of is
in our modern environment here
where we are in a tremendously
more stressful environment
than humans you know
a lot of humans around the world are in today
but you know just a few hundred years ago
everyone was in a much less
stressful environment than what we are in
in America today so
we have a tremendous increase in physical stressors
that we're exposed to and because of that
I have become convinced that we need even more protein
as a result
to flourish in this environment that we're in now okay
so this again it kind of ties into sort of this like
line of thinking that we have that
you know if it's if it's natural or if it's native
it must be better than what we have now
because we're living in this kind of like
fake modern environment
so if we go back to something natural or or native
it must be better for us you know
and this is you know
a whole diet was created around this
called the Paleo diet and so
the rationale behind this diet was
to eat in the way that humans ate before agriculture
because we
you know agriculture is a relatively
recent development in human history
and so most humans were living prior to agriculture
and so we should eat in the way that people ate
prior to agriculture right
somehow it would be better for us to not eat these
quote unquote
new foods that were introduced about 10,000 years ago
with agriculture right
so that was the rationale
but the environment that you
that humans were living in
in the Paleolithic age it's completely different
I mean it's unrecognizable
I mean you take a Paleolithic human
and drop them down into the Chicago suburbs
where I live and
I mean they
you know they wouldn't last a minute
I mean first of all their
you know their mind would be blown right
so we're not living in a in that type of environment
and we humans
we're highly adaptable
we can live in a tremendous variety of environments
but there's particular you know
within different environments
we have to have different pieces in place
to flourish within those environments
and so I've become convinced that
in our modern American environment
we have a need for a lot more protein
than a human would have needed a thousand years ago
an environment where you're living
you know in a
in a a small
with a small group of 150 people or something like that
so um
the physical stressors that we're under
I mean it we're bombarded constantly by
you know relatively novel physical stressors
one that we don't think about at all
is the physical stress of car travel
hi there
I wanna jump in real quick and tell you about my client
Beth she was getting 15 to 20 migraines and headaches
per month and as you can imagine
this was impacting her work performance
and her confidence she also has two small children
and she was
starting to feel like she was a horrible mom
because she had nothing left for them
at the end of the day but she reached out
and she booked a free consult call with me
and after I asked her about her migraines
and her health history
I felt confident that I could help her
I help women uncover
the root drivers of their migraines
and follow a step by step plan to dramatically reduce
the frequency by up to 90%
without adding more medication
or taking a bunch of supplements
so we built her personal migraine map
followed the plan
and now she will get one to two migraines per year
which she uses ibuprofen to treat if she needs to
verses up to 15 to 20 per month
when we first started working together
that weren't responding well to any medication
she just reached out to tell me that
she got a promotion at work
she's on top of her career again and has been able
to come off all of her migraine medication
but most importantly she's a confident mom again
and she's attending birthday parties at Jump Zone
with her kids and saying yes
instead of saying maybe later
I've worked with women like Beth
from all over the United States
who were told this is the best we can do
but they were still willing to dig deeper
so if you're serious about changing your migraine story
go to Doctor Leslie Caesar dot com slash apply
or tap the link in the show notes
and on our free consult
we'll map out why your migraines keep coming back
and the first three steps you can take
over the next 30 days
I do cap new client spots each month
so if the calendar is full
the doors are closed for now
but if you're done feeling helpless
and ready to do the work to heal
pause this episode for 30 seconds
and book that console call
now to get to my office today
I drove my car four miles from my home to my office
um the highest
speed limit that I encountered on the local roads
was 45 miles an hour which doesn't seem to be that much
but what humans traveled at 45 miles an hour right
I mean this is a very
very recent development
and travelling at that rate of speed
generates more physical stress on your body than just
you know walking at 3 miles an hour
okay so um
just the exposure to that type of stress
G force stress again
when we drive our car we're not really right
you get in your car you drive to your office
that you go to five days a week
you don't even think about it
but you our brain is processing quite a bit
even on that routine drive
so I mean
this is just like kind of an off the cuff example of
just a day to day activity
that we all take for granted
that's applying a lot of physical stress on our body
which is pretty novel and this
then you look at uh
electromagnetic fields Wi-Fi
5G all of the light that we're exposed to
right as I'm recording this
I've got artificial light coming on me right
so um
all of these things are physical stressors
from the environment
that are kind of bombarding our body
and we have to have the ability to withstand
all of these stressors we also have um
a lot of mental and emotional stress in the modern uh
life that we lead that is also novel
so not to say that you know
there weren't mental and emotional stressors in
in less complicated societies
of course there were um
but all of this is to say we live in a
in a very stressful environment
I don't mean that necessarily mentally and emotionally
but all of these additional physical stressors
that we're exposed to as well
and I really
really have become convinced
that to thrive in this stressful environment
we need to consume more protein
then people could have gotten by with
a few hundred years ago and the wonderful thing is
we have access to the protein
so I also find that as the needs change
uh for us humans
technology right meets the challenge
and so we do have the technology that we need
to provide us with additional animal foods
which is fantastic however
a lot of Americans are not taking advantage of this
either because they have very low appetite
due to poor digestive function
which is rampant among Americans
or they've been told not to eat animal foods okay
and so this I think
is also something
that has been very detrimental to people
I talked about this again
I touched on this in my response video
to the new food pyramid guidelines
which at minimum
doubled the daily protein recommendation for Americans
which I applauded
because the previous protein recommendations were way
way too low it was sort of like
the minimal amount of protein you should consume
to avoid severe male nourishment
well that's not you know
that's like subsistence level
that's enough to kind of keep us alive
but it's not gonna be enough to keep us thriving
and so the new food pyramid guidelines
I think are well needed
and the significant increase in the
protein recommendation however
like I talked about in that response video a lot
of Americans aren't gonna be able to eat that much
protein as recommended because they
they can't break it down their digestion is so poor um
but the other factor is that um
Americans have been told not to eat animal foods
they've been told that it's
you know unhealthy that it's
you know going to clog your arteries
or it's gonna drive inflammation
or all of these things
so they've been told that animal food is actually a
a detrimental food to their health
and that's not the case at all um
and so
a lot of people have been sort of pushed into like a uh
uh uh
extreme vegetarian or even a vegan uh
diet and then most people
if they're going to eat a vegan diet
they're gonna
implement that by eating a lot of processed vegan
fake foods haha
um or you know what I call factory foods okay
so that doesn't serve you
that serves the food companies
so I think unfortunately
I mean I don't have proof of this
but I suspect
that a lot of this push to have people not eat
you know just sort of simple animal foods
is actually a way for the food industry
to sell their manufactured
factory made meet
alternative products to people under the guise
that it's healthier for them
or it's more ethical so
you know certainly
we want our food supply
to be produced in an ethical way
and when it comes to animals right
there's there's definitely some ethical um
concerns with how animals are raised
and how they're cared for
and how they're slaughtered um
so certainly those things need to be addressed um
and if we have it in budget
we do have a lot of options for purchasing animals
maybe direct from a farmer
um etcetera if that's in budget for people
for a lot of people that's not gonna be in budget
and we do have to eat according
you know within our budget
and so I feel that people should be prioritizing
their own health first
and living within their budget
but prioritizing their own health
before they prioritize um
the health of the animal that they're eating
that's my take I
I do put humans uh
in our health and flourishing above animals
but for people that do have it within budget
there are many many great ways
there are many great options for people to get animal
foods
that have been raised and slaughtered in a humane way
so I think that
that takes that ethical concern off the table that a
that you know
a lot of good people are very concern
you know concerned about I
I think that's a valid concern
but I think that our concern for um
animal welfare again I don't have proof of this
but I suspect that people's
you know
good concern for animal welfare has been sort of
exploited or weaponized by the food industry to
kind of push people into their factory made
you know products for meat alternative
um products that really are not
they're not gonna be as health supporting for you
as eating actual animal food
even if it's not you know organic animal food
getting um
you know real food in
is preferential over getting factory food or what is
you know factory made food
or what is commonly called processed food
um that's going to support your health more
sometimes
we are going to have to eat factory made food
or processed food I eat some factory made food okay
this is not like um
an edict that you can't eat any processed food
or factory made food but in general
the more non processed
non factory made food that you eat
it's gonna be more health supporting
so you know
eating a conventional beef
hamburger
is going to be more health supporting than eating
a factory made beef alternative uh hamburger
and so um
this has also misled people into eating these other uh
you know
to thinking that they're doing their health a favor
by eating these factory made
meat alternative foods so with my clients
most of my clients are under eating animal foods
because they have poor digestive function
and their appetite has been affected
you know I will have clients that are concerned about
the ethical treatment of animals
and when that is an overriding concern
I work with them to find you know
good
sources that they're comfortable with of animal foods
but I but really
what we should be focusing on
is restoring digestive function
just as I was talking about my client earlier
she said to me this week
I can't believe how little I used to eat
and I can't believe that I didn't realize it
over and over again
I hear this from my clients you know
we don't realize when we have low appetite
we just think this is
this must be all the food that I need to eat
cause I'm feeling full or and I'm like yeah
I know no
nobody realizes it nobody um when it's happening to us
we're just not aware of it
we don't realize it to solve the problem is not you
you can't force yourself to eat
this is the thing so you you know
if you're if you're having poor digestive function
and low appetite
if you force yourself to try to eat more food
you're gonna get sick and if you're prone to migraines
you're probably gonna get a migraine debut
we have to first gently restore digestive function
get the digestive track up and running again
and then
people's appetite will naturally change as a result
and they'll start to feel like eating more and more
harder to digest food like animal food
so again we never want to force the body
we never want to try to push the body too hard
because then we're going to
have other downstream effects
and if you're prone to migraines
it's a great way to get a migraine
if you're trying to force your body to do something
so
restoring our health is really about gently restoring
the function of the body
gently giving the body what it needs
so that it can function optimally
and then the body responds
our body wants to get back into a state of health
and so when we give the body what it needs to do that
it will respond
and things will start to shift and change
and your appetite will start to shift and change too
it's amazing to see it happen
so I hope you enjoyed this today
and I hope this gave you a little bit of insight
if you've been struggling to eat animal foods
and you haven't been feeling like eating meat
I'll talk to you soon