Welcome to Episode 433 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast, hosted by Melanie Avalon, biohacker, founder of AvalonX, and author of What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine, and Barry Conrad, actor, singer-songwriter, and creator and host of Banter with BC.
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Featured Restaurant: Commander's Palace
STUDIES:
Influence of intermittent fasting on autophagy in the liver
The Beneficial and Adverse Effects of Autophagic Response to Caloric Restriction and Fasting
Fasting, mitophagy, and aging
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TRANSCRIPT
(Note: This is generated by AI with 98% accuracy. However, any errors may cause unintended changes in meaning.)
Melanie Avalon
Welcome to Episode 433 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. If you want to burn fat, gain energy, and enhance your health by changing when you eat, not what you eat, with no calorie counting, then this show is for you.
I'm Melanie Avalon, biohacker, founder of AvalonX, and author of What, When, Wine. Lose weight and feel great with paleo-style meals, intermittent fasting, and wine. And I'm joined by my co-hosts, Barry Conrad, actor, singer-songwriter, and creator and host of Banter with B.C. For more on us, check out MelanieAvalon.com and BarryConradOfficial.com. You can submit questions for the show by emailing questions at iapodcast.com or by going to iapodcast.com. We would love to hear from you. Please remember, the thoughts and opinions on this show do not constitute medical advice or treatment. So pour yourself a mug of black coffee, a cup of tea, or even a glass of wine if it's that time, and get ready for the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. Hi, everybody, and welcome. This is episode number 433 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon. I'm here with Barry Conrad. Barry, how are you today?
Barry Conrad
Hey Melanie, I am doing so good. I am also in a state of just consolidating things, tying things up because I have three more days, well two more days, therefore I officially leave.
Sydney, I move away forever.
Melanie Avalon
This is so crazy. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Because you're moving, and then you're going to move after the next move to the US.
Barry Conrad
So basically, I leave Sydney where I've been for over 20 years.
Melanie Avalon
Over 20 years!
Barry Conrad
It's a long time here and then I go to Melbourne for, you may have heard me talking about Destiny, I'm going there for some pre-production one more time for about three weeks I'll be there and then I go to New York to set up shop over there for the month of June and then I come back to Melbourne from July to September to do the play and then in September I officially moved to New York so that's a massive massive massive huge deal like it's bittersweet like it's not a lot of time to think about how I feel of course it's super exciting I'm very very excited and also it's like you know when you're busy doing stuff you don't have time to think about oh wow I'm actually leaving where I've lived for so long like friends and routine and yeah so it's it's crazy it's wild in two days I'm out of here
Melanie Avalon
I'm always I'm always in awe that you just so easily and casually show up to these recordings while like moving. I'm like I'm like not I'm a wreck with moves.
Really? Yeah I mean I'm not like an unpleasant person to be around or anything it just is a lot like moving is a lot of moving pieces to handle.
Barry Conrad
Unintended, yeah.
Melanie Avalon
Yes. Wow. That must feel... How does that feel? Do you know? You've been there so long. Like, are you sad? Are you...
Barry Conrad
Yeah. Well, last night I had a gathering with a few friends who were doing a tribute to a friend of ours that we lost. I think I told you about him, Chris. So much love to Chris, my friend Chris, who I lost recently.
But we had a gathering for him last night and I hadn't seen this group of friends in like probably years altogether. So us being together, it just brought back the nostalgia of like, wow, like I've had a lot of life happen here. And so it's super exciting what's happening. I'm so grateful and excited for what's coming. And also it's normal just to also at some point just process like, wow, like, okay, a bit of grief in some sort of a small way, not really grief, but you know what I'm saying? Like just processing it. But yeah, I'll let you know how I feel. But at the moment, it's just like I'm going with it and doing it, I guess.
How do you feel about change like that, like big change?
Melanie Avalon
Well, first of all, I'm sending so much love for your friend, everything that happened. I'm so sorry. So, so sorry about that. So sending you love.
Your friends in Sydney, like your friends in general, like are, are, are, is a large majority of your friends like local to Sydney or is it, I'm sorry I didn't answer your question, I will, but is it more, they're kind of everywhere? Yeah. Well,
Barry Conrad
Well, I have a yeah, I do have a community of friends here in Sydney, you know built a life here And also I have a lot of friends who live interstate because of being an actor and a performer So it's like you have a lot of international friends, which is what I'm looking forward to when I do move stateside It's not like I don't know anyone but yeah, I definitely have friends here and and some people that I'm like, can we catch up?
Can I see you but I might have to just catch some of them when I? Come back for destiny and just like take a flight down to Sydney or something
Melanie Avalon
how far is it? Is it Melbourne or Melbourne? How do you pronounce it?
Barry Conrad
Okay, a lot of Americans hate Melbourne, but it's meant to be like Melbourne.
Melanie Avalon
Right, because there's an R in there, right?
Barry Conrad
Yeah, Melbourne.
Melanie Avalon
But when you say it, I don't hear where's the R. I'm listening. I don't hear it.
Barry Conrad
Annunciate, what did you say? Melbourne, Melbourne.
Melanie Avalon
He said it's like a short flight.
Barry Conrad
It's like an hour, like an hour and 10 minutes, so pretty quick.
Melanie Avalon
Okay, yeah, wait, what did you ask me?
Barry Conrad
How do you handle big changes like in terms of like geographical changes where you have to like uproot your life, friends, groups, things like that? Are you easily adapted to change? Are you more like, I need a second to...
Melanie Avalon
My entire life, I've always felt very purpose-driven and like I'm on this journey and I'm working towards something. So all the really big changes, like moves and things like that have usually been fueled by a platform of excitement. So that usually, I'm usually looking forward to the change. And then you do get, I do get, it's like bittersweet, you know, and I might get a little sad and nostalgia again.
Like I still, like I'm here in Atlanta, but I still really miss LA. The thing is, it's nice that we're in such a connected world today where you can maintain, you know, so many relationships. Like just asking you that question about where, you know, where are the majority of your friends? Like, if I think about through my friends, like, I mean, a majority of my friends are not here in Atlanta. They're like, like you, you know? So, and so many people I know like through the podcast and through the show. So I guess I just tell myself like, you know, that place is still there, you know, you can always go back and I like my routine, I like my stability. And if I'm making change, it's usually for some sort of goal. So I'm usually feeling good about it, if that makes sense.
Barry Conrad
Yeah, of course.
Melanie Avalon
Well, happy, happy moving. So is all your stuff moved then?
Barry Conrad
So I've pretty much like, Mel, I've done a big overhaul of stuff because I listened to, I told you, your Mindblowing podcast, this is going back when I did the first move. I've gotten rid of so much stuff, which I feel super proud of, and I'm still getting rid of stuff.
So I'm going to be going pretty lean, which is the goal, because I just want to get everything new and I move to New York. Because in Melbourne, it's like a work pad. It's not like your place, you know, it's like accommodation. So yeah, so I feel good about that.
Melanie Avalon
Exciting. Well, keep us updated and congrats in advance on the show, which by the time this comes out, because this airs August 4th.
Barry Conrad
Oh, yeah, we're just about to, we're literally, I think next week, if we're in August 4th right now, it's we're about to kick off shows. So it's happening.
Melanie Avalon
Oh my goodness, so exciting. Congrats to future Barry. This is Anne Curranberry.
Barry Conrad
What about you, Melanie Evelyn? What's new in your world? How are you doing as your week?
Melanie Avalon
Well, I am really excited about, this will be a very teaser conversation because we don't have the specific details yet. And, but, and Barry and I had quite a long call earlier with some people who have actually been on both shows. They've been on this show and they've been on my biohacking podcast. So listeners will be familiar when I actually announced the relationship, but assuming that we do this, which I think we're going to, we're working on developing, we're not actually developing, well, we're working with them to create this, which will actually be a AI, like an AI, an AI, I guess that's what you call them, that will be really informed on the content of the show and how we feel about fasting and all the things. And it also comes to two conversations and relationships that you have with it from a very empathetic approach. So basically, I really like the programming of it, its view on relationships and communication and how to interact with people. And it will be trained on all the fasting stuff. So what we're hoping is that it will be a resource for people to have an account and be able to ask all your fasting questions to it and get answers like we would give. It's not going to pretend to be us or anything, but give answers like we talked about on the show and also help people if you're struggling with your fasting and you really want to break your fast, you'll be able to talk to it and it'll be able to talk you off the ledge and help you strengthen your fasting muscle. I'm really excited.
I think it's going to be really cool. How do you feel, Barry? We had a really long call today.
Barry Conrad
Yeah, it was actually a really, really exciting call and wait until you guys all see what we mean. It sounds, it's not just like a chatbot or just like some generic thing. This is something that's gonna really help add value to what we do with the podcast, make things easy for you to find information on the podcast and about fasting and about health.
So it's really fascinating too, because it's something completely new that I've never really delved into before too. And it was, it was amazing. It was like a long call, but in a productive way. And yeah, yeah, I'm excited Mel, it's gonna be awesome.
Melanie Avalon
Yeah, I'm so excited. I think what I'm really excited about is, I mean, I use AI and like chat GPT and Claude and all these other ones daily. And they really, really helped my life.
And I think I would have wanted, I know I would have wanted in the future to create something like that to go with the show. And the avenue that this is coming through, I just really, really respect the people behind it. And I love that there's this added layer that what they do is they're focused more on the helping people with like, mental health and wellness and relationships and things like that. So that basically the perspective of this AI is the perspective I would want. And then being able to train it on all of our information and then like hand it off to the listeners. So then listeners can just have it as a tool in their toolbox. I'm excited. Should be fun.
Barry Conrad
People first and which is what we're about so it's amazing
Melanie Avalon
Okay. So good. Shall we jump into fasting related things?
Barry Conrad
I reckon we should. Do you have a special study for us today, Mel?
Melanie Avalon
I do and it's great because I picked this study anyways and then I realized that it actually relates to one of the listener questions. So I'm going to talk about it now and then I'll reference it later.
Yeah, because we'll get to the second question. So this is a 2023 study published in Bioscience Trends and it is called Influence of Intermittent Fasting Onatophagy in the Liver. So we talk a lot about the role of fasting to support atophagy on this show. And basically what atophagy is, is this process where the body breaks down problematic old dysfunctional proteins and fixes them up and can even recycle them to build new functioning proteins. So it's so, so important for health and wellness and especially longevity. It's really, really key. It's kind of probably like when you're moving and you're going through and getting rid of the old things and making things fresh. Yes, in any case, we know that intermittent fasting in general promotes atophagy as well as a lot of other things. But this study is about how specifically it activates atophagy in the liver and how that is so important for helping with cellular homostasis. So basically keeping the cells in a state that they should be in, not overly stressed. And then it also helps with energy balance, quality control, cell and tissue remodeling, and defense against damage and pathogens. And the liver is, I feel like the liver is, do we appreciate our liver enough? We need to because it does so many things for our body. Liver health is so key for everything that people go through. So it's interesting because this study, what this study concludes is that by activating atophagy in the liver, that fasting has a potential role to actually treat liver disease.
So things like alcoholic liver disease, but also non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, which by the way, I was reading this yesterday, the percent of people that have non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, and it's a shocking amount of people. I think I was listening to it on a podcast last night, actually. Oh yeah, that's right. Okay. So I thought it was 30%. So 25 to 30%, one in three adults have non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, which is wild. wild. And, and what's so crazy about it. I was listening to this interview last night. It was on Dr. Peter T as the drive. And I remember him telling a story and I've heard this on other, like I've read this in other books as well. Like it's like the first time historically when doctors saw, it's called NAFLD would see it in patients and they wouldn't believe that the patients weren't drinking alcohol because this didn't used to be a thing. People did not used to have fatty liver, not from drinking. Like, like, like drinking was typically what caused fatty liver, cirrhosis, psoriasis, psoriasis. And then we started getting it from people who weren't drinking. And I've heard multiple times like different physicians say the first time, you know, that a patient came to them and had fatty liver and said they didn't drink. They're like, Oh, they just must be lying.
Melanie Avalon
But it's the diet of, it's our modern diet and processed foods and sugar, especially high in fructose and high fructose corn syrup, which creates this fatty liver situation. And when the liver is backed up with fat, it can't do all the things it does, which is so important, which including regulating blood sugar, which is so important, including things like, I mean, obviously like, like detoxifying everything that we put into our body. It's just so important for metabolic health.
So it's interesting to me, because what they conclude is that fasting is great for treating liver diseases specifically, which makes it sound like it's just if you have like a liver problem. Like they also mentioned, like drug-induced liver injury, viral hepatitis, hepatic fibrosis. With that said, the two things, one, it's not just liver disease. And then two, like non-alcoholic body liver disease, 30% of people have this. So fasting can be, you know, amazing for really helping support the health of your liver.
And they say some of the ways that it does this is by, let's see, it helps activate AMPK, which is a signaling nutrient signaling pathway we talked about on the show, which really helps support longevity. It affects mTOR. It can silence CERT1. So we have these, there are seven CERT2 ends in the body. They're basically, they're sort of like longevity genes, but they're proteins that are super involved in aging and your metabolism and inflammation and cellular repair. And there's seven of them and they all have different like things that they do to help support our health. So the autophagy in the liver can help support or it's involved in CERT1, which is one of those. It can silence pathways, which lead to inflammatory cytokines. So basically pathways in the liver that would lead to signaling, which creates inflammation, the autophagy can help turn that off basically. So it's very protective of the liver, very helpful for aging and longevity, helpful for combating fatty liver disease, which again, to me, it's just wild that up to 30% of the population has that and it's often silent. Like people don't realize that they have fatty liver until maybe they get like a scan and realize it. So yeah, autophagy in the liver.
Barry Conrad
Wow. Like I've actually, it's such an amazing study because I never heard of this before and an idea that IF could actually treat non-alcoholic fatal liver disease. What did you say? Like one in three adults. That's that statistic is mind-blowing.
Do they know how like how soon into or do they talk about how soon into sort of fasting protocol that the liver shows signs of improvement or is it like weeks, months? Is there, do they talk about that or is there a specific type of fasting or in general that they talk about in the study? Well, not really.
Melanie Avalon
So, it doesn't give any one specific thing. It's a review of a lot of studies. So, the ones they mention in it, they talk about ADF, for example. They talk about modified ADF, the 5.2 diet, and then just time-restricted feeding in general. So, they don't actually give a time or an amount. They do say at the end, in the conclusion, they say guidance should be provided on how to select an IF regimen that is appropriate for a particular goal.
It should include the types of foods that should be consumed, how physical activity should be performed, and how long it should be. The efficacy and safety of different IF protocols and different populations also needs to be continually evaluated, more attention should be paid, and two advances in the research and use of IF in the near future. So, basically, because the majority of the study is like a deep diet. So, I was mentioning all those pathways and different things earlier. The majority of the study is just talking about the science of all those different pathways and then saying that fasting can activate this, but it doesn't give an actual, like, do this type of fast.
Barry Conrad
Well, I think either way, the fact that intermittent fasting is all protective of our liver as well. And that's also, you know, for me, who loves to drink alcohol, you like to drink alcohol as well, no, and not in excess, but it's just good to know that it's, we're fine as well.
You know, it's such a healing tool that we have. And the fact that it can, that you found these, like the studies found that it can treat non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, not just prevent, but like treat, that's, I don't know, I think it's incredible. And should give people peace of mind as well. You know, I think in general, it's just, that's amazing.
Melanie Avalon
I will say it does say, just to be super clear, it has a potential role in treating. Essentially, yes.
I will say something. This is a tangent, but I was listening to everything. A lot of the content I consume is so similar that I forget what comes from what, but was it in his book? I'm reading right now Seamland's new book on longevity. Honestly, he's the smartest kid I think I've ever met. His books are mind-blowing. I think it was in that book, because he's talking all about centenarians and what we see in them. I thought this was so interesting.
It mentioned how the blood work of centenarians, what they tend to have better than the normal population and what might not be as good. For example, the lipid panels of centenarians are typically pretty good, like low triglycerides and things like that. But he did say that liver enzymes tend to be more elevated in centenarians. I was like, that's interesting.
And then he listed some other things as well. I think kidney and liver tended to not be as good, but blood glucose and lipid panels tend to be good.
Barry Conrad
Yeah, right. I wonder if they find anything else in the future about if there's a specific protocol or how long or how long it takes for people to see those changes, like the detail that I want if that will come out in the future.
Because that'd be really interesting to know even dietary choices if that changes the effect of what it has on the liver. Yeah, interesting. Thank you.
Melanie Avalon
Yeah, so gotta protect your liver. I do love the livers though, just to love on the liver for a second. It is such an incredible. It is such an incredible organ like it can it can completely regenerate, which is crazy. You know, it's like, I'm pretty sure it's the only organ that that really does that like you can, you know, have, have a liver in a really bad shape. And change the lifestyle and the environment surrounding it and it can you can basically like grow a new liver, given enough time, which is amazing. We love the liver. Shout out to the livers shout out to all the livers out there.
We love our mothers and we love our liver.
Barry Conrad
Oh wow, we love our mothers and we love our liver. Question about liver. Have you eaten? Is it a thing in America, eating liver?
Melanie Avalon
Okay, so the funny thing about liver is my grandmother is German. And so she would always give us like liverwurst growing up, which is like liver, but it's like that paste. It's like very seasoned and very not like it's not like having like a thing of just cooked liver. But it's funny because I loved it growing up and I would like ask for liver and I just thought it was so amazing.
And then I like had an epiphany one day that it was liver, which is seen as kind of a gross thing. And I was like so grossed out and I stopped eating it, which is like, which is so silly. The second answer to your question, I find it really interesting that liver, like I love meat, I love, I tend to like everything I eat from an animal. And I don't like liver. So actual liver just cooked like normally. And I had a time when I was anemic. And I was like, if there's ever a time that I'm going to love liver, I'm going to love this liver because I need iron. It should taste really good to me. I cook some it tasted so gross.
So I don't know. I don't know what's going on there. I have a theory. But yeah, do you like liver?
Barry Conrad
Yeah, yeah, because in South Africa, we had a lot of liver growing up and I think it's delicious. I think people get... Like how was it cooked? It's like fried.
Melanie Avalon
Oh, okay. I might like it fried. I mean, you know, like process like it's fried or like liverwurst or something. Have you had it though?
Like the way I tried to cook it, which is I just like bought some liver at Whole Foods and then put it in the oven.
Barry Conrad
No...
Melanie Avalon
No, definitely not. It tasted so I, it was a situation like last week, you talked about how I'm gonna love the octopuses.
Pusses. It was a situation where I was like, I'm gonna, it was the opposite. I was like, this is gonna taste so good. I'm gonna love this and it tasted horrible.
Barry Conrad
So how did you know how to cook did you just kind of look up a recipe saying let me just put this in the oven And I did not I did not look up
Melanie Avalon
recipe.
No, I just like, I figured, um, I eat meat so plain and I probably looked up how to maybe, maybe looked up what temperature to cook it at, but I just thought figured I could just cook it and that, you know, that like meat, I thought it would be like meat.
Barry Conrad
And it just was not a hit, it just did not do it.
Melanie Avalon
and tasted so bad.
Barry Conrad
That's disappointing when you want something to be good, you know?
Melanie Avalon
And like I said, this was when I was anemic. So in theory, my body should like it. Because it's very high nutrients, but that's my theory.
My theory is that I think it's so high in nutrients, things like vitamin, especially fat soluble vitamins that we could overdose on, that maybe our body, it's just my theory, maybe our body's evolutionarily, we developed a distaste of it because to prevent toxicity.
Barry Conrad
That's a good theory actually that's actually that could maybe be true and also i feel like you should give it a you should give it another chance i feel like you had one bad experience with this liver situation there's probably a better way to cook it. If i'm being honest and then you maybe you'll enjoy it.
Melanie Avalon
I feel like though if it's good, it shouldn't need to be cooked differently to taste good. Have we had this conversation? I think we have about the oysters.
Barry Conrad
Oh, it's back to the worst. Okay. What about them? What?
Melanie Avalon
Like if it's good for my body, it should taste good. I shouldn't need to like do anything special to it to make it taste good.
Barry Conrad
Okay, no, I'm going to have to maybe disagree with that.
Melanie Avalon
I know the conversation. When we went to dinner, when I took the picture of what I ordered for you, the big oyster at the Michelin star restaurant here in Atlanta. And actually in my defense, because we went with my friend who's a Michelin, he works, he's the manager of the bar at another Michelin restaurant. And everybody at the table was saying like, oh, well, you just need to like add stuff to it.
And then he came to my defense. And he said, no, he agreed with me that technically speaking, it should just taste good. Bye.
Barry Conrad
It should just happen though, you know, you shouldn't have to do anything fancy to it. But then in saying that there's plenty of things that are good for you, and you could probably agree with this, that you don't like the taste of, right?
Like a vegetable or like, come on, right? Because some people hate the taste of...
Melanie Avalon
No, I actually really stand by this theory. I really think our bodies are intuitive.
And so, for example, with broccoli and bitter foods, we don't like them as kids oftentimes. And I think it's because our body is telling us that it has these antinutrients in them and stuff. But then it's like an acquired taste. I guess taste buds do change, that's for sure. So there's that.
Barry Conrad
I used to hate coffee and now I can't get enough of it, so that's one thing that I never thought that I'd like. We should put a poll up there.
Listeners, do you think that if a food is good for you, it should just taste good and you should not have to do anything crazy to it? We all phrase that in a way that you can understand, but we're curious to hear what you think.
Melanie Avalon
I think I just feel like intuitively if we're, oh, here's a big caveat. This doesn't apply if you're eating processed foods because that just completely like messes up, like that messes up your natural intuition of what tastes good, you know?
So you just want like the processed food and then it changes your microbiome and then you're craving like the stuff that's not good for you. But like a person who only eats whole foods, I just feel like intuitively their body knows and I feel like my body was like, oh, this liver, we shouldn't be eating this right now.
Barry Conrad
I think you'll like, if you had my mom's fried, the way that we had it, like my grandma and my mom's fried liver, that's pretty good.
I feel like you'd like it and I'd still think you will at some point maybe hopefully enjoy an oyster and octopus, octopuses.
Melanie Avalon
I feel more hopeful for liking the octopuses, which is the correct plural form because I haven't had it yet. So maybe I'll like it.
But oysters vary. I've had them now twice, twice, two times, but I'm going to try them a third time.
Barry Conrad
Do you know that there's not a food that I can, I promise you, there's not a food at the top of my head that I've had. That you don't like. Yeah, I'm serious.
I'm trying to think. There's stuff I like better, but.
Melanie Avalon
Well, have you had liver just prepared like in the like I did?
Barry Conrad
But that could have been the user's fault, not the...
Melanie Avalon
Use me going back to my theory, my theory here. It's like saying like. I'm gonna write a book about this.
Barry Conrad
It's like a cooked chicken for you guys. How come you don't like it? It's like, well, it's not the chicken. It's the way you cook the chicken.
Melanie Avalon
See, that's the thing that, you know, that is big. That is what's not victim blaming. That is guest letting that is it's, it's, it's a lot of things.
Barry Conrad
No, I'm sorry. I'm half kidding.
Melanie Avalon
It's a gas plating. It's not taking responsibility. It's a bit yeah, it's An injury the food should taste
Barry Conrad
What okay when i when we finally do meet in person and if you if you ever have me over or you're at a place where you can cook somewhere. Why don't we get that liver will chuck it in the oven and i will i'll have it doesn't sound great though the way you describe doesn't sound yummy i'll have it though.
Melanie Avalon
You can try this on your own before we meet, just go buy some liver and then put it in the oven and then taste it and then come back and tell me there's no food that I don't like.
Barry Conrad
I'm gonna cook it, if I do it in here, I'm gonna go like 180 to 200 degrees, like, for 40 minutes, like, like, I'm gonna cook the heck out of that, so it's just in case, cuz I don't know, yeah.
Melanie Avalon
I mean that I'd probably like if I like if I just turned it into yeah
Barry Conrad
Cha!
Melanie Avalon
actually this act this is this not just to further color my theory a little bit more this is actually something when I write my book I'm gonna have a chapter on this because this actually conflicts with my theory and I haven't been able to figure it out I have a get well granted I haven't done a lot of effort trying to figure it out but every time I cook something like my steak or whatever chicken I reflect on how people love that charred taste and I do too tastes great and it's not good for you so that that that is that messes my theory up a little bit I don't know why that is I don't know why we like that flavor because that what that flavor is just basically carcinogens like why do we like that
Barry Conrad
Oh, whoa. So what you're saying is when, for example, like in South Africa, we call it a braai, which is like a barbecue and we really char our meat. Like, you know, really barbecue that thing.
So that's bad to have.
Melanie Avalon
And it tastes so good. And that char is basically just, it's just, yeah, it's carcinogenic compounds. It's denatured proteins and advanced glycation end products. And it's all the problems with meat is a lot of it, not all of it, but a lot of the problems are how you cook it.
Barry Conrad
Okay, now I'm...
Melanie Avalon
Am I ruining your experience of barbecue?
Barry Conrad
my head's spinning now because I always just thought, well, it's just meat. How can you really mess that up?
It's you just you're cooking it in its own fat. If it gets a bit burnt or charred, like, yeah, that's like very camp style, like you're camping. And it's like, you know, oh, wow. Mind blown.
Melanie Avalon
The proteins become denatured. They cross-link. They form these advanced glycation end products. It basically creates compounds that are carcinogenic.
But they taste so good, which, again, doesn't fit my theory. So I gotta think about this.
Barry Conrad
This is a really good conversation. I actually had no idea about this until now, so thanks for.
Melanie Avalon
Really? Oh my goodness. This makes me happy.
Yeah. And you know what's really helpful about this conversation? It makes me realize, like, this is so... And I'm not saying that people should know this, but I am so aware of this. So for example, when I wrote my book, Watlin Wine, available on Amazon, we were creating the recipes and I worked with this amazing person, Arianna Resnick, and she created the recipes. And I was like, you got... She was so sweet putting up with me because I was like, we have to cook all of this stuff at like super low temperatures. And she was like... I was like, do whatever you gotta do, but that salmon, we gotta cook, you know, below this temperature. Well, that's another thing that really gets messed up with high temperature. So when you cook like salmon, for example, at higher temperatures, that... Those Omega 3s, which are very delicate and heat sensitive, so good for you, they quickly oxidize. They're cooked. So it can turn them from these super anti-inflammatory supportive fats to inflammatory fats in your body.
Barry Conrad
What about smoked Timon? Well, that's just because it's just cold, right?
Melanie Avalon
Yeah, smoking also has, yeah, yep, smoking. Not, yeah, not good. Oh my God.
Barry Conrad
I've been I've been smashing the smoked salmon. I've been smashing the smoked trout. I've been Doing all the thing like ah
Melanie Avalon
What? So, so ideally you would cook everything low and slow. So cook it longer at lower temperatures, even chicken. So like chicken I cook at low temperatures and I just cook it longer.
Barry Conrad
Okay so Mel, I feel like you're gonna have to do like a cooking masterclass or like a something with Mel, like a class where everyone's in the kitchen. Okay everyone, this is how long and just like take everyone through how to do it because I had no idea about these different measures like different, you know, degrees you had to cook things out.
Melanie Avalon
Yeah. So you don't want the, you don't want the high heat. So for example, like you'll go to a steakhouse and they'll have like broiled steaks in the broiler with like the, you know, yeah, not good. Don't get that.
That cooks at like 400 something degrees. You don't want, you do not want
Barry Conrad
What about searing? Or if they're just searing, cause that's, it's got to be pretty hot to see the, the steak, you know?
Melanie Avalon
Yeah, it also can create the so like the ideal situation would be Yeah, like what like I said low and slow. Oh man mind blown.
Yeah, grill it. Yeah, so you want to avoid Oh, yeah, these these advanced here. Here's how you know advanced glycation and products. I keep mentioning them Literally The science community. I think the science community is like so cool Like they're very nerdy not to make I don't know they're very smart They're very nerdy but then every now and then they do really like Not okay. How do I I'm not trying to bash the science community? I like how they make decisions for naming things, which is like a wink-wink So literally that they came up with advanced glycation and product which is this carcinogenic toxic compound created by high heat with Protein because the acronym is age ages AGES Because it ages you And I was on purpose I didn't think it was on purpose but it was on purpose it's aging crazy, right?
Barry Conrad
It is crazy. Wow, this episode's already taken a turn I didn't expect in a good way.
Melanie Avalon
Me too. So if we're gonna talk about safe cooking methods, if that will be helpful. So like I said, low and slow. So like I cook my chicken, I like to cook it at like 270 for a long time.
Barry Conrad
It's a long time, like what, like 50 minutes or something or longer.
Melanie Avalon
I use a convection oven, so a convection oven is great because it just uses warm air and it circulates it so you get even cooking throughout and you can do lower temperatures. So I started at 270 and then I actually drop it down to like 210 pretty quickly.
You can do, so like an Instapot, so if you're doing like a pressure cooking, that's great because that also cooks with pressure and it cooks very low temperatures and cooks things. We have our sponsor, Harvest Right, which it's actually not cooking, it's freeze drying, but so I guess that's a little bit different, but that's really great for preserving food and that doesn't lose any of the nutrients, which is really great.
I'll actually give a, yeah, so listeners for that, they can go to harvestsright.com and so if you're using like grilling, you want to avoid as much as possible because of the grill aspect, but if you are grilling, try not to just completely, you know, overdo it, lower temperatures for everything when possible.
Barry Conrad
I feel like this episode should be called the cooking episode or low and slow. Low and slow. That's great. Thanks for sharing that, Mel.
Melanie Avalon
No, thank you. And thank you.
Like I said, this is really helpful for me because I guess I just assume it's common knowledge because I'm so enmeshed in it and I haven't for so long. So I don't realize that people don't know this. So this is really, really helpful for me to know.
Barry Conrad
I feel like a lot of people maybe don't realize this, so it's really useful that you shared it for sure.
Melanie Avalon
Is it going to change your cooking habits? Or are you just going to feel bad now? But it's not my intention, not my intention.
Barry Conrad
Like you're like, no, no, that's wrong. That's wrong.
That's wrong. I'm not, I'm not going to, I'm definitely going to be more aware. I'm not someone that can ignore once I know the new information, I'll definitely be more mindful about it and like, Oh, well, I'm not going to cook it like that, or if I know something's prepared a certain way, at least I'll know, but I'm not going to feel bad, but still be aware of it.
Melanie Avalon
Yeah, so another reason when you're at the restaurant, for example, to order like medium rare rare or something well done. You're just Advanced glycation and producting that whole steak potentially
Barry Conrad
I don't, and I'm, you know what, please don't at me or be mad at us, everyone, but I don't understand well done orders. I don't understand people who get things well done because it's, I do understand the concept of like cooking the goodness out of something.
It's like, well done. That's what that means to me. You know what I mean? I can, I can recognize that.
Melanie Avalon
You can re- wait, you can recognize, wait, hooking, oh, you can recognize the, wait, you can recognize what you believe. Is that what you're saying? Like you can recognize not getting well done.
Barry Conrad
Well, meaning like, you know, when someone says well done to me that says, oh, well, you're just cooking the you're cooking everything great out of it. So why would you? Why would you do? Well done?
Like you gotta so I do recognize that even though I didn't know the, you know, what temperature to cook things out. Like, I recognize well done. It's too extreme.
Melanie Avalon
Okay, so you weren't a fan of Well Done Before, but you didn't realize that there was also a health aspect to it. You just thought it was, you thought about it from the perspective of you're cooking out the flavor and the...
Barry Conrad
Yeah, and just the new and the nutrients to look at the nutrients. Yeah.
Melanie Avalon
Exactly. Yeah, okay. So like nutrient loss, but you didn't realize that it's also adding in problems
Barry Conrad
Exactly. There we go.
Melanie Avalon
I can understand because when I was little, I wanted everything well done. And I guess it's because it grossed me out.
Barry Conrad
because it looked too bloody.
Melanie Avalon
I guess so. And I thought it tastes, you know, it goes back to that taste thing though. Like, again, why do we like this cooked taste? I guess we like cooked taste because it makes the calories more accessible. Like cooking allowed us to break, you know, get calories from food that we couldn't prior to cooking. So that makes sense.
So maybe, maybe I'm fixing my theory right now. Maybe the chardness says like cooked to us. So maybe that's why evolutionarily we like it because it says like cooked. So it says, Oh, we can get more from this because we're cooking it. That would actually make sense. I should speak to some anthro evolutionarily, evolutionary, anthro, whatever people.
Barry Conrad
It's actually a really, really interesting topic now for real, because that evolution really, how did we know? Like even back then, oh, it's ready, it's cooked, it's sufficient to eat. And like it's, you know, that's like, what was the signal back then? There was no temperature. There was no, it was probably just by the look or the taste of it. So yeah, there we go.
Crazy.
Melanie Avalon
And actually to that point, it's really interesting because a lot of the stuff in the Old Testament and the Bible, a lot of the religious rules surrounding food, like don't eat this food and don't eat this food, it's probably because it kept the food safe. It's positioned as the food is not clean or not holy, which can be likely true.
And at the same time, it also would protect from pork, for example, which is very susceptible to parasites. So don't eat pork.
Barry Conrad
I do like pork belly though I do like I haven't had bacon in ages but I do I love New Zealand bacon specifically cuz it's just the produce is so good. It's not just stringy dingy hotel buffet breakfast bacon which is not real bacon you know I mean.
Melanie Avalon
Yes, bacon is... And that's actually another example that messes up my theory. Oh, which, by the way, when I said don't eat pork, I wasn't saying don't eat pork, I was saying that's like a religious tenet.
Barry Conrad
Interesting the bacon situation
Melanie Avalon
Yeah, but bacon, I also another food when I eat it, I ponder because it goes against my theory, literally like this theory is a theory I've had for a long time and I think about. And it's bacon is literally fat. Like, why does everybody love bacon so much? Because I remember I had bacon recently, not recently, it was probably last year, but I hadn't had it in a long time.
And I cook some and I was like, oh my goodness, like this is just like divine tasting. And why does everybody feel that way about bacon? Like, why? When it's pretty much fat and a little bit of protein. Yeah, I want to know like, what is the bacon factor? Like why evolutionarily do we love bacon so much?
Barry Conrad
That's a good headline, by the way, for an article or blog. What's the bacon factor?
Melanie Avalon
What's the bacon factor and I need to be writing all this down. This is like so much good content of things to do cooking masterclass bacon factor my theory about evolutionary cravings low and slow.
Barry Conrad
Well, I think this, these are, yeah, this is a, yeah, all these things we got to explore because I think it's, it's really interesting. And the bacon thing. Like everyone. Loves being.
Melanie Avalon
Like who does have you ever met somebody who doesn't like bacon? That's actually a good question
Barry Conrad
not many, not many people. It's so good.
It's just so crunchy and it's all yeah also my experience with bacon is very different like the bacon in South Africa and New Zealand and Australia it does taste different to Europe and to America so I guess it depends it's got to be like right it can't just be like crispy charred bits it has to have not just fat it has to have meat in there too you know oh now I'm hungry
Melanie Avalon
Okay, I know. So I'm trying to decide the autophagy study. Should we go ahead and do the question? Because we had a question about autophagy. Should we do that one? Let's do it. Okay.
Barry Conrad
Susan asks she goes hey Melanie i have to admit i haven't listened for a long time due to my schedule i'm lucky and work from home so i don't have a commute. I need to find another way to listen i listen to the other day on a short road trip and i realized how much i missed it i'm really out of the loop on the latest with research and need your help.
In this episode you had a different co host and before and she was leaving and it was a q and a time with her she answered one of the questions that now the studies show color restriction and i have both had the same benefits. There are no additional benefits of i have i was like what my husband has been telling me for that that for a long time as you see studies but i held on to the police that i have triggers autophagy. I've kept an autoimmune disease at bay for years and i credit mainly my secret weapon recipe of green smoothies where i put everything under the sun in it. But also i've done i have for five plus years i have is the only thing that works for me to manage my weight so i will continue to do it regardless however i might not be so strict on a clean fast if i can accomplish the same goals with color restriction.
My only change would be that i have my bone broth chocolate protein milk coffee first thing if it really doesn't make a difference i typically do sixteen eight please do a show with the quick four on one on the latest studies of autophagy and i have. We all know most of the other benefits will be accomplished with just color restriction but i really wonder about autophagy thank you and i appreciate you and your show so much so i'll find a new routine to listen.
Thank you susan she also says ps i try to dive into the research and i get lost so that is why i appreciate your show and your honesty so much and then she provides an article here. She goes this article included is one that seems to link i have to talk to you but doesn't really have to be clean faster accomplices now question mark melanie what do you think.
Melanie Avalon
All right, so heavy question. And Susan, thank you so much for being back with us. Yay. This is the ongoing debate. And I think it will be an ongoing debate for a long time.
There are a lot of people out there that say the entirety of the benefits of fasting are just due to calorie restriction. And then there's the camp that says, no, they're different things. I feel pretty strongly. I believe they are different things. What I mean by that is, I think calorie restriction and fasting activate very similar, if not the same, pathways and mechanisms. But they're doing it through their own way. So fasting does create calorie restriction. So you get the benefits of calorie restriction. And at the same time, you also get these benefits during the fasted state, even when you are coming out of not a calorie restricted state. So there's something different there. There are different pathways creating similar goals and effects. That said, people do not find it easy. Okay, so for one, people do not find it easy to just stick to calorie restriction. It's a miserable and a very high fail rate. It's just not like in all the studies on people trying to adhere to calorie restriction long term does not look good. People do not stick to it. It's hard to maintain your weight loss. It's not sustainable for most people.
Fasting, on the other hand, opposite situation. Studies consistently find that people can stick to it consistently. So even if the only reason you're getting benefits from fasting is because it automatically makes you calorie restricted without meaning to, well, I mean, hey, that's actually pretty cool because that's one of the main problems with calorie restriction. But at the same time, it's not that because there's been studies on fasting and non calorie restricted approaches and people still get these benefits. On top of that, there are all these benefits to the fasted state that are not so much about just the food per se is just the fasted state activates these things. So like autophagy, like we're talking about, and I talked about this study earlier about autophagy on the liver, and I'll talk about a few other ones about autophagy in general. But so what's interesting is, okay, she's saying, I might not be so strict on a clean fast if I can accomplish the same goals with calorie restriction. So does that mean you're going to fast but you're going to not fast clean and then you're going to calorie restrict? Because that's not going to be very sustainable. Like if you're trying to, if what you want to do, and maybe this will work for you, but it sounds like right now, what you're doing is you're fasting, not intentionally calorie restricting, but fasting clean. And now you're wondering, could you not fast clean and calorie restrict? Because she says, if I can accomplish the same goals with calorie restriction, if you want to do calorie restriction, I mean, whatever floats your boat, if that is easier for you to just stick to calorie restriction and not fast clean, if that's easier for you, and it's nutritious for you, go for it.
Melanie Avalon
In general, the studies don't find that people, that that's people's experience. And the not fasting clean is actually probably just going to mess with your appetite and make you have more cravings, which will make the calorie restriction even harder. So I wouldn't suggest that.
Like fasting is really magical. One reason it's really magical is you can eat all the things, you know, not have to calorie restrict and fast and then get the benefits, which is really, really amazing. To color it out more about autophagy. So we talked about that study about autophagy in the liver. Some other just quick studies. So there was a study, a recent study from 2025, published in Mitophagy and Health and Disease. The article is called Fasting Mitophagy and Aging. It actually, it talks about how fasting in particular activates mitophagy, which mitophagy is a special type of autophagy that works with the mitochondria. And the mitochondria are the powerhouses of our cell. They're how our bodies create energy. They are so, so important. And their functioning is so key for longevity and combating aging and chronic disease.
And so a special type of mitophagy helps get rid of dysfunctional mitochondria and help you build new mitochondria. And that's called mitophagy. So fasting does that. And then there's a study called, oh, this is actually the one she gave us. I found it as well. And we've actually covered this on another show. And it was about, it's called the beneficial and adverse effects of autophagic response to calorie restriction and fasting. I don't remember when we talked about this, but basically it talks about autophagy can potentially be a double-sided sword in that if you have too much or not enough, it can be a problem. If it goes, if it's like a defective, excessive form of autophagy, that actually is not protected for the cells. That's why I think it's really helpful to, rather than like chase autophagy, like all the autophagy all the time, just get the natural amount of autophagy that you will get from an intermittent fasting protocol.
And then it's like the best of both worlds. This would be another reason you might not wanna combine intermittent fasting and calorie restriction, because then you might go into the world of like too much autophagy. One other quick study, this is called Dontadusk Intermittent Fasting. It's associated with overexpression of autophagy genes, a prospective study on overweight and obese cohort. And this study actually found that fasting helped support and modulate genes that upregulate autophagy. And this was seen in people who were fasting from Dontadusk. And then, okay, but yeah, the conclusion of that, so this was people in Ramadan, and they found that four weeks, four consecutive weeks of Dontadusk Ramadan type fasting was associated with the upregulation of autophagy gene expression, particularly in people who are overweight or obese, and that this may actually explain in part the favorable effects on our metabolism and aging-related markers.
Melanie Avalon
So that's amazing. They say IF presumably may entail a protective impact against early markers of aging and metabolic disease in participants with overweight or obesity. Yeah, so basically there's a ton of studies on the benefits of fasting with autophagy, and there's a lot of other studies for other pathways and mechanisms as well from fasting and not necessarily in the context of calorie restriction. So it's an ongoing debate.
I do think there's benefits to fasting separate from calorie restriction, and I wouldn't write off fasting because you can, quote, get the same benefits just from calorie restriction, unless you want to calorie restrict for the rest of your life, which I don't want to do that. Barry, what are your thoughts?
Barry Conrad
Yeah, I mean, you hear this all the time. And I, I see this a lot online, especially, especially with personal trainers and nutritionists and people trying to prescribe a certain way of eating. And they say, well, intermittent fasting is just cutting calories. And that's all they dismiss it as.
And I just don't agree. And the science agrees with that, you know, like it supports that. And I think, still, if you're wanting to maximize, like your goals, I would I would say that clean fasting still wins, especially in the long run. And I think with with windows, like 1820 1820 hours, I think that's really good as well. And I think, you know, like you've got you've got real world feedback, meaning like, you know, that the clean fast works for you. And that real world feedback, you know, you could experiment with relaxing for your window with your window a bit and stuff like that. But if you're already doing well, don't, I would suggest not throwing the baby out with the bone broth just yet, kind of thing like, you know, you already know it works for you.
And it's just not the same thing. And as Mel said, as well, messing with your appetite, eating throughout the day, little bits of small, you know, calorically, like low calorie foods and stuff, you're going to have all these spikes throughout the day. It's not a great feeling doing that. Don't listen to what, you know, people are sensationalizing online, especially like, you know, it's just calorie restriction. I just don't agree. And the science supports that like, stick to it, you know, that it works. You're gonna, as we said in a, I think last week, sure. It's normal to have periods where you feel, Oh, am I progressing? Am I not losing any more weight? Am I plateauing? These, this is just part of being a human being as well.
It's not just one plus one equals two. That's not the way our bodies work. So trusting what works for you most of the time is really important. And looking at the general trend rather than day to day and and being and allowing that to panic you really trusting what you've already done. I really recommend that Susan.
Melanie Avalon
You heard it here first. Don't throw out the baby with a bone broth. Mary Conrad. Oh man. I was like, he snuck that in there. I love that you just like said it and like kept going.
Barry Conrad
Try to make it a moment.
Melanie Avalon
Yeah, that was like the perfect like non-moment moment on the show, oh my goodness.
Barry Conrad
That's hilarious.
Melanie Avalon
Yeah.
Also, it's like I really genuinely mean this to people.
Like you do you.
Like if whatever floats your boat, like do that.
And I really believe everything we're saying.
Like I really do think it'll be more beneficial, easier, sustainable, better effects going this route of the fasting and especially if it's been working.
Barry Conrad
Yeah, I mean, as well, like, you know, once, once food's coming in, that internal cleanup crew, they're out. They're signing off for the day.
So why risk that? Just, you know, I don't know. And I think as well, I've said this to many people, and some people don't believe me, but I really do think and not think I know that I, if I had to count, and I've actually done this just for fun before, if I had to like, count how many calories I had a day or in a meal. Now versus pre intermittent fasting, I eat so much more now. And I'm so much leaner now and my body just looks completely different. The only thing that's changed. I've always trained. I've always worked out since I was 15. That's never changed. The only thing that's changed is intermittent fasting. So how does that make sense if it's just cutting calories? So yeah, I stand by it.
Melanie Avalon
Yeah. And what people will say, they'll be like, well, you actually are eating less and you just don't realize it. But I feel like Barry, you put back a lot of food.
Barry Conrad
I really do are really really doing people don't believe it to actually eat with me and then like oh wow you actually you know you're not playing around.
Melanie Avalon
Yup. Okay. Shall we break our proverbial fast, which may or may not include, wait, what is the word?
Barry Conrad
Take the station.
Melanie Avalon
Degas station. Why can I not remember this word? I'm still really shocked
Barry Conrad
that you don't know it.
Melanie Avalon
I probably am going to see it on a menu somewhere pretty soon.
Barry Conrad
I reckon your parents know it for sure, because they eat out at 11 last places too, right? They would know a digestation.
Melanie Avalon
Yeah, they probably would. I really don't know why it's been missing from my life.
Barry Conrad
Well, you don't like tasting menus, so that tracks. It's fun.
Melanie Avalon
Yeah, it does. So Barry, do you have a restaurant for us and for listeners?
The purpose of this section of the show is because, and actually this relates to Susan's question a little bit, so much of the benefits from fasting are not just from the fast, but it's from that eating period when you're actually nourishing your body and you're stimulating all of these pathways that are helping to rebuild your body, not in a calorie restricted state. So we love honoring that and we love showcasing restaurants and talking about what we would order at the restaurant when we break our fast for our one meal a day. So Barry, what restaurant do you have picked out for us this time?
Barry Conrad
So the restaurant that I've got this week is called Commander's Palace in New Orleans, USA. And I'll just flick you the link now, have a look at that. So this joint, it's been a landmark since 1893, nestled beneath oaks of the historic Garden District with signature teal and white striped awning. It's renowned for its hot Creole cuisine, perfect blend of rich southern flavor and French finesse. And it's had like multiple James Beard Awards, outstanding restaurant, best chef. It offers a 25 cent martinis at lunch, which is pretty dangerous, keeping the experience playful and elegant. And a meal here apparently feels more like a celebration of New Orleans itself, rich in flavor, music and unmistakable energy. So I chose it for those reasons.
So let's get into it.
Melanie Avalon
I feel like you're a New Orleans fan. Why do you say that? I think you've had a few restaurants now from New Orleans, I think. Have you? At least one.
Barry Conrad
Yeah and i've only been there one time but it was enough like when when it's had that much of an impact on me it was really amazing it's such an amazing place.
Melanie Avalon
How long were you there for?
Barry Conrad
I was there for like maybe four days, so enough to take in some of the just touristy stuff. I was mainly there working, but it was so culturally rich and the people were so happy.
I remember that. And the food is amazing, like so good, so unusual. The flavors are great. Yeah, it really impacted me because I obviously keep referencing it now. So I'd love to go back again, actually.
Melanie Avalon
It's crazy to me that I haven't been there.
Barry Conrad
I think you'd like it. I think actually I think you'd love it.
And also it'd be a real adventure to all find some stuff that you'd like restaurant wise, because there's a lot of there's a lot of sources, a lot of flavors and things like that, the way they cook is quite unique. But yeah, like the live music scene over there is so vibrant, like it's such a vibe. Every other like bar or whatever has like these incredible musicians playing. So you just feel like you're in a film set. Like it's crazy. It's amazing.
Melanie Avalon
And it's open container policy right you can just walk out did I tell you about the conversation we have my mom few months ago no my mom did not realize that you can't in most places just have alcohol outside it was a wild conversation.
Barry Conrad
You can't, like she didn't think that?
Melanie Avalon
No, she yeah, yeah, this was like it was a mind blowing conversation. It was me and my sister and my mom and we were talking about I think probably New Orleans or something or I think we were talking I don't know what we're talking about.
We're talking about somewhere where You can just I think probably Vegas maybe Yeah, and she didn't know that you can and literally we were like mom like you can't just like Go outside here in Atlanta with your open drink. She had no idea I don't know how she grew up her whole life and missed that memo
Barry Conrad
Well, I think it's good for her that obviously she's gotten away with it so far. She just, you know, obliviously, it's good.
Melanie Avalon
I know. You can't even have it in your car, Mom.
Yeah. I mean, not that you should be drinking dry. My point is like, you can't even like, if you leave a restaurant, you know, you technically can't even have like a half wine bottle that you bring home with you.
Barry Conrad
It doesn't stop. I mean, it doesn't stop some people here, especially on like a, you know, Thursday to Saturday nights, you'll find, you know, mainly like teenagers and like, whatever, like just walking with beer bottles and stuff.
It doesn't stop people when they're drunk, but you're not supposed to.
Melanie Avalon
It's more a little bit more lack so maybe.
Barry Conrad
I feel like some cops probably let it go because there's just so many, you know, hooligans and stuff. But it's not meant. Yeah, it's illegal, but people do it.
Melanie Avalon
Well back to New Orleans where it is legal, okay, so oh is it is this a
Barry Conrad
You know what let's skip past that because i know that you're looking at the top there let's go to this because there's a one twenty five per person thing we're not we're not doing that so let's just go to the.
Melanie Avalon
Oh, wait, so would that be a de luke? I'm not, I'm never gonna remember this word.
Barry Conrad
No. Degestation? No, that's not really.
Melanie Avalon
How can I remember this? Okay, so disgusting, disgusting, de-gust-ation.
Barry Conrad
DEG just degg is it a degg menu degg degg i don't think that's really degg because it's to me it's also one twenty five not really the price for digger stations way more usually and that doesn't seem decadent or. Like important enough so let's go down to the starters section and go from there.
Melanie Avalon
And I have a mental block against Degas station. You know, like sometimes there's just like, I shouldn't be able to remember this word and I just can't, but I'll work on it.
Degas station. Okay. Starters. Um, okay. Do you know what you want? So yes.
Barry Conrad
There's quite a few options.
Melanie Avalon
Yeah. Oh, they have Gulf oysters. Surprise, surprise. I feel like every restaurant we go to, we have to get the oysters. So you can attempt to convince me to like oysters.
Barry Conrad
Well, you'll see my pleasure in consuming them and you'd be like, you know what, maybe Barry's right, I'm just going to do it and then you'll convert.
Melanie Avalon
possibly. I'm open-minded, probably not. I'm gonna get the remoulade roasted shrimp, which is broiled head-on wild white gulf shrimp drenched in spicy New Orleans style remoulade sauce with crayon cream cheese stone ground grits and pickled sweet peppers. So I'm gonna order that if they can just give me the broiled head-on wild white gulf shrimp plain and then they can put everything on the side so Barry can try it if he would like it.
Do you like head-on? This was on our restaurant last week. Do you like when the shrimp have the head on them or not?
Barry Conrad
Yeah, I don't actually have a preference. Like it's totally fine. Like I don't get grossed. Some people get grossed out seeing it. I don't care. It's pretty good.
Melanie Avalon
at a restaurant and it's like the whole fish situation, how do you feel about that? Like if it has like the eyes and the brain and everything, how do you feel?
Barry Conrad
I don't care. I'm so used to seeing that some people hate that because they can see the you go stop by that or what.
Melanie Avalon
No, I love it. I actually I remember I was on a date once and I ordered like the full fish thing and he was convinced I was going to be grossed out by the brain. I was like, I'm excited. Let's get into that brain.
Get into it. Yeah. Yeah. I actually, that was an interesting experience because the brain, I actually, I thought I was going to love it. I thought it was going to be a bone marrow situation and it actually wasn't. I was kind of neutral. Like I didn't love it. And I actually had a little bit of an aftertaste. I didn't really like, but it also was doable. Does that make sense?
Barry Conrad
Yeah.
Melanie Avalon
OK, what are you getting?
Barry Conrad
I'm going to get the Jerkspice Japanese Hokkaido Scallops, which is brown butter-basted tender scallops, crisp kohlrabi and poblano and Caribbean warm spice, crushed lemongrass, horrible tea, and the Gulf oysters and sutsama, pepper jelly, crispy corn fried Gulf oysters, and citrus salad over cauliflower and black truffle. Fluid.
That sounds really good. Those two sound good.
Melanie Avalon
And I will possibly taste the oyster. And I'll taste the scallops if they are, wait, brown butter. If they're not super like sauced up, sauced up, it's hard to tell.
Barry Conrad
Mel, if you scroll down, look at what's next, one of your favorite things.
Melanie Avalon
Oh my goodness, caviar service. I would love to try some caviar. Oh, they're all sustainably farmed. Which one would you want?
Barry Conrad
Do you like Blinney's? Do you say Blinney's in America? Blinney's.
Melanie Avalon
Aren't those like a pastry type thing?
Barry Conrad
They're kind of like if you picture like super baby miniature pancakes and you put the caviar on top of that.
Melanie Avalon
You know what I mean? Yeah, I do like them in theory, like in my mind.
Barry Conrad
So I would probably get the, I reckon because caviar is pretty easy to eat. I reckon one of each to try the enjoy all three. Yeah, there's enjoy all three.
One ounce gold pearl trout row, one ounce Siberian sturgeon, or set trial and one ounce California white sturgeon reserve. And I think that'd be quite delicious actually.
Melanie Avalon
You know what's weird about that, though?
Barry Conrad
What?
Melanie Avalon
So if you order them individually, it's cheaper. Wait.
Barry Conrad
That's actually true. Is it really?
Melanie Avalon
I think they somebody did the math wrong this is this menu it's literally cheaper to order them individually than the enjoy all three normally the enjoy all three would save you a little bit you know
Barry Conrad
Mm-hmm or what they do maybe they go enjoy all three and then maybe they'll throw like a little extra something something on there
Melanie Avalon
Yeah, I don't think so.
Barry Conrad
to get in the bin for the doubt, Bill. Yeah, I don't think so.
Melanie Avalon
They also have a typo somewhere else, so I think we need to audit the menu.
Barry Conrad
Okay, wow, just like complain. Okay, yeah, enjoy all three. So we'll get that. So that's a good.
Melanie Avalon
No, we're not. No, we're going to get we're going to individually order because it's cheaper.
Barry Conrad
That's so funny. Are you gonna try any caviar or no?
Melanie Avalon
But yeah, yeah, I like caviar. It doesn't taste like oysters. It tastes like salty goodness.
Barry Conrad
I think Danny would probably like oysters, I'm gonna ask her about this.
Melanie Avalon
Yeah, she does she like oysters? I think she does like oysters, actually, because the first time I had oysters was with Danielle and my dad in LA.
Yep, and I didn't like him. Yep, true story. So now we have soups and salads.
Barry Conrad
Mm-hmm. What are you what is tickling your fancy? What's jumping out at you?
Melanie Avalon
So they figured it out right here because here if you want to get oh, it's a tasting of all three soups. It's cheaper I'm I'm gonna pass on this section.
How about you? Oh, they have turtle soup. Wow, that's very authentic Can you get that and tell me how it is?
Barry Conrad
You know what, I'm definitely going to get that because it's something that you don't.
Melanie Avalon
has a veal.
Barry Conrad
Yeah you don't get that anywhere else so i'm gonna get the turtles for sure.
Melanie Avalon
Can you read the description?
Barry Conrad
The authentic Louisiana favorite with veal fond egg and crushed lemon, finished tableside with a splash of aged sherry. That sounds so good.
I love trying things that's native to the place, like, you know, just very, you know, signature them. I'm all for it.
Melanie Avalon
And I feel like I feel like you can't get turtle soup everywhere. I feel like kind of like you can't get kangaroo everywhere.
Barry Conrad
And if you do, it's not going to be the same.
Melanie Avalon
Yeah, okay. So you're getting that one. Entrees. Entrees. And we get to use the word entree because that's the word they use. Did you like how last episode though, I just automatically said main and I didn't even like plan that. I just, you're rubbing off on me. Like I'm becoming Australian.
Okay. Entrees. Okay. Oh man. I actually, I know what I want. Do you know what you want? What do you get? I'm torn between two. Oh man. Unless I'm having an insane craving for pork, which does happen on occasion. Oh, I'm going to get the, this is appropriate for this episode. Char-grilled, but we're going to adjust. We're going to adjust that veal tinderloin, which is hand-carved milk fed veal over creole creams, cheese, stone ground grits. They love their grits here. With crispy crushed red pepper oven, dried kale crushed crawfish bisque. Oh my goodness. And cognac flambéed Louisiana crawfish tails. Whoa, wait, crawfish. I didn't know that was coming into the picture. Okay. So I will, does the other one come with crawfish? Okay. I would like the char-grilled veal tinderloin, not char-grilled, actually just rare, plain. I would love the crawfish tails also plain. And then can you put all the other stuff on the side, like the cream cheese, stone ground grits and the stuff, please.
Barry Conrad
It sounds good. I'm going to get the pier part crawfish and Texas redfish, which is I knew that I knew it how I just I just knew I'm going to get that.
Well, it's one or two. So I'm going to get that which is cognac because it's like local.
Melanie Avalon
You know, it's like a...
Barry Conrad
Yeah, I'm pretty game to try the local stuff. So Gongyak, Flambi, Louisiana, crawfish tails, and cast iron-seared redfish, with confit of butternut squash, caramelized shiitake mushrooms, ripped Swiss chard, merlotin, kimchi, and crawfish boil hollandaise, and then I'm also going to get a grilled cinna cut creeks stone farms belay.
Melanie Avalon
That was what i was debating between doing a split that we can split that are you down to get a plane with rare.
Barry Conrad
We could do that because I'm also gonna get some sides. So this is an eight ounce fillet of black angus beef with Creole smashed new potatoes, Haricot vert and mushroom fricasa and brandy green pepper gondemic glaze and I'm gonna order for my sides the garlic wilted spinach, tangy bacon and apple cider braised cabbage because that's different for me and then also definitely the Creole smashed new potatoes because I could do without the grits. I love potatoes and it's still Creole.
Are you not a grits fan? I do like grits but I feel like isn't there grits in yours? I feel like I'll have yours, you know what I mean?
Melanie Avalon
Yeah, with my tenderloin. Yeah. Perfect.
Yeah, you can you can have the crits. We can like get them on like a separate plate and I'll just like pass it over to you. Do you like crawfish? Have you had crawfish?
Barry Conrad
I've actually never had crawfish ever before, so I'm really excited.
Melanie Avalon
I don't think I have either, actually. That's exciting.
Barry Conrad
It is exciting.
Melanie Avalon
No, like, I don't know that I know, okay, because I know like crawfish, is it more like is like shrimp or crab or yeah, they look like they're crustaceans. Like, I wonder if they taste like what they taste like, you know.
Barry Conrad
It tastes like what they sound like kind of thing.
Melanie Avalon
Like, yeah, well, do they taste more like lobster and they taste more like shrimp or they taste like crawfish?
Barry Conrad
I guess we'll have to find out. I also listen out there.
Grits is just not a thing in Australia. It's non-existent, not a thing. So I have had it though many times and I do like it. So I'm totally excited about having it here as well.
Melanie Avalon
It's also not a thing in the majority of the United States, mostly just the South. So I was raised on grits, like we were raised on grits.
Oh, and cheesy grits, oh man, don't get me started. So good, yeah.
Barry Conrad
Yum, okay, let's go down to, oh, wow, there's even there's more before there's a chef's makes three course offerings, which is like, what is that Mel?
Melanie Avalon
I'm confused wait what is this is a mate wait what is this this has quail I want quail I'm confused wait price of entree
Barry Conrad
All right, so what I'm seeing this as this is like a second addition to like a main situation. It's a set course thing. Yeah, exactly. Do you like that?
Melanie Avalon
we should, when we give them all the feedback about the menu, they should put this at the top because you get through the whole menu and you don't realize there's... Because at the top, they have a pairing menu that's multiple courses, 125 per person. They should put this at the top too so people understand the multi-course set price situation.
I agree. I'm just saying. I'm sad though because they have, so shrimp and grits, and then Maggie's mushroom vault event, but then they have a painted Texas quail which I would like to try quail, although it's stuffed so maybe not.
Barry Conrad
Maybe not, because they probably can't unstuff it. They'll be like, it comes how it comes. We can't change it. Yeah.
Melanie Avalon
Okay, so maybe we just skip this section, yeah.
Barry Conrad
So now we'll go on to the desserts, so I'm curious to see.
Melanie Avalon
Desserts. Okay.
Well, for my dessert, I'm going to get... Honestly, it's going to be whatever I liked the most from before I might get around to of. Maybe I can request the quail as a plain quail. They can just give me some quail, plain. Yeah, maybe. They could probably do that. So what would you get for dessert?
Barry Conrad
I'm going to get the, I'm going to get a couple things. I'm going to get the Creole cream cheese, Creole cream cheese cheesecake, which is house-made Creole cream cheese cheesecake with a honey gram, graham crust, chocolate, lattice, and sticky caramel sauce.
And then I'm also going to get the Ponchatula strawberry shortcake, which is the first of the season Louisiana strawberries over a warm fluffy buttermilk biscuit, oh yum, with powdered sugar, sweet strawberry and puree and chintilly cream. Ah, this, this looks so good.
Melanie Avalon
must be ordered 20 minutes in advance. Also something that should be put at the beginning of the menu.
So people are like aware that they need to... I'm a fan. I'm excited to go here. Okay. Awesome. Do they have a...
Barry Conrad
This should do. Let me have a look there. Let's have a look at the menus.
Let's go down to, oh here we go, cocktails and wine programs. Let's go to the wine program first and look at the wine list to see if Melanie Evelyn sees anything that, maybe you might see something you like there. Oh wow, look at all these awards they've had.
Melanie Avalon
Okay, so just looking again, very briefly, because basically my protocol... Oh, I love when they organize it by type. So like light and fruity, medium-bodied, full-bodied, sweet and sticky. I love this.
So I would go... I would look at the light and fruity red wines and then I would look up these different wineries and figure out if there's one that's organic. But just looking at it really quickly, they have a Gamay, a Beaujolais French light and fruity. If that one is organic, that's probably what I would go for because that's one of my favorite parietals from one of my favorite places. That sounds great. How about you?
Barry Conrad
I'm going to go for the indigenous Pinot Grigio Venizi IGT Italy. So I'll probably get a bottle of that for the table.
And then I'm going to go to the cocktail menu, which is where? They were cocktails. And I'm going to have a look at that real quick. See what we got. Okay. I'm going to get the, maybe the tequila mochi. The fuzzy buffalo. Actually, yeah, maybe your tequila mochi is not really my thing. The fuzzy buffalo bourbon basil peach lemon. That sounds pretty good, I reckon. So that, and then the bottle of Pinot Grigio to sip on throughout. Awesome.
Melanie Avalon
Okay, well, good find. How did you find this, by the way? I'm curious. Did you Google like New Orleans or
Barry Conrad
Yeah, definitely. And I like to kind of like, not find just generic, like, you know, I don't think any of us have been generic, but I'd like to try to see what's interesting.
There's any fun facts about it. And then also see if there's a good wine list oysters on the menu, of course. So you can comment on that.
Melanie Avalon
Mm-hmm. I like to I'm looking at their main site.
I like that they They have farm raised products Their dirt to plate within 100 miles policy means they strive for 90% of ingredients to come from within 100 miles up their back door I love that
Barry Conrad
That is awesome.
Melanie Avalon
Awesome, well, good find. Well, this was so, so fun. This was like the cooking episode, like the food episode.
Barry Conrad
I know, I love that though.
Melanie Avalon
Yeah, me too. So listeners, we hope you enjoyed coming along with us for the ride.
If you have your own questions for the show, you can directly email questions at ifodcast.com or you can go to ifpodcast.com and you can submit questions there. The show notes for today's show will be at ifpodcast.com slash episode 433. That will have links to everything that we talked about, so definitely check that out. And you can follow us on Instagram. We are ifpodcast. I'm Melanie Avalon and Barry is Barry underscore Conrad. So I think that's all the things. Anything from you, Barry, before we go?
Barry Conrad
Thank you so much for tuning in everyone. Talk to you next week, Melanie. Have an amazing week, everybody.
Melanie Avalon
and a happy move to you.
Barry Conrad
I know. Next time we have the show, I'll be in Melbourne.
Melanie Avalon
Crazy. All right. Well, I will talk to you next week
Barry Conrad
Okay, talk to you soon. Bye.
Melanie Avalon
Thank you so much for listening to the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. Please remember, everything we discussed on this show does not constitute medical advice and no patient-doctor relationship is formed.
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