Derek: About 90% of my diet is raw sheep meat.
I'm just somebody living in obscurity, eating my intestine smoothies in my kitchen.
My name is Derek Nance. I'm from Lexington in the state of Kentucky.
For the last nine years I've been sourcing, butchering and eating raw animals. And I've never felt healthier.
This is a Ram's testicle, from a three year old Ram. It has a more salty taste.
It's not like red meat it's more of a seafood almost.
Growing up, I just had the standard American diet.
And I had allergies and headaches and asthma.
And other signs food intolerance issues, where I noticed certain foods were really giving me trouble.
I'll chew a raw like rawhide. And I'll just chew it like gum throughout the day.
I think it helps polish my teeth.
Finally, I came across the Weston Price foundation. And they do studies of indigenous diets.
Eventually discovered the meat based diet and just decided that, you know, I'll give it a try.
I was having so much trouble digesting everything else, that meat seemed to work well for me.
And I just felt like this was it.
Alright, so ready to prepare a stomach smoothie.
You can smell it too. So here's the small intestine the whole part, you know different parts of the intestines.
They all go into my smoothie. And I can eat this. And be fine with it, without any fear that the bacteria are going
to come out to get me. Because actually I think that they're beneficial.
So I just make it into a smoothie. And it just makes it like all cream together.
And it's just much more consistent, easier, like a quick on the go snack.
And my girlfriend made me a designated blender because I used to use her blender.
And it holds that residual stomach smell.
Save that for dessert.
I believe that the nourishment that are in raw animal foods is far superior,
because there's certain nutrients that when undergoing the cooking process gets cooked out
I could sit here and chew on this bone for a good 15-20 minutes, like a dog.
But you know crack it open, get some of the marrow out.
Instead of just going to the store and taking out a pre packaged chunk of meat, with a label on it.
I prefer to go directly to the source. I'll drive out to a small family farm
I load up the animals in my truck, and I take them back to the house here; and I butcher them in the backyard.
It's fun.
Whenever I get a fresh animal in, I prefer eating, the whole animal
with all the organs and all the different tissues. Because it adds variety to a diet that you'd think would be bland.
This is the kidney, and the kidney fat.
And it's really nutritious, and it's a good part of the diet. But it might be an acquired taste for some.
Hey, where am I going to sit?
Amelia: Ahhh, right here next to me. Charlotte: Dad sit with me, sit with me.
Derek: Let me sit in between
Derek: I have four kids and I live with my partner. My girlfriend was primarily vegetarian.
JoAnn: I would have probably remained a vegetarian if Derek hadn't come into my life.
I think that the way Derek harvest’s meat is much more ethical than buying it from a grocery store.
Derek: Here's my skinning rack. And I got an … thats where that knife went.
Depending on the size of the animal, a full grown sheep, around 175 pounds for about $200 .
I mean 200 American dollars, and you can live off of that for about a month. And that's 90% of my food.
I've had my kids be a part of the process since they were really little.
Aldous: I'm pretty sure everyone would think it's strange.
Derek: Hey, let's sort of see if we can find some eggs for me.
Maddie: Can we eat them raw?
Derek: If you want.
Aldous: I've never seen him eating else.
Amelia: We’re used to it.
Aldous: Well, my friend, he said it is kind of weird. I said, yeah it is weird.
Charlotte: My chicken’s coming.
Derek: Yeah they're fresh.
Charlotte: They’re so pretty.
Derek: I had issues with the teachers reporting me, because they found out that I was
butchering animals in front of the kids.
Derek: All that's been resolved. After I've explained to the social workers,
it's what I do to harvest my foods.
It's hard to to be the odd child whose dad does a lot of crazy things.
And I don't see why a child couldn't eat raw meat as much as they want.
As long as it comes from a good clean animal.
We've been raised under the paradigm that germs, are the root cause of all disease.
We've decided to just sterilize everything, to cook the life out of it.
So this compost heap's been going for about five years.
And it's really rich, I'll bury whole bones down here, kind of like a dog.
If I feel like I need something to chew on.
And I don't really eat the meat but I do eat the maggots.
These maggots are evolved to digest rotten flesh.
I could probably utilize those digestive enzymes and bacteria, to digest my own food.
But I wouldn't recommend it to just anybody.
For the most part, I react very well to raw meat.
This is my fresh liver. I like to do a little aged meat with each of my meals.
So i'll leave this liver hanging up here for about two months.
And it ferments and it has a probiotic, like actually here's actually mold growing on it.
And sometimes I'll just eat it right off the piece.
I’ll eat it and just the taste of it just wakes me up. Some people drink coffee other people
have their morning stimulant and this is mine.
I haven't had any real adverse effects.
There's only been a couple instances of diarrhoea and food poisoning
from, eating old raw chicken that I shouldn't have left in the fridge for a week.
I hope to eat the raw meat diet for the rest of my life.
No, I mean I've invested 10 years in it and I'm and now I'm really curious to see how far I can push it.
See if I could live to be eighty years old, then it would validate a lot of
the theories that I have about this diet and how it is viable.