1874. Don't Believe the Nonsense About Bacon

Join Dr. Martin in today's episode of The Doctor Is In Podcast.

 

TRANSCRIPT OF TODAY'S EPISODE

Announcer:  You're listening to The Doctor Is In Podcast, brought to you by MartinClinic.com. During the episode, the doctors share a lot of information. As awesome as the info may be, it is not intended to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent any disease. It's strictly for informational purposes.

Dr. Martin:  Well, good morning, everyone. And once again, welcome to another live this morning. Hope you're having a great start to your day. And let me just get to my studies here.

Somebody asked a question yesterday. I saw it afterwards. And look, it's not like it's the first time I got asked, but might as well go back and just answer it. Okay.

So, Dr. Martin, here's the question. Dr. Martin, what about the nitrates in bacon?

Okay. You know, they did everything they could to make bacon that. Okay. Listen, I've been around a long time and I actually watched them do it.

Okay. They changed our breakfast. Have cereal, not bacon and eggs, not sausages and eggs. They lie to you.

You know, a lot of people have beliefs and they really believe it. Okay. They look at a vegetable. Okay.

And they really believe that that's better than meat. But what is it based on? Vitamins? Nutrients?

No, it's not based on that. So what do they do with bacon? Well, bacon's bad. 90% of the population would say, yeah, you better limit your bacon because look at bacon.

You don't even have to look at it before it's cooked. Just look at it. It's full of fat. That can't be good for you.

You bet your boots it's good for you. But they vilify it. You know, you got to give people, marketing people, you have to give them honor that's due. I always tell people, well, you did a good job on it.

You convinced the world, but you weren't telling the truth about it. It was just propaganda. Again, I've given you the history of Dr. Kellogg's, okay, who was a medical doctor, by the way, but he was a cook.

He invented cereal to get away from meat. Guys, that's a true story. And he so influenced the world. Started with him, but then it continued on.

Go in the middle aisles of your grocery store, how many cereals there are there. And these big companies, Kellogg's, and Post, General Mills, and all these big companies, cereal is better. Why? And their idea was it because, well, first of all, bacon's bad.

You can see that, right? Now, just look at bacon. It's bad. It's clogging your arteries.

And 90-something percent of the population, even in 2026, they still believe that. Bacon is bad. Cereal is better. Oatmeal is better than bacon.

If you wanted to do a survey of people in your hometown, you'd find out what I'm saying is right. They vilified. They wanted to change your breakfast, and they were good at it. And then they got, you know, the pharmaceutical industry got involved, and they started, cholesterol's the bad guy.

Like, bacon is full of cholesterol. How could it be good for you? And cholesterol clogs up your arteries. You know, they show a hose, and they show clogging, and they say, well, you see what's there?

That's the clogging is cholesterol. So they add on, okay, because a lot of people, especially today, guys, because you have social media, you're able to look up things on your own. And I don't want you to have an empty mind. I just don't want you to have a closed mind.

Don't close your mind. I'm giving you the other side. Now, back to bacon. Wow.

They put nitrates on the bacon. Bad. Celery powder is bad. You know what they did to meat in the biblical days?

Salt? Yeah. They put salt on meat. They didn't have refrigerators.

They didn't have freezers. They put salt on meat. Now, salt does what? It delays decay.

They put salt, a celery salt, nitrates, on bacon. And someone said, well, I don't kill you. You know, I heard this 35, 40 years ago. Well, bacon's bad because it's got saturated fat.

It's terrible. And it gives you cholesterol. That's going to give you a heart attack. And then they add this nitrates.

And then they made nitrates a bad guy. I said, celery powder is bad. Why is that bad for you? Well, because they said so.

So when you ask about it, I'm glad you asked. I mean it. I'm glad you asked. It gives me a chance to give you the other side of it.

And if you guys have followed me for any length of time, bacon, put it on this side. Oatmeal, put it on this side. Now, let's compare. There's no comparison.

Bacon is so much better for you. I used to tell my patients, you like bacon? Oh, I love bacon. But my God, I said, don't give me the butts.

Your doctor doesn't know anything about nutrition. They haven't studied it. They listen to what dietitians tell them. There's a whole profession.

Started by Dr. Kellogg's. That's where they come from. They're university graduates.

Cholesterol? Bad. What has cholesterol in it? Eggs, meat and cheese.

The farmers. Cholesterol. Cholesterol is only found in the animal kingdom. Your liver makes cholesterol.

God don't trust you. You're not going to eat enough of it. You need it for everything in your body. You need it for your hormones.

You need it to transport. You need it for your brain. You need it for every cell in your body. And cholesterol?

No, that's the bad guy. And then they found a medication to lower LDL. So all of a sudden, oh, LDL. And then when people started to question LDL as being a bad guy, here's what happens.

I knew it would. Oh, LDL because guys like Dr. Martin were saying, ah, LDL. Who said that was bad for you?

Oh, they did. The dietician did. The cardiologist did. Well, why would your body make LDL if it's bad for you?

Why? I always ask that question. Why? Why is it bad?

Oh, it clogs your arteries. Who said? And then, okay, so people started to question that narrative. People started to question statin drugs.

Asking questions. If statin drugs are so great and they do work, they do lower your LDL cholesterol. 100% they do. Oh, yeah?

Well, why hasn't heart disease? Why is it still the number one killer? Why? Why is it worse than ever?

Because they're looking for love in all the wrong places. So now, guess what they did now? They pivoted a little bit. So most doctors still look at LDL.

Most doctors, you'd have to get them over to a dentist and drill their teeth without anesthetic in order to get them thinking even for a minute that cholesterol might be good for you. So guess what the pharmaceutical industry did when they get questioned? They pivot a little bit. They get into what I call the weeds.

They went into the weed. Now you got particle size of LDL. What size is it? Apple.

A or B. Small or large particle LDL. And you go, I don't know. Well, it's confusion.

They went into weeds. Why did they do that? Again, I always give high fives to marketers. I give them a high five.

They confuse people. So what happens? To keep on giving the population the number one selling medication of all time. All time.

Statin drugs. Oh, you need them. They can't help themselves. And if you think we're going to change that, I do it one person at a time.

Would you at least consider the other side of the argument? Okay. So now, let me bring you back to bacon. That was a whole side thing because cholesterol had a lot to do with vilifying bacon.

And now because people question that because there's a lot of people, they're doing the carnivore diet. There's a lot of stuff out there. I'm not the only one doing podcasts. And there's people questioning the cholesterol hooks.

And sometimes they go overboard because that's all they want you to eat is carnivore. I'm not into that. Okay. I'm not.

So what do they do? Well, they, oh, we better find something else wrong with bacon. Well, yeah. And any kind of smoked meat is bad.

It's smoked. It's got nitrates. It's bad for you. And people go, well, I knew it.

I knew it. And I was on the other side, a little wee guy in practice when I had private practice. Mind you, I used to tell you this on my radio show, that people that listen to me. Okay.

And I used to say, nah, that's not science. It's based on propaganda. I mean, guys, there's nothing better for you to start your day. If you're going to start your day eating, a lot of people fast and not, you want to fast?

I don't care. But your most important meal is really your first one. And what time you do that is up to you. But your first meal is important because it's going to affect your blood sugar the rest of the day.

And if you choose cereal, you're making a big mistake. It turns the sugar like this. And your insulin is going crazy to start your day. That's what 90 something percent of the population do.

They eat the wrong food for breakfast. But they've been told bacon and eggs, bad. Nothing better. Well, there is one thing better than bacon and eggs.

It's steak and eggs. Bring me a chocolate, bring me a granola bar. Put it up against bacon. Guys, it ain't even close when it comes to nutritional value.

I always say bacon has the same oil as olive oil because it's oleic acid. And you could ask a vegetarian or a vegan or any guru, is olive oil good for you? You better believe it. It is really good for you.

I said, okay, how about bacon? Why is it got the same oil? It's got oleic acid. But you see, they vilified it.

And you have to look, guys. So when someone yesterday, can't even remember it because I just saw it. Sometimes I see the scroll going by. And of course, I'm on to another topic.

I'm not going to answer it right there. And I said, you know what? I've got to come back to that. Because every day, and I mean it seven days a week, every day in seven days a week on our private Facebook group, somebody asks, here's my numbers.

Here's my cholesterol numbers. My doctor's concerned. What does Dr. Martin think?

Every day. My doctor wants to put me on statin drugs. What does Dr. Martin think?

I can't tell you what to do as an individual. I'm not in practice. You're not my patient. I'm giving you education.

I'm giving you the other side. Do I want you to have a heart attack? No. Absolutely not.

And I'm going to just say this. If for one minute, I thought statin drugs were good for you, I'd be the first one to tell you. And I'll give you an example of that. If you don't believe that that's the way I think.

What is my position on antibiotics? Okay. Now all you people have followed me for a long time. You know exactly what I'm going to say.

For you new folks, here's what I'm going to say. Dr. Martin, what do you think about antibiotics? When you need them, you take them.

If you need an antibiotic, take an antibiotic. That's what I think. I've counseled tens of thousands and more on taking an antibiotic if you have an infection that's raging. Hey, you don't fool around with that.

Antibiotics will save your life. And then I give the but. The but. Okay.

Here's my teaching on antibiotics. If you need it, you take it. You've got a urinary tract infection. You've got a lot of burning.

And every time you go to the bathroom and burning, well, you don't want that infection going up into your kidneys. If you need an antibiotic, you take it. How many times in my office a patient come in, I got this rash. It's starting.

It's going up. I said, man, it looks like cellulitis to me. You better get an antibiotic right away. Get to the hospital.

I got nothing natural for you when you have cellulitis. You have an infection. Antibiotics will save your life. Then.

Okay. And I taught this before they made this known. I taught this. You take an antibiotic until the pain goes away or the symptoms and then stop it because they still do it today, even though it's been proven.

I'm right about this. They want you to finish an antibiotic. They still do it even though they've been told the studies have shown them don't do that. You're killing all the good guys.

You're carpet bombing. You're microbiome. You don't want to do that. Stop it when the symptoms stop and take probiotics, take them with the antibiotic and take them during an antibiotic, take them after an antibiotic and double up and triple up if you have to, because you've got to replace that bacteria, the good guys.

But if you need an antibiotic. So it just shows you statin drugs, if I thought they weren't, if they had made a dent in heart disease, you would have heard about it from me. I would have said, you take it because you need it. Because if I would have thought for one minute that cholesterol was at the root of heart disease, you would hear it here on this program.

I don't believe it. I don't believe it. You want to take a statin drug? Well, and you guys know my teaching on this.

Well, if you're going to take it and you're scared because your cardiologist or your doctor or whatever, they scared the living life out of you, well, then at least make sure you're taking CoQ10 because you're killing that. And CoQ10 is essential for the mitochondria of your heart and your brain. See, I give you the other side, guys.

I'm not your doctor, but I give you the other side. I want you to think so that you be your own doctor. We live in a world, you better make decisions on your own. Now, listen, that doesn't mean you don't consult your physician.

Of course you do. But when they tell you, look, this is the only way it is, and they've never taken one hour of nutrition. So bring me any food, bring me any cereal, bring me any granola bar, bring me anything that's not eggs, meat and cheese and put it up against bacon. No.

And people tell me this all the time. Well, Dr. Martin, I like avocados. It's got a lot of fat in it, very low carb.

Yeah, I like it too. I do. I think it's wonderful. Avocados are wonderful, but they're not as nutritious as bacon is.

They're not. They don't have what bacon has. Okay. So I don't tell people not to have an avocado.

You want one? You want coconut? I have no problem with coconut. It's got a lot of good healthy fat in it.

Okay. Coconut. But when you do the nutritional profile, it's not bacon. And patients, like I give them all the blood results.

Said, yeah, you're diabetic, man. Oh, I'm not, Dr. Martin, my doctor has, I said, nah, look, you're on the Titanic and you're a diabetic. How do I know that?

Your A1C is elevated and you got sugar in your urine, man. You're a diabetic. I want you to leave here. Don't fool yourself.

You're on the Titanic. And then I go, you like bacon? Oh, yeah, yeah. I love bacon, Dr.

Martin. Well, I said, you can have that. You like eggs? I love eggs, but I'm restricted because of my cholesterol.

They were told me to have one or two eggs a week. I said, you like butter? Oh, I love butter, but I'm using margarine because my cardiologist, I said, well, I love your cardiologist. You can tell them I said that.

They're not right. They're wrong. Margarine, your body doesn't even know what that is. It's one of the reasons we see so much people with autoimmune.

I could give you, there was a new study on, wait a minute, what was it? Aspartame. Yeah, a new study on aspartame. You know, NutriSweet?

It wasn't good, guys. It wasn't good. What happens to your body when you drink like a diet coke? Your body doesn't know what that is.

It reacts to it. It knows exactly what butter is. Oh yeah, but Dr. Martin, the margarine I use, it looks like butter.

Yeah, but you're not fooling your body. Your body knows one is butter and the other one isn't. And by the way, put margarine and butter out on your deck or whatever in the summer and see which one the bugs go after. Bugs are smarter than humans.

See, when human beings think they're smarter than God, you know what happens? They do stupid things. They invent margarine. But the bugs, the ants and whatever, you got two pills.

One has got butter and the other one's got margarine. They know which one is real. Margarine? What are those stupid human beings doing?

Eating that stuff. If they could have a conversation, I'd like to be in on it. Look at those idiots. What are they eating?

Nitrites and bacon. They're not bad for you. They're preservative. They preserve things.

Salt preserves. It delays decay. Right in the Bible. Okay, guys, you know what tomorrow is?

It's Q&A. Okay. Is it too late to send your questions in for Friday? I don't think so.

What do I know? But I don't think so. Send your questions in to info at martinclinic.com. Okay.

Whose birthday is it? Whose birthday is it? Somebody. I just missed it.

Okay. Okay. Yeah, Cecilia. Margarine is one molecule away from plastic.

Yep. Oh, but it looks like butter. Man, we do silly things sometimes as a race. And Marianne says, I love bacon.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And it's good for you. Because when you eat bacon, you don't need any insulin.

Insulin is sitting on the sidelines, the traffic cop, and it's not even blinking because it doesn't have to do anything. Okay. I was going to talk about calcium oxalate. And you study on that.

We'll talk about it. Okay, guys. We love you. Talk to you soon.

Announcer:  You've reached the end of another Doctor Is In Podcast, with your hosts, Doctor Martin Junior and Senior. Be sure to catch our next episode and thanks for listening!