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HUNTER'S SPRING | GUIDELINES

 Welcome
to your Hunter's Spring Experience!
Welcome to Hunter's Spring! Whether you’re a longstanding "meat
eater" or just testing the waters for this season, here is some helpful
information directly from Eric to ensure your experience is as
smooth as possible.
 ABOUT
HUNTER'S SPRING

WHAT IS HUNTER'S SPRING?

Hunter’s Spring is a version of spring that is focused on animal products
including meat, fish, eggs, and poultry and is based on the idea that
plants fight back. Plants, even edible plants, use a series of defense
mechanisms to defend themselves from predation including enzyme
blockers, hormone triggers, and lectins.

For people dealing with autoimmune issues or inflammation, Hunter’s

Spring is like an ‘elimination diet’ that allows you to focus on eating only
the very most nutrient-dense foods (meat, fish, eggs, etc.) while avoiding
foods that resist digestion and might contribute to our exacerbate
immune responses or inflammation.

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 More about
Hunter's Spring
It is important to note that there is not a single essential (required) nutrient that can
not be sourced from animal products. All of the essential vitamins, minerals, fats, and
amino acids are fully available in animal sources provided that you also consume
organ meats such as liver and kidneys. The more of those you consume, the longer
you can stay in Hunters Spring.

While meat is generally nutrient-dense and packed with all the fats and amino acids
you could ever need, organ meats have, for most of our history, been prioritized.
Some advocates of the ‘carnivore diet’ have suggested that our ancestors prioritized
organ meats because they are nutritious but that assumes a level of understanding
about nutrition that they did not possess. Instead, I would suggest that organ meats
were prioritized because they don’t keep as well and as a result of being prioritized
for hundreds of thousands of years, they have become nutritionally important to us.

It is only recently that we moved away from organ meats and focused on what we
now consider the traditional cuts of meat.

While you might find consuming organ meats distasteful I strongly recommend
finding ways to include them in your diet.

Liver, for example, is one of the most commonly consumed and discussed of the
organ meats; it is also among the most nutrient-dense of all foods. Liver, like regular
meat, offers whole proteins (all the essential amino acids) but does so with a lower
calorie consumption. Further, liver is packed with important nutrients including
copper, vitamin A and B12 to name a few.

People have suggested that because the liver is a ‘filter’ that there must be an
accumulation of toxins and that, therefore, liver should be avoided. Calling it a ‘filter’
congers up images of a vacuum cleaner filter or the air or oil filters found in cars that
need to be replaced from time to time due the accumulation of impurities. The liver,
on the other hand, does not simply act like a filter; it processes substances and when
in healthy balance does not accumulate them.

Other nutrient dense (protein, fats, vitamins and minerals) organ meats include
kidney, heart, spleen, tripe, heart, sweetbread, tongue and brain.

In a world that overuses the word super-food, liver and other organ meats are, truly,
the only super-foods on earth.

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Hunter's Spring
Guidelines
Here is a list of the easy and effective enhancements you can make during Hunter's
Spring.

Drink only water, bone broth and smaller quantities of herbal teas.

95% of your food sources should come from:

Muscle meat

Fish filets

Shellfish

Eggs

Organ meats (heart, liver, kidney, brain, thymus or pancreas of mammals, fish and
fowl)

Skin (of mammals, fish and fowl)

Animal fats (tallow, lard, caul fat)

Short ribs, oxtail, flanks

Tendons and cartilage

Fatty cuts of meat

Bone broth

Insects (crickets, grasshoppers, etc.)

All foods should be wild or organic and pasture-raised whenever possible

Remaining 5% of Food Sources from:

Different herbs and seasoning vegetables (dried rosemary, parsley, garlic, onion,
etc.) or sea vegetables, plus salt and pepper

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TIPS FOR PREPARATION:
A bit of information about preparing for
Hunter's Spring:
Straight from our in-house WILDFIT Chef, bring these prep tips into the
kitchen when you start cooking for Hunter Spring!

Skewer organ meat and grill over charcoal whenever possible to avoid it
going tough; use low, indirect heat for best nutrition, flavor and texture.
Baking is the best alternative to grilling. Stewing is also a good method.

Render fat, strain it through filter paper, then whisk it over ice to create a
butter substitute.

Cook a tendon by doing a long, low simmer on the stovetop for up to

seven hours. You will get a broth full of gelatin and collagen and pieces of
tender tendon that will melt in your mouth. It can be great in soups, or as a
soup starter.

Place oxtails in a heavy bottom pot, cover with broth, and bring to a boil,
then reduce heat to medium and simmer with lid on, until the oxtails are
tender. This will take two to three hours. You can also transfer to a slow
cooker on high after boiled.

Eat crickets or grasshoppers as crunchy snacks. Plain jerky or biltong and

hard-boiled eggs are also great snack options.

Meet WILDFIT Head Chef,

Jason Nesbitt

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Speed Bumps
As with most changes to your diet, you may experience some speed
bumps along the way. Don’t get discouraged! Here are some helpful hints
to help you on your way.

If you get diarrhea:

Glucose is the body’s preferred fuel, but in the absence of glucose-rich
carbs, it turns to the fattiness of meat for energy. Fat is digested in the
small intestine, so the pancreas needs to secrete the enzyme lipase in
order to digest it.

If the amount of lipase that your body is used to producing is surpassed by

the amount of fat you are eating, then you will likely experience loose
stools. Your body will adjust over time, however in the meantime digestive
enzymes will help.

If your fasting glucose goes up:

Fasting-blood-sugar readings above 100 generally indicate prediabetes.
However, when you are mainly eating large quantities of protein, your
body needs to convert it to glucose for energy, and eventually transform
that into fat if there is still excess.

We store glucose in our muscles and fat on our body, but we do not store
protein. Over the course of the day, protein helps make and repair cells,
produce enzymes, and complete various other tasks. Any extra is
converted to glucose. All this to say, this metabolic process in action is
likely why your levels are high.

If your cholesterol goes up:

Cholesterol on it’s own is not the best indicator of health. Be sure to check
your VLDL (the true major marker for heart disease risk) and your
cholesterol ratio. Your cholesterol ratio is a better risk predictor than total
cholesterol or LDL. To find it, you divide your total cholesterol number by
your HDL score.

There are also different kinds of LDL depending on your level of

inflammation so check your ratio of triglycerides to HDL cholesterol. The
lower the ratio, the less the risk.

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REASONS TO
TRY HUNTER'S
SPRING:
There are many positive reasons to try Hunter’s
Spring. From fat release to increased testosterone
levels, check out the perks of this WILDFIT add-on.

1. Fat Release:
a. Similar to regular Spring, you don’t experience
insulin spikes, so your body has no reason to
store incoming calories as body fat.
b. It is difficult to mindlessly snack or emotionally
eat
c. Increase your metabolism

2. Inflammation Reduction:
a. Taking a break from plant anti-nutrients may
restore gut health
b. May be good short-term for your heart and
cardiovascular system
c. May reduce digestive issues

3. Increases Testosterone Levels

4. Greater Mental Clarity

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ESSENTIAL FATTY ACIDS
A bit of information about essential fatty acids
We could discuss fat for pages and pages evaluating the differences
between saturated and unsaturated fats or between polyunsaturated and
monounsaturated fats or, even, between Omega 3 and Omega 6 fats. In
fact, to fully understand fat, its role in our diet, and the way the food
industry has manipulated information about fat might require a degree-
level education on the subject.

To keep things simple, I have two recommendations:

Read the Big Fat Surprise by Nina Teicholz. It is a tour-de-force that

1 exposes and details exactly how the low-fat movement was created
and the damage it's done. It should be required reading for anyone
practicing medicine or working in nutrition. While we may not see eye
to eye on every principle included in the book, it does provide some
valuable insight into fatty acids in the human diet.

Focus on natural or historical sources of fat and avoid or at least reduce

2 consumption of artificial, processed, or fake fats including, of course,
highly processed seed oils.

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