Joe Rogan Experience #2069 - Dr. Shawn Baker
Dr. Shawn Baker (guest), Narrator, Joe Rogan (host), Guest (guest), Narrator, Guest (guest), Guest (guest)
In this episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, featuring Dr. Shawn Baker and Narrator, Joe Rogan Experience #2069 - Dr. Shawn Baker explores doctor Defends Carnivore Diet, Blasts Processed Food And Pharma System Joe Rogan and Dr. Shawn Baker discuss Baker’s eight years on a predominantly carnivore diet, claiming dramatic health improvements for themselves and many others, and positioning meat-heavy eating as a powerful therapeutic tool rather than a strict ideology.
Doctor Defends Carnivore Diet, Blasts Processed Food And Pharma System
Joe Rogan and Dr. Shawn Baker discuss Baker’s eight years on a predominantly carnivore diet, claiming dramatic health improvements for themselves and many others, and positioning meat-heavy eating as a powerful therapeutic tool rather than a strict ideology.
Baker outlines his conflicts with the hospital system, his restored medical license, and his new company Revero, which aims to practice “root-cause” medicine that reduces dependence on lifelong pharmaceuticals.
They strongly criticize ultra‑processed foods, the financial entanglement of Big Food, Big Pharma, and U.S. regulatory agencies, and highlight how guidelines and epidemiology can be shaped by industry funding and ideology.
The conversation ranges from cholesterol science and upcoming research on very high LDL in lean people, to veganism, regenerative ranching, mental health, exercise, cold exposure, and how lifestyle and diet affect both physical and psychological resilience.
Key Takeaways
A meat-centric elimination diet can be a powerful therapeutic tool.
Baker reports thousands of cases (and a Harvard survey of 2,000 carnivores) where shifting to near‑all‑meat diets improved or resolved conditions like type 2 diabetes, autoimmune disease, chronic pain, and mental health issues—arguing it’s at least a legitimate clinical intervention even if not universally necessary.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Ultra-processed food and pharma profits are deeply intertwined.
They describe how major asset managers hold large stakes in both processed food and drug companies, creating incentives to promote cheap, addictive foods that drive chronic disease and then profit again from the medications used to manage, rather than reverse, those conditions.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Nutrition science and guidelines are heavily influenced by industry and ideology.
Examples include sugar industry’s historical funding to demonize saturated fat, Harvard epidemiology that classifies lasagna and sandwiches as 'red meat,' USDA modeling a 91% ultra‑processed 'healthy' menu, and diet guideline committee members with ties to drug and food companies.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
High LDL in lean, metabolically healthy people may not behave like classic risk.
Baker previews an upcoming study of 'lean mass hyper-responders'—fit individuals with extremely high LDL on low‑carb diets—whose advanced imaging reportedly shows minimal plaque compared with reference cohorts, potentially challenging the “LDL alone” heart disease model for this subgroup.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Fiber is context-dependent, not universally required or benign.
They discuss research suggesting gut bacteria and ketones can provide similar short‑chain fatty acids without fiber, and that in some autoimmune conditions (e. ...
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Regenerative and animal-based systems can support environmental and human health.
Rogan and Baker highlight ranchers like Will Harris and regenerative models that improve soil, biodiversity, and nutrient density, arguing that properly raised ruminants and 'real food' should be favored over lab-grown meat and ultra-processed plant products.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Training, cold/heat exposure, and diet together transform physical and mental resilience.
Rogan emphasizes how strength work, jiu-jitsu, sauna, and cold plunges—combined with meat-heavy, low‑junk eating—enhance energy, cognition, and stress tolerance, making all other life challenges feel more manageable compared with a sedentary, processed‑food lifestyle.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Notable Quotes
“I think our healthcare system has some serious conflicts of interest. The incentives for providing what I think is appropriate healthcare are misaligned.”
— Dr. Shawn Baker
“The US diet is close to 70% ultra-processed. This stuff is literally killing us; it’s making us crazy and depressed.”
— Dr. Shawn Baker
“Healthy dietary patterns can include most of their energy from ultra-processed foods… That’s the USDA positioning us to accept human pet food as our food.”
— Dr. Shawn Baker (paraphrasing and critiquing the USDA study)
“If you eat better, if you rest better, you’ll have more energy. There’s not a thing you can do where having less energy makes you better at it.”
— Joe Rogan
“We’ve never had a time in human history where people pushed this hard into their 70s and 80s. No one really knows what’s possible if you keep training and eating right.”
— Dr. Shawn Baker
Questions Answered in This Episode
For which specific conditions or patient profiles should a carnivore or very low‑plant diet be seriously considered as a frontline therapeutic option rather than a last resort?
Joe Rogan and Dr. ...
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
How should clinicians and patients reconcile the conflicting data on LDL cholesterol—especially in lean, low‑carb individuals—when making decisions about diet and statin use?
Baker outlines his conflicts with the hospital system, his restored medical license, and his new company Revero, which aims to practice “root-cause” medicine that reduces dependence on lifelong pharmaceuticals.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
What realistic economic and policy steps could shift incentives away from ultra‑processed foods toward regenerative agriculture and whole foods without causing major social disruption?
They strongly criticize ultra‑processed foods, the financial entanglement of Big Food, Big Pharma, and U. ...
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
How can laypeople critically evaluate nutrition studies and guidelines when so many are entangled with industry funding or shaped by ideological biases?
The conversation ranges from cholesterol science and upcoming research on very high LDL in lean people, to veganism, regenerative ranching, mental health, exercise, cold exposure, and how lifestyle and diet affect both physical and psychological resilience.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
If large numbers of people moved to meat-heavy, minimally processed diets, what would be the biggest environmental, ethical, and supply-chain challenges—and how might they be addressed responsibly?
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Transcript Preview
(drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out.
The Joe Rogan Experience.
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music)
You good? And we're on.
Awesome.
What's up, Sean? Good to see you.
Well, uh, good to be back, Joe. Thanks for-
You're still alive. You've been eating nothing but meat, and you're still alive.
(laughs) I am still alive, yeah.
Fucking doubters be gone. (laughs)
Yeah, yeah. Hey, Joe, before we get started, I just wanna say thank you for, one, for the stem cell stuff, but also for, you know, just, just having the conversations that other people are not willing to have. And, you know, we've... I've seen where they try to cancel you and all the BS, and, and, you know, you didn't have to do that. But you, you know, let other people have discussions who are not being censored, so just in case other people have... I'm sure you've been told that before, but-
Well, thank you.
Yeah.
I appreciate that. It's a, uh, it, it's a weird time, man. It's-
It really is.
It's... First of all, it's a weird time that a guy like me has a show.
(laughs)
Which is bizarre that this kind of, you know, that I'm a source of information in some sort of strange way, because that's certainly not what I set out to do. Just along the line, I, you know, I'm curious. I wanted to talk to people, you know, including you and, uh, this diet. And, you know, I tell people I, uh, I'm not strict with, uh, my carnivore diet. Like Saturday night, I had sushi, but I'll tell you, I felt like shit afterwards. (laughs) I ate a ton of it. I ate so much. I'm a glutton, but, uh, all that rice, I was like, "Oh." It just makes me realize, like how much better I feel when I only eat carnivore, when I, when I just eat mostly meat, I feel so much better. I mean, uh, maybe it's anecdotal. Maybe it's just me and you, maybe, a- and, and many other people that do it, but there's something to it. But you're an extreme example because you have been doing it now for how many years?
So, I'm starting my eighth year, so just, just, uh-
Eighth year.
Yeah. So when I came to see you last time, it was almost, it was six years ago. So I had, I had been... just finished seven years now. So yeah, it's been a while.
And people should know that you're l- you're actually a doctor. You're an orthopedic surgeon, and you didn't, didn't at one point in time they took your license away because you were providing medical information, but you got it back?
Yeah, it was kind of an interesting thing. So when I was, I was practicing medicine, busy orthopedic surgeon, you know, plugging away, doing a thing. And then I started realizing, "Hey, I can have people avoid surgery by changing their diet," and their pain went away. And I was like, "You don't need surgery." Well, that is not what hospitals want you to do. They want you to, you know, keep the, keep the, the engines turning, so to speak. And so I, you know, said, "Hey, look, I wanna practice some lifestyle stuff." And that ended up, you know, uh, leading to a long battle with myself and the hospital. The hospital basically suspended my privileges and went to the state. The state said, "Hey, you can fight this," um, y- you know, in, in our, in our sort of state medical board situation, "or you can get independently evaluated." And I said, "Well, let me just get independently evaluated 'cause I don't, I don't, I don't see eye to eye with the hospital." And so that was done. It was like right at the time when I saw you a couple days before, and they came back and said, "There's nothing wrong with you. Go back to work." And so I got that, I got that, and then I had to, you know, reapply to the board, reapply for a license. They r- r- granted my license, and I've renewed it three times since then. So I'm a licensed medical, you know, l- licensed doctor, you know? Uh, but I just... You know, right now, I'm not actually actively practicing because I got frustrated with the medical system. I think our healthcare system has some serious, serious problems, you know, some serious conflicts of interest, some serious... I think the, the incentives for providing what I think is appropriate healthcare is, is misaligned. And so, you know, over the last few years, so we set up a company. It's called Revero, and we're, we're licensed in all 50 states. We have physicians all across the country, and we're basically set up to provide what I call actual healthcare, root cause medicine, get people off the medications, actually, you know, try and fix their d- d- their disease and not just medicate everybody 'cause we have such a s- system where everybody's just like, you know, you go to the doctor, you know, "Here's your diagnosis, here's your drugs. Keep... Stay on them the rest of your life," which I think is the wrong-
Install uListen to search the full transcript and get AI-powered insights
Get Full TranscriptGet more from every podcast
AI summaries, searchable transcripts, and fact-checking. Free forever.
Add to Chrome