For some, cooking three meals a day can seem like a daunting task.
However, for Liz Page and her husband Joe, it’s now a way of life. “It’s really not an effort. You just change the ingredients. That’s all."
It looks like your regular stir-fry, but for Page, it’s only wild game that is cooked up in her kitchen. Buffalo, antelope and an assortment of venison along with all natural fruits and veggies are the only things the couple consume. “We eat this meat, lunch and dinner, every day. We don’t get tired,” Page said.
That’s because Liz says changing to only consuming wild game has changed her quality of life. “I really wondered if I was going to live or not. I hurt so badly. I could eat like three foods only,” Page said.
For years Page said she dealt with digestive problems and weight gain.
She’s seen a number of doctors who she says were never able to diagnose her until she heard a podcast of Nutritional Counselor and Integrative Practitioner, Teri Cochrane, and her Wildatarian Diet. “I had tried so many different things that I decided to try it,” Page said.
So she flew out to Northern Virginia to meet with Cochrane and conduct testing. “She had been sick for over five decades and now she is doing really, really well,” Nutritional Counselor and Integrative Practitioner, CCP, Teri Cochrane said.
Page decided to adopt the Wildatarian lifestyle, and so far, she said she is seeing benefits. “It really is amazing the rebalancing of my life."
So what exactly is this Wildatarian lifestyle?
“Wildatarian is really living a life of abundance and nourishment,” Cochrane said. “Because that’s really what we are supposed to do. Live how nature intended by consuming the food that nature intended us to consume.”
Cochrane through research with other scientist discovered that animals, even if raised in an organic setting, can develop proteins that are difficult for people to digest.
“I found that studies out of Cambridge and Japan show that it is the domesticated animals. With the crowding and the way that they’re fed that these animals are now growing amyloids in their tissue. And now we are ingesting them and it’s aggregating in our tissue,” Cochrane said.
These amyloid proteins she says can result in a number of conditions, but fostering a Wildatarian lifestyle could reverse those adverse effects.
“We’ve had tremendous success with shifting diabetes, we’ve had tremendous success with autoimmune conditions. Anything from crones and Ulcerative Colitis to Rheumatoid Arthritis to infertility. It’s about a rebalancing in the body. And I say the body is a brilliant machine. We just need to give it what it needs so it can do its brilliance,” Cochrane said.
The diet which is already, according to Page, fixing her leaky gut syndrome as well as her sulfur and gluten intolerance.
"Now this wild food I am able to process. My blood work is much better and it works for me so no I don’t miss those other things,” Page said. “I’ve seen lots of plans but they are one size fits all and this plan is individualized. And that’s what made the difference.
In her book, Cochrane outlines four different types of Wildatarians all depending on what aggravates your gut.
"Unfortunately we take in so many toxins every day that our body is less equipped to manage these larger proteins and I really believe that's why the "heal and seal". If you can “heal and seal” your gut you can pretty much eat anything over time, but we have to get back to that because we have gotten so far away from that,” Cochrane said.
Becoming Wildatarian doesn’t mean you can just run to your nearest grocer, like many diets it comes with a cost.
Example being Page, hunting her own wild game is not on her list of activities.
“What’s the price of health. We prioritize. That’s what we prioritize. Good health…but you have to make a choice. Do you want to be healthy, strong,” Page said. “Or do you choose to hurt and spend your time for medical reasons.”
Every six weeks she and her husband make a trip out to Broken Arrow Ranch in Ingram, Texas.
Co-Owner, Maeve Hughes, says this Wildatarian lifestyle makes sense.
"For thousands of years. It's essentially like people hunting thousands of years ago and bringing the meat back to their table,” Broken Arrow Ranch, co-owner, Maeva Hughes said. "Yes, I think this is some of the most natural meat you can eat.”
“I’m hopeful that this Wildatarianism really becomes a movement because…I really believe this is going to be the next generation of sustainable eating,” Cochrane said.
For the Pages despite the slight pinch in their pockets, they’ll keep living this Wildatarian lifestyle as long as Liz she keeps feeling this great.
“I was thinking today, I’m 75 he’s 87 and you’re never too old to change your lifestyle,” Page said. “But you see when it’s right. This is the way that meat and vegetables were created. God had a plan for us and I’m eating his plan and it works."