Is Booking Holdings a Holding Company? | 2min snip from Value Investing with Legends

Speaker 2
So a couple more specifics I want to ask you about where there's a lot of confusion and debate, dietary cholesterol and saturated fats. So, and these are two separate issues, but these have often been connected with cholesterol levels and ultimately heart disease. And I know a lot of the vegan docs are still very opposed to consumption of dietary cholesterol, egg yolks and red meat and saturated fat from animal foods, and so on, and really still kind of preach that these things are contributors to heart disease, whereas we have, you know, kind of a lot of the people in the low carb and the keto movements, and those spaces saying, oh, you know, all that stuff is nonsense, it's already been debunked, and, you know, none of it's true. And none of that's, you know, butter is a superfood and just makes you healthier and doesn't contribute to heart disease in any way. So what's what's what's going on there? What's your take on that whole thing? Well,
Speaker 1
you know, listen, I think, you know, once again, what's worked for millions of years will work for us now. And, you know, people talk about being plant based. Well, I'm plant based, too. I've got a I've got a paleo pyramid. And on my paleo pyramid in my book, the foundation is vegetables, I eat vegetables in, you know, with for breakfast, I do greens drinks every morning. So as my wife, so to my two boys, I do an organic beetroot powder every day. And beetroot is a natural nitrate, which just turns into nitric oxide and opens up blood vessels. And I have vegetables for my lunch and vegetables with my dinner and love vegetables. But the reality is we do need to eat some certainly seafood and certainly some free range grass fed meats would be appropriate for any diet. I think the problem once again is sugar. I think the problem is all the heavy carbs. And I've got, you know, thousands of patients to prove it. And I do the most advanced lab testing in the world. And we get people on appropriate paleo nutrition. And if you want to call it paleo or primal, it's kind of, you know, some of it is similar to keto. You know, when you eat the diet of our ancestors, you will do very well. There's no way. How could a coconut be unhealthy? I mean, it makes no sense. A coconut has so much nutrition. An avocado is loaded with fat. How can that be unhealthy? Olives. Everybody knows olives are healthy. The Mediterranean people, the Mediterranean diet is the most proven out of any of them. And it's loaded with olives and olive oil, yet you have people that continue to profess this low-fat starvation diet. And the world is full of recovering vegans. It's just not appropriate. Now, Ari, listen, I donate a lot of money. My wife and I donate a lot of money to animal charities, animal rescues. I got my dog right here next to me, my rescue lab mix. We love animals, but if we're having a conversation about the ultimate way to health, about our appropriate ancestral diet, it is by eating the foods that our ancestors did. And those are paleo foods. But listen, there's American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2010, another review in 2014. These are reviews with hundreds of thousands of patients that say it has nothing to do, heart disease has nothing to do with saturated fat. Breast milk is loaded with saturated fat. Are we trying to kill babies? If it's good for a baby, why isn't it good for me? I'm not advocating adults drink breast milk, but I'm talking about saturated fat. So I don't see in any way, shape, or form how fish, seafood, free-range grass-fed meats are the problem. I think the problem are all the processed carbs and all the sugars. And I think a lot of vegan people agree with that as well. But if you look at, like, the Engine No. 2 and the Firefighter and Caldwell Esselstyn and stuff like that, I mean, they're just putting together packaged crap full of artificial ingredients and synthetic processed foods. And it's just not healthy. And once again, I got the patients to prove it. Yeah,
Speaker 2
100%. I think for the people with integrity, everybody's pretty much in agreement that processed stuff is, is, is problematic and we need to move towards whole foods. And then there's some debate about, you know, what kinds of whole foods to include or not include. Um, what's, what's your take on processed fats? And, you know, I mean, there's a lot of people in the keto movement now who are consuming large amounts of, of refined fats and oils. And, mean, in quite large doses that would be, that are not typical of any like known hunter gatherer tribe that has been studied. I mean, just as an example, if some of these keto people are advocating diets that are 70 or 80% fat, and as far as the macronutrient ratio, there isn't the population on earth that eats anywhere close to that, even the Inuit don't even eat, you know, they're maxing out at 50% fat. So I'm curious what your take is on kind of the keto movement as well.
Speaker 1
Yeah, I would agree with you. I think that there's some interesting benefits, you know, to keto, but I think you can achieve those same benefits if you follow paleo. And just as much as high carb is not the answer, that extreme high fat is not the answer either. I think it's a sexy idea. I think it may be okay for, once again, a cleanse or a detox. But yeah, spooning in processed fats, unnatural fats, I don't believe that's the answer. Listen, when I was a cardiology fellow in 2000, I heard the debate between Dean Ornish, a low-fat guy, and Robert Atkins, a low-carb guy. And Atkins did have a lot of that in him as well, you know, as far as, you know, spooning in, you know, soybean oil. And he had no idea as far as organic and quality and all those things. So I think that, you know, once again, if you fill yourself up full of vegetables, eat some wild seafood, eat the free-range grass-fed meats, you know, find what works for you perfectly. I think that's the best way, you know, to do it. And finally, you know, what I talk about in my book is that no matter what diet you follow, make it organic. So even if you get off, you know, this podcast and you're like, wow, Ari and Jack, we're just talking about ice cream, fine, go get organic free range grass fed Strauss's ice cream, go if you're, you know, chocolates, your thing, go eat organic chocolate. If you drink coffee, go drink organic coffee, all these things, you get everything you love, but none of the chemicals. And I think that makes a big difference, you know, but when I was speaking at paleo effects, you know, a couple years ago, and I'm talking to some of these people are listening with these other lectures, and they're just like, you know, food quality doesn't matter. It's just, you know, yeah, you can go to, you know, Sizzler, and have a and have a steak, or you can have, you know, Burger King, you know, double Whopper hold the bun. And I'm, you know, that's just, I'm not even anywhere near that. I'm we're all about organic. I'm always organic. I'm always gluten-free. I'm always soy-free. I think that's a pretty good lesson. You know, some of these vegan people that are cool with eating wheat and stuff like that. I do leaky gut panels on people every single day. I find gluten sensitivity in two thirds of my people. I find leaky gut. I find, you know, vegan people with leaky gut, with inflammation, and obviously no levels of omega DHA, and it's a problem. Yeah.

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