What a Functional Medicine Practitioner Actually Feeds Her Family

By Dr. Jami West, DC, Functional Medicine Practitioner & Homeopath

Patients ask me this question more than almost any other: "What do you actually eat?"

It's a fair question. There's a lot of noise in the nutrition space — conflicting studies, marketing claims dressed up as science, and an endless cycle of superfoods and dietary villains. People are exhausted by it, and they want to know what someone who has spent years studying functional medicine and human physiology actually puts on her own table.

So here's the honest answer.

We Eat Real Food. Mostly Animals.

I am not a dogmatic person when it comes to diet. I've seen too many patients to believe that one template works for everyone. But there are principles I hold firmly, and the most foundational one is this: the quality of the animal products you consume matters more than almost any other dietary variable.

This is not a popular position in some circles. But the evidence — and my clinical experience — consistently points to the same conclusion: nutrient-dense, properly raised animal protein is one of the most powerful tools we have for supporting gut health, hormonal balance, neurological function, and metabolic resilience.

The operative word is properly raised.

Why I Don't Buy Beef at the Grocery Store

I want to be careful here, because I'm not trying to shame anyone's food budget or access. I understand that not everyone has the same options. But I want to explain my reasoning, because I think it matters.

When I look at a package of conventional ground beef at the grocery store, I see a product that may have come from cattle that were fed a diet of corn, soy, and distillers' grains — none of which a cow's digestive system evolved to process efficiently. I see animals that likely received growth hormones to accelerate their time to market. I see animals that were probably given prophylactic antibiotics to survive the stress of feedlot conditions. And I see a product that was likely mixed from dozens of animals across multiple processing facilities.

From a functional medicine standpoint, that product is nutritionally inferior and potentially carrying inputs — hormonal residues, antibiotic residues, inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids — that actively work against the health outcomes I'm trying to support in my patients.

So I don't buy it. And I don't feed it to my children.

What We Raise Instead

Dax and I started Lone Star Pastures in 2019 with a simple conviction: if we're going to eat meat, we're going to know exactly where it came from and how it was raised.

We chose Scottish Highland cattle because they are built for pasture. They are one of the oldest breeds in the world — hardy, resilient, and thriving on diverse forage without pharmaceutical support. Our Highlands are 100% grass-fed and grass-finished on open Texas pasture. They receive no hormones, no vaccines, no antibiotics, and no pesticides. Ever. Their supplemental feed — used only when pasture is limited — is organic, non-GMO, soy-free, and corn-free.

We also raise pastured heirloom pork, chickens, and ducks. Same philosophy across the board: the animals live the way they were designed to live, eat what they were designed to eat, and are never given what they were never meant to receive.

What This Means on Our Plate

On a typical week, our family eats:

Beef — ground beef in some form almost every day. It is the most nutrient-dense, bioavailable, and versatile protein I know. Rich in zinc, iron, B12, and creatine. Our Highland ground beef is leaner than conventional beef but deeply flavorful because of the quality of the fat.

Organ meats — liver at least once a week. I know this isn't everyone's first choice, but from a functional medicine perspective, liver is the most nutrient-dense food on the planet. It is nature's multivitamin. We mix it into ground beef to make it more palatable for the kids.

Eggs — daily, from our own pastured chickens. The yolks are deep orange, which tells you something about the quality of the diet those hens are eating.

Pork — our heirloom pigs are raised on pasture and supplemented with the same clean feed as our cattle. Pastured pork fat is a meaningful source of vitamin D — something most Americans are chronically deficient in.

The Gut Terrain Perspective

Everything I just described comes back to one concept: terrain.

In functional medicine and homeopathy, we talk about the terrain of the body — the internal environment that either supports health or allows disease to gain a foothold. A resilient terrain is built on nutrient density, microbial diversity, low inflammatory load, and minimal toxic burden.

The food you eat is the most direct input into your terrain. And the quality of that food is determined, in large part, by the terrain it came from — the soil, the pasture, the water, the air, and the life of the animal that became your food.

When you eat our beef, you're eating the product of living soil, diverse pasture grasses, clean Texas air, and animals that were never stressed by overcrowding or compromised by chemicals. That is what I feed my family. And it's what I'm honored to offer yours.

Dr. Jami West is a Doctor of Chiropractic, functional medicine practitioner, and homeopath. She and her husband Dax raise Scottish Highland cattle, pastured pork, chickens, and ducks at Lone Star Pastures in Whitesboro, Texas.