644. Sacred Sustenance: Better Than Vegan? Wild Meat That Heals the Body and the Land w/ Mansal Denton
The Life Stylist
Luke Storey
4.7 • 2.1K Ratings
🗓️ 6 January 2026
⏱️ 114 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This episode explores one of the most charged and misunderstood topics in modern wellness: meat, ethics, and our relationship to life and death. I’m joined by Mansal Denton, founder of Real Provisions and creator of Sacred Hunting, for a wide-ranging conversation that challenges how we think about nourishment, stewardship, and responsibility in the natural world.
We dig into the realities of animal suffering across different food systems, including wild ecosystems, regenerative farming, and industrial agriculture. Mansal shares why ethical hunting, when done with precision, reverence, and intention, can result in less suffering than many people realize—and why modern food supply chains often hide uncomfortable truths behind marketing labels.
From there, the conversation moves into Mansal’s personal spiritual journey, including how Orthodox Christianity reshaped his understanding of food as a sacred act. We explore how ritual, beauty, and embodied spirituality intersect with ancient wisdom traditions, and why honoring life requires confronting discomfort rather than avoiding it.
We also unpack the nutritional and ecological case for wild game, particularly axis deer from Hawaii, including biodiversity, nutrient density, and population balance. Mansal explains how Real Provisions was born from a desire to feed his family—and future children—with food that aligns with both ethics and physiology.
This episode isn’t about telling you what to eat. It’s about asking better questions: Where does our food come from? What does it cost—physically, spiritually, and ecologically? And how might choosing with more awareness bring us back into right relationship with the world that feeds us.
Visit realprovisions.com/luke and use code LUKE to get a free bag of Venison Chips with your order.
DISCLAIMER: This podcast is for educational purposes only and not intended for diagnosing or treating illnesses. The hosts disclaim responsibility for any adverse effects from using the information presented. Consult your healthcare provider before using referenced products. This podcast may include paid endorsements.
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MORE ABOUT THIS EPISODE:
(00:00:00) Wild Death vs Ethical Harvest: Rethinking Animal Suffering
(00:12:10) From Resistance to Reverence: Rediscovering Christianity Through Lived Experience
(00:40:39) Bad Supply Chains, Not Bad Food: Why Wild Meat Hits Different
(00:50:39) For the Good of All: Axis Deer, Ecological Balance, and Ethical Harvest
(00:56:17) Veganism, Ethics, and the Cost We Don’t See
(01:16:30) Microplastics in “Clean” Meat: Escaping the Invisible Contamination
(01:33:24) Food as Medicine for the Next Generation: Scaling Nutrition Without Compromise
Resources:
• Website: realprovisions.com
• Website: sacredhunting.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/mansaldenton
• Instagram: instagram.com/realprovisions
• Facebook: facebook.com/mansaldenton
• X: x.com/MansalDenton
• TikTok: tiktok.com/@mansaldenton
• YouTube: youtube.com/@mansal-denton
• Shop all our merch designs at lukestoreymerch.com
• Check out Gilded By Luke Storey: gildedbylukestorey.com
• Join me on Telegram: t.me/lukestorey
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Imagine how many people who are trying to do the right thing ethically by just only eating plants don't realize that the horrors of factory farming aren't limited to animal agriculture. |
| 0:11.0 | I very much respect people's mindfulness around eating meat. I don't think veganism is necessarily the way, because in many ways these animals will suffer more if we do not manage and balance the population. |
| 0:26.6 | There is a system that does create a lot of animal suffering. A lot of animals that don't get eaten by predators will die from thirst or starvation. |
| 0:39.3 | A study of 500 cows found that 69% of cows in their flesh showed very high levels of stress |
| 0:49.3 | simply from the slaughter process. |
| 0:52.3 | 67% became diabetic from stress within four hours of being taken to the slaughter. |
| 1:00.6 | I want to change the way we eat and our relationship to animals. |
| 1:08.1 | So you've been around a lot of wild animals. |
| 1:11.6 | What would you say the difference in terms of how much suffering takes place for an animal? |
| 1:19.6 | Let's just take a deer who lives its whole life in the wild and dies of natural causes |
| 1:26.6 | versus an ethical hunter taking that animal versus part three, |
| 1:33.6 | even the most cared for regenerative farm-raised animal that gets slaughtered. |
| 1:42.2 | Wow, that's a great place to start. The wild can be a beautiful |
| 1:48.0 | place and it can also be a harsh place. So an animal that is living its entire life, free and sovereign, |
| 1:57.8 | has all the benefits to be able to express itself and also has all the, you know, the benefits to be able to express itself and also has all |
| 2:03.8 | the responsibility of keeping itself healthy. And a lot of animals that don't get eaten by |
| 2:13.3 | predators will die from thirst or starvation primarily because if they get injured it is unlikely that |
| 2:25.6 | they will be able to recover and they simply won't eat and in an ancestral environment that's what a predator would eat. |
| 2:36.7 | And so there would be a balance. |
| 2:38.4 | And in some ways, there would be almost a more harmonious balance. |
| 2:44.3 | When an animal can no longer live a healthy life, then its time is up and we'll feed the predator. |
| 2:54.0 | But there are so many places in the world where the balance has been completely thrown off, |
... |
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