In this episode of Beyond the Adjustment, Dr. Scott sits down with Dr. Ken Berry to discuss how nutrition, lifestyle, and modern food processing impact long-term health. Dr. Berry shares his personal turning point, how his clinical perspective evolved, and why simple changes can make a major difference for individuals and families.
Check out Dr. Berry’s Youtube for more information and find his website here: https://www.drberry.com/
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Dr. Scott: Today I want to welcome Dr. Ken Berry to the Beyond the Adjustment podcast. Dr. Berry, welcome. I got your information through Amanda Decker, and I believe you work with her through the ClearPath medical facility here in Dickson.
The purpose of this podcast is to bring our community together around health and wellness in every aspect. To start, I’d love to hear your origin story—how you got on this path.
Dr. Ken Berry: I’m a family doctor and have been practicing for almost 23 years. I’m board-certified and licensed, and I’ve practiced in Middle Tennessee my entire career. I also spent about 10 years working in emergency departments in different communities.
I started looking seriously at nutrition because I became severely obese and pre-diabetic. And in Tennessee, people are practical—so you can’t walk into an exam room, clearly unhealthy, and lecture someone about losing weight. That doesn’t go over well, and it didn’t sit right with me either. I knew I had to fix it.
At first, I tried following the American Diabetes Association diet strictly and exercised consistently. After three months, my A1C was worse—and I gained three pounds. That’s when I thought, “Unless I’m some rare exception, maybe the standard advice isn’t exactly right.”
So I went down the nutrition “rabbit hole” and started reading everything I could—mainstream nutrition literature and also material outside the mainstream—trying to understand why I couldn’t lose weight while following conventional guidance.
Dr. Scott: Got it. That’s one difference between our professions. In chiropractic, we don’t spend time on drugs or surgery, so nutrition becomes a bigger part of what we discuss. But I laughed when you said “rabbit hole,” because nutrition can absolutely feel like one. It’s easy to chase the latest thing and get pulled into tangents.
But really, it comes down to basics: the human body needs certain essential nutrients, and there’s a lot we put into our diets that we simply don’t need.
Dr. Ken Berry: Exactly. I like to use the analogy of animals—like cows. There’s a proper cow diet, a proper coyote diet, and I think there’s a proper human diet. Every other animal seems to know what to eat, when to eat, how much to eat, and when to stop. Somehow, humans—despite being the “smartest” species—act like we have no idea.
At first, I was focused on supplements, new nutrition research, and the latest technology. But the more I read and thought about it, the more I realized I should look to the distant past—how humans ate over the thousands of years we’ve been on this planet. That probably matters.
You can ask a child what cows eat, and they answer instantly: grass. Cows don’t take nutrition classes. They don’t search for supplements online. Animals just eat what they’re designed to eat.
And if animals are deficient in something, they often seem to instinctively seek what they need. I think the same principles apply to human beings.
Dr. Scott: That makes sense. But the downside today is how processed everything has become. One of the biggest shifts I’ve seen in nutrition over the last few decades is how food started being engineered for cravings.
For example: the tobacco industry manipulated nicotine to increase addiction. And then many of those same skills and strategies showed up in food manufacturing.
Dr. Ken Berry: Yes. There’s research around what’s sometimes called the “bliss point,” where companies engineer the perfect combination of sugar, fat, salt, and texture to make foods hard to stop eating. That’s a big contributor to the obesity epidemic—especially in America, and especially in Tennessee.
The further you get away from ultra-processed food made by giant corporations, the better your health tends to be.
I personally follow a carnivore diet, but I also believe that if someone switched from a standard processed diet to a whole-food vegan diet, they’d likely see improvements for at least some period of time. The core issue is getting away from ultra-processed food.
People need to stop assuming big corporations have their best interests at heart. Their job is to sell more product—often by making it highly addictive.
Dr. Scott: Right—and people don’t always realize they’re up against that. I remember hearing an example where researchers compared responses to certain processed foods and saw intense reward pathway activation in the brain.
And what I see clinically is that many people do know, intuitively, they should “eat cleaner.” You hear this a lot from patients who travel overseas: “I ate bread, I ate dessert, and my gut felt fine.” Most people can’t travel like that, but I hear the story over and over.
I think the average person is just trying to live their life—work, family, responsibilities—and they assume, “If it’s on the shelf at the store, how bad can it be?”
Dr. Ken Berry: Exactly. Many people don’t think seriously about food until they have a health scare. For me, it happened when I stepped on the scale and saw 297 pounds. I was wearing scrubs with a drawstring and didn’t realize how bad it had gotten.
For others, it’s chest pain, joint pain, digestive issues, mental health struggles—something that forces them to ask, “Could my diet be part of this?”
I also feel for children whose parents are doing the best they can with limited budgets. Ultra-processed foods are cheap and heavily marketed. It’s easy to assume they’re safe.
But the truth is: what you eat matters, and it matters even more for kids who are building healthy brains and bodies.
Dr. Scott: I agree. And a lot of people blame genetics—but what gets passed down, just as often, is habit. Lifestyle patterns can shape outcomes dramatically.
I remember examples showing how quickly poor food choices can damage health—and how long it can take to reverse.
Dr. Ken Berry: That’s why we need more honesty in health care. We can support people without misleading them. We need to tell the truth clearly and compassionately.
Dr. Scott: When you made this shift, how did it change your medical practice? Because often, when doctors go outside what’s considered “standard,” they can get pushback.
Dr. Ken Berry: At first, I wasn’t recommending any of this to patients. I was doing it for myself. But when it started working, patients noticed. They’d come in and say, “Doc, you look great—what are you doing?”
I started telling them I was eating low-carb, then keto, and eventually carnivore. Some of my most severe type 2 diabetics and people with severe obesity asked to try it. I’d say, “Try it for 90 days and let’s recheck labs.”
They came back with significant weight loss and major improvements in blood sugar. As a provider, you watch for feedback—if you recommend something and nobody improves, that tells you something. But if people come back saying, “This works—can I keep doing this?” that gets your attention.
There was no “secret sauce.” It was simply reducing carbs and cutting out ultra-processed junk. It became popular quickly, and people started traveling in from other counties and even other states.
Dr. Scott: That ties into why I do this podcast. Health is like a jigsaw puzzle—there are many pieces. Chiropractic care is one piece, medicine is one piece, exercise is one piece, diet is a major piece. People need coordination and balance across the whole picture.
Dr. Ken Berry: For most people, diet is the majority of the battle. And culturally, we’re trained to believe that if you have a problem, you need to buy something to fix it.
But often, with chronic issues, the solution isn’t adding another product—it’s removing the things that are harming you: ultra-processed foods, sugar, and other problem ingredients. Then you give your body time to heal. It took years to become unhealthy, so it can take months—or longer—to fully recover.
Dr. Scott: I’m encouraged, though. Over the last few years, I’ve seen more medical professionals start to address lifestyle causes rather than only managing symptoms.
Dr. Ken Berry: When I started recommending dietary changes about 10 years ago, it was unpopular with colleagues—and I even had visits from the medical board because of complaints about my recommendations. That wasn’t pleasant.
But I’m not here just to maximize profit. I’m here to improve people’s health as simply, naturally, and affordably as possible. Patients respond well to that message, even if certain industries don’t.
Now, I’m seeing a growing wave of health professionals reaching out—medical students, residents, practicing physicians, pharmacists, nurses, physical therapists—saying, “I’ve seen this work, and I want to help my patients.” Some feel they have to be careful in certain systems, but they still want to get people the information.
Dr. Scott: That’s powerful. And it’s also full-circle. Chiropractic was once treated the same way—people went to jail for helping others get better. Being punished for improving health is absurd.
Dr. Ken Berry: At the time, it felt like the end of the world. Looking back, I’m grateful—it helped prove my intentions. I’m here to help people live better.
Dr. Scott: I appreciate your time. I’d love to do this again sometime—this message aligns with how I’ve always approached care: “natural first,” while still being realistic about emergencies and crisis situations.
Dr. Ken Berry: I’d love that. I’m not going to stop fighting for better health—here in Tennessee, in America, and everywhere.
Dr. Scott: Same here. I’ve been at it 34 years already.
Dr. Ken Berry: Absolutely. Thank you for having me on.
Dr. Scott: You’ve been listening to Beyond the Adjustment, where we have conversations with other health-minded professionals to create a healthier community.