A detail not mentioned here was that (if I remember correctly) they initially ate an all-muscle-meat diet and had real problems; it was only after they included a lot of organ meat (imitating the Inuit) that things stabilized. I think eating liver can get you enough Vitamin C, for example.
To be more specific, the doctors wanted Stefansson to start with an all-lean diet. Stefansson had already lived for much of 10 years on a meat diet and had a better idea of what to eat. Quoting the original medical publication at http://www.jbc.org/content/87/3/651.full.pdf :
> At our request he began eating lean meat only, although he had previously noted, in the North, that very lean meat produced digestive disturbances. On the 3rd day nausea and diarrhea developed. When fat was added to the diet, a full recovery was made in 2 days.
Concerning the meat,
> The meat used included beef, lamb, veal, pork, and chicken. The parts used were muscle, liver, kidney, brain, bone marrow, bacon, and fat. While on lecture trips V. S. occasionally ate a few eggs and a little butter when meat, was not readily available. The carbohydrate content of the diet was very small, consisting solely of the glycogen of the meat. The men, except during short periods of special observation, ate as much as they wanted and proportioned the lean meat to the fat as they desired. T. S., in 31 days of special diet in the ward in which he was free from digestive disturbances, took an average of 0.81 kilos of meat per day while K. A. for 110 days averaged 0.70 kilos per day.
Inuits, and possibly others, also consumed predigested vegetation in animal stomachs (1)
Also, worth noting that a meat-heavy diet can also kill you from lack of fat. This is known as protein poisoning. This obviously depends on what your source of meat is.
Yowza. My wife has a PhD in nutrition and teaches a "culture in foods" course at university. It's about how various cultures around the world and throughout history had all their nutritional needs met from their various diets.
An explorer might last a little while on an all-meat diet but you'd be missing out on a lot of essential vitamins and minerals. The Inuit for example, only avoid scurvy by getting their vitamin C from raw fish. (Cooking it destroys the little it contains.)
There's a modern movement of people adopting an all-carnivore diet [1][2], who report it to be effective at overcoming conditions like autoimmune illness, depression and other chronic illnesses that defied other forms of treatment.
The theory is that for highly sensitive individuals, any carb/fiber/allergenic content in food causes inflammation and dysbiosis, which leads to these chronic conditions.
They believe that by removing all these food components, even if the diet has low levels of essential nutrients like Vitamin C, they are absorbed and utilised better than in a regular diet, due to the reduced inflammatory activity.
I haven't tried it and won't be doing it myself, but I have been through episodes in my life where I was afflicted by these kinds of chronic "mystery" illnesses that didn't seem to respond to any kind of treatment, and I can understand the kind of pain and exasperation that would lead people to try this.
Plain old cow muscle meat contains at least enough in 1lb to prevent scurvy (10mg). Vitamin C competes for glucose transport, so less glucose means less need for vitamin C.
What other vitamins and minerals can’t be found in animal
products? So far as I know, pretty much 0.
The vegans on the other hand... no B12, limited K2 (except fermented stuff), limited vitamin A, limited EPA/DHA/DPA/CLA, limited vitamin D (mushrooms maybe have some D2?). I’m being generous with “limited” here.
I've been on an all meat diet for ~3 months. I've lost ~20 pounds (I was 30-40 pounds over what I consider my ideal weight) and feel great.
Oddly, no scurvy or other health issues. I do not supplement apart from salt and other seasonings. Probably 50% of my calories are from grass fed beef, combined with other high quality meats, eggs and a little diary.
There are people who get good results from only beef. And there are people who have done this for many years without adverse health effects.
There is a ton of conventional wisdom / "science" that says we can't thrive on an all meat diet. Anecdotally, there are a ton of people who do.
In all seriousness: as a non-expert who has read a few popular books that make contradictory claims, “nutrition” seems to be a field of non-knowledge, with about the same scientific credibility as social studies. So what does it mean to have a PhD in nutrition—-are there experts with a track record of scientific rigor whose claims have withstood close scrutiny?
The information you gave seems to contradict information from elsewhere.
You write "An explorer might last a little while on an all-meat diet".
As the Maclean's article points out, "The Arctic explorer Stefansson and a former Arctic confrère, Andersen, went on an exclusive meat diet for a year".
I think of "little bit", for a diet, as being somewhat less than one year. How long do you mean by it?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilhjalmur_Stefansson#Advocacy... further points out "In the end, the one-year project stretched to four years, during which time the two men ate only the meat they could kill and the fish they could catch in the Canadian Arctic. Neither of the two men suffered any adverse after-effects from their four-year experiment."
Surely four years is enough to show that one can last a long time on an all-meat diet, yes?
You write "The Inuit for example, only avoid scurvy by getting their vitamin C from raw fish."
The Wikipedia article on Inuit cuisine, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuit_cuisine , says instead, "Vitamin C is obtained through sources such as caribou liver, kelp, whale skin, and seal brain; because these foods are typically eaten raw or frozen, the vitamin C they contain, which would be destroyed by cooking, is instead preserved."
Note that while those meats are raw, they are not fish. The Wikipedia page cites http://discovermagazine.com/2004/oct/inuit-paradox (which in turn cites the same Stefansson described in the Maclean's article) wherein we can read:
> Native foods easily supply those 10 milligrams of scurvy prevention, especially when organ meats—preferably raw—are on the menu. For a study published with Kuhnlein in 2002, Fediuk compared the vitamin C content of 100-gram (3.55-ounce) samples of foods eaten by Inuit women living in the Canadian Arctic: Raw caribou liver supplied almost 24 milligrams, seal brain close to 15 milligrams, and raw kelp more than 28 milligrams. Still higher levels were found in whale skin and muktuk.
This makes it seem that the Inuit were not "only" dependent on fish, but also had non-fish sources for dietary vitamin C.
The underlying scientific article is at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S088915750... . It lists raw fish eggs, raw whale, caribou liver, ringed seal liver, and blueberries as the most notable sources of vitamin C in traditional foods.
Something I've read multiple times throughout the years being somewhat curious about nutrition and diets is that the Inuit's would often eat their meat raw.
When eaten raw, there can actually be significant carbohydrates present. The mitochondria for instance contain glucose in-flight that apparently gets destroyed by the cooking process.
At least that's what I've read. It seems plausible to me that one could get all the nutrition they need eating copious amounts of raw animal flesh, drinking the blood, eating the liver, everything.
I’m curious how other mammals, which are essentially purely carnivorous, get their vitamins and minerals. Presumably they’re similar enough to us that they’d require similar amounts?
All humans are unique in their own way- thus what might be working on some humans it might have a different effect in some others. As an example: My wife has horrible migraines almost every other week. She has followed so many different diets that worked for some others but didn’t even improve her migraines at all. Simply put, be mindful about what you read and what you put in your body.
>The "classic" ketogenic diet is a special high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet that helps to control seizures in some people with epilepsy. Doctors usually recommend the ketogenic diet for children whose seizures have not responded to several different seizure medicines.
You're saying she already tried a ketogenic diet for a few months and it didn't help?
Sleep depravation releases a stress hormone that can also cause migraines. Check if they correlate to times she has missed on usual sleep and just taken a nap to restore it ( frequent culprit).
I pretty much only eat meat and bread. I’ve only eaten vegetables a handful of times in my life, usually because my parents were forcing me when I was young. It’s not so much a conscious choice as just who I am, I personally find vegetables pretty gross.
Though it’s not really about vegetables either I think I just have some weird food phobias: I don’t like my food to touch, I only eat ‘plain’ things, I need my food to be homogenous (like smooth salsa vs chunky salsa).
All of them?! Gee, there's such a wide range. Even, say, potatoes can be cooked so many entirely different ways - steamed/boiled, baked, chips etc. I guess you can say that because you've never tried almost all of them. Your parents 'forced' you only 'a handful of times' to eat vegetables? I can't begin to fathom how someone could have a child and virtually never give them any vegetables of any kind to eat...
What if your dislike for vegetables is actually not abnormal, and that it is society's love for vegetables that is atypical of nature? What if humans are facultative carnivores? https://facultativecarnivore.com
For some perspective, contrast this to the current fashionable trend of recommending plant-based diets where people unwittingly use nutrition epidemiology studies to validate their beliefs: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19100718
[+] [-] glangdale|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eesmith|7 years ago|reply
> At our request he began eating lean meat only, although he had previously noted, in the North, that very lean meat produced digestive disturbances. On the 3rd day nausea and diarrhea developed. When fat was added to the diet, a full recovery was made in 2 days.
Concerning the meat,
> The meat used included beef, lamb, veal, pork, and chicken. The parts used were muscle, liver, kidney, brain, bone marrow, bacon, and fat. While on lecture trips V. S. occasionally ate a few eggs and a little butter when meat, was not readily available. The carbohydrate content of the diet was very small, consisting solely of the glycogen of the meat. The men, except during short periods of special observation, ate as much as they wanted and proportioned the lean meat to the fat as they desired. T. S., in 31 days of special diet in the ward in which he was free from digestive disturbances, took an average of 0.81 kilos of meat per day while K. A. for 110 days averaged 0.70 kilos per day.
[+] [-] latch|7 years ago|reply
Also, worth noting that a meat-heavy diet can also kill you from lack of fat. This is known as protein poisoning. This obviously depends on what your source of meat is.
(1) https://www2.dmu.dk/1_viden/2_publikationer/3_fagrapporter/r...
[+] [-] saagarjha|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] teach|7 years ago|reply
An explorer might last a little while on an all-meat diet but you'd be missing out on a lot of essential vitamins and minerals. The Inuit for example, only avoid scurvy by getting their vitamin C from raw fish. (Cooking it destroys the little it contains.)
Interesting article, though!
[+] [-] _ywdj|7 years ago|reply
The theory is that for highly sensitive individuals, any carb/fiber/allergenic content in food causes inflammation and dysbiosis, which leads to these chronic conditions.
They believe that by removing all these food components, even if the diet has low levels of essential nutrients like Vitamin C, they are absorbed and utilised better than in a regular diet, due to the reduced inflammatory activity.
I haven't tried it and won't be doing it myself, but I have been through episodes in my life where I was afflicted by these kinds of chronic "mystery" illnesses that didn't seem to respond to any kind of treatment, and I can understand the kind of pain and exasperation that would lead people to try this.
[1] https://hvmn.com/podcast/meat-heals-the-autoimmune-disease-c...
[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/zerocarb/comments/8f0o1w/my_experie...
[+] [-] virtuallynathan|7 years ago|reply
What other vitamins and minerals can’t be found in animal products? So far as I know, pretty much 0.
The vegans on the other hand... no B12, limited K2 (except fermented stuff), limited vitamin A, limited EPA/DHA/DPA/CLA, limited vitamin D (mushrooms maybe have some D2?). I’m being generous with “limited” here.
[+] [-] ywnner_0001|7 years ago|reply
Oddly, no scurvy or other health issues. I do not supplement apart from salt and other seasonings. Probably 50% of my calories are from grass fed beef, combined with other high quality meats, eggs and a little diary.
There are people who get good results from only beef. And there are people who have done this for many years without adverse health effects.
There is a ton of conventional wisdom / "science" that says we can't thrive on an all meat diet. Anecdotally, there are a ton of people who do.
My health cares not for your wife's education.
[+] [-] abtinf|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eesmith|7 years ago|reply
You write "An explorer might last a little while on an all-meat diet".
As the Maclean's article points out, "The Arctic explorer Stefansson and a former Arctic confrère, Andersen, went on an exclusive meat diet for a year".
I think of "little bit", for a diet, as being somewhat less than one year. How long do you mean by it?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilhjalmur_Stefansson#Advocacy... further points out "In the end, the one-year project stretched to four years, during which time the two men ate only the meat they could kill and the fish they could catch in the Canadian Arctic. Neither of the two men suffered any adverse after-effects from their four-year experiment."
Surely four years is enough to show that one can last a long time on an all-meat diet, yes?
You write "The Inuit for example, only avoid scurvy by getting their vitamin C from raw fish."
The Wikipedia article on Inuit cuisine, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuit_cuisine , says instead, "Vitamin C is obtained through sources such as caribou liver, kelp, whale skin, and seal brain; because these foods are typically eaten raw or frozen, the vitamin C they contain, which would be destroyed by cooking, is instead preserved."
Note that while those meats are raw, they are not fish. The Wikipedia page cites http://discovermagazine.com/2004/oct/inuit-paradox (which in turn cites the same Stefansson described in the Maclean's article) wherein we can read:
> Native foods easily supply those 10 milligrams of scurvy prevention, especially when organ meats—preferably raw—are on the menu. For a study published with Kuhnlein in 2002, Fediuk compared the vitamin C content of 100-gram (3.55-ounce) samples of foods eaten by Inuit women living in the Canadian Arctic: Raw caribou liver supplied almost 24 milligrams, seal brain close to 15 milligrams, and raw kelp more than 28 milligrams. Still higher levels were found in whale skin and muktuk.
This makes it seem that the Inuit were not "only" dependent on fish, but also had non-fish sources for dietary vitamin C.
The underlying scientific article is at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S088915750... . It lists raw fish eggs, raw whale, caribou liver, ringed seal liver, and blueberries as the most notable sources of vitamin C in traditional foods.
[+] [-] tomp|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davesailer|7 years ago|reply
Vilhjalmur Stefansson's book, "THE FAT OF THE LAND": https://web.archive.org/web/20180802084820/http://highsteaks...
Vilhjalmur Stefansson's coverage of the same topics from Harper's Monthly Magazine, November 1935:
- Part 1: https://web.archive.org/web/20180109155358/http://www.biblel...
- Part 2: https://web.archive.org/web/20180104021843/http://www.biblel...
- Part 3: https://web.archive.org/web/20171206075942/http://www.biblel...
The Harper's Magazine articles cover the same ground as the book but are better written in my opinion.
Also note: I am not associated with any web site.
[+] [-] newnewpdro|7 years ago|reply
When eaten raw, there can actually be significant carbohydrates present. The mitochondria for instance contain glucose in-flight that apparently gets destroyed by the cooking process.
At least that's what I've read. It seems plausible to me that one could get all the nutrition they need eating copious amounts of raw animal flesh, drinking the blood, eating the liver, everything.
[+] [-] 6nf|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] saagarjha|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yostrovs|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dilap|7 years ago|reply
http://highsteaks.com/carnivores-creed/owsley-the-bear-stanl...
Stayed healthy till his death in a car crash at 76.
A fun story here:
https://dangerousminds.net/comments/uncle_johns_ham_the_grat...
[+] [-] slics|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fouc|7 years ago|reply
You're saying she already tried a ketogenic diet for a few months and it didn't help?
[+] [-] dzink|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] b_tterc_p|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] onnnon|7 years ago|reply
http://www.diagnosisdiet.com/food/meats/
[+] [-] gammateam|7 years ago|reply
100 years and nothing has changed
[+] [-] mruts|7 years ago|reply
Though it’s not really about vegetables either I think I just have some weird food phobias: I don’t like my food to touch, I only eat ‘plain’ things, I need my food to be homogenous (like smooth salsa vs chunky salsa).
[+] [-] yesenadam|7 years ago|reply
All of them?! Gee, there's such a wide range. Even, say, potatoes can be cooked so many entirely different ways - steamed/boiled, baked, chips etc. I guess you can say that because you've never tried almost all of them. Your parents 'forced' you only 'a handful of times' to eat vegetables? I can't begin to fathom how someone could have a child and virtually never give them any vegetables of any kind to eat...
[+] [-] jchanimal|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sridca|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sridca|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Proven|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] openloop|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jstewartmobile|7 years ago|reply
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/7/24/17606958/me...