The carnivore diet is a thing, it’s probably closer to historical diets of Hunter gatherers.
Having done a couple of stints of meat + veggies only for 8-12 months I can definitely say you feel wired. I highly recommend, though it takes a couple weeks to break any carbs. I prefer it personally, but alas with multiple children and constant gatherings it’s hard to keep it up perfectly.
Real trick is snacks. I would make burgers and / or bacon and store it for a week or eat jerky. Worked well enough if I got hungry. After the first week or two your body adjusts to the protein & fat based meals and you no longer snack as much. At least not for me.
> The carnivore diet is a thing, it’s probably closer to historical diets of Hunter gatherers.
What?
> The real Paleolithic diet, though, wasn't all meat and marrow. It's true that hunter-gatherers around the world crave meat more than any other food and usually get around 30 percent of their annual calories from animals.
> So how do hunter-gatherers get energy when there’s no meat? It turns out that “man the hunter” is backed up by “woman the forager,” who, with some help from children, provides more calories during difficult times. When meat, fruit, or honey is scarce, foragers depend on “fallback foods,” says Brooks. The Hadza get almost 70 percent of their calories from plants. The Kung traditionally rely on tubers and mongongo nuts, the Aka and Baka Pygmies of the Congo River Basin on yams, the Tsimane and Yanomami Indians of the Amazon on plantains and manioc, the Australian Aboriginals on nut grass and water chestnuts.
> it’s probably closer to historical diets of Hunter gatherers.
My understanding is that this is not true, or at least extremely unlikely. The majority of hunter-gatherer societies seemed to have subsisted mostly on plants, with meat being a minority of their calories, possibly more of a special-occasion food.
Here's a sample source:
> The real Paleolithic diet, though, wasn’t all meat and marrow. It’s true that hunter-gatherers around the world crave meat more than any other food and usually get around 30 percent of their annual calories from animals.
> it’s probably closer to historical diets of Hunter gatherers.
One thing I’ve noticed about hunter gatherer societies today, at least from various films and documentaries, is that they tend to be smaller both in height and mass than say, the westerners documenting them. That being said they seem to have significantly more stamina and incredible physical skill (watching a guy stand on the edge of a cliff and hurl sticks to knock flying bats out of the air was mindbending)
I would guess they eat a higher percentage of meat, but probably less in total.
The middle paragraph should be required reading in bright bold letters in any keto/paleo website.
- Do not attempt if you have children
- Do not attempt if you dont control what goes in the fridge.
- Do not attempt if you cant deflect peer pressure.
tldr: Homo habilis ate some meat, and Homo erectus was more of an omnivore, eating tougher-to-chew/digest foods...and even later, started to cook foods...both meat and plant-based.
The "paleo" diet is what happens when a bunch of jocks get high, watch the Flintstones and decide to base a diet off what they saw.
Followed a vegan diet and felt great in the beginning as most people do. I made sure to do everything as recommended by vegan doctors. Slowly but surely various health problems started to show, including bad teeths. Tried to make it work, sought help in the vegan community, but it's not accepted that a vegan diet can cause health problems, so I was shunned. Being desperate and my health just getting worse, I did a radical shift to the carnivore diet and started to feel much better. Now, after 7 years on the carnivore diet, I have never been in better health. I believe this saved my life. I still have bad teeth from the vegan days, but atleast it's not getting worse.
I do have many vegan friends (been vegan for more than a decade) and none have issues with their teeth! I wonder if the issue was more with what you were eating as a vegan rather then a plant based diet.
Obviously not helpful now but could be of interest to someone. This article has always stuck in my mind for when a well known vegan considers leaving. Turned out she needed more fat in her diet which I guess makes sense considering the naturally lean vegan diet especially when combined with raw.
I'm not on a vegan diet, or a carnivore diet, but I worry about my teeth all the time. What happened when you changed your diet? Are these teeth issues, or gum issues, or both?
"The first time I ate vegetables again I soon developed some kind of lethargy, but it was familiar, and had once been common. I realized that since I had stopped eating plants, I had not felt this at all. I thought it was just normal to eat dinner and not want to do anything for 1-2 hours? But when I only eat meat, I don’t get this. Eating plants, even just a bit, makes my stomach feel bloated— But I can eat 2lbs of steak in one sitting and feel great."
I consider myself vegetarian although not 100% strict and in the past 4/5 years I ate red meat when I wanted to try specific foods, or dishes and every single time I felt in the exact same way that the author felt when eating vegetables. When I eat red meat, I am tired, I don't sleep well, I can't exercise well and I can't concentrate. And all my (mostly) vegetarian friends feel the same way when eating red meat.
This to say that his single data point doesn't mean anything: most likely my body is not used to red meat anymore, in the same way that his is not used to vegetables anymore.
To be fair I eat everything and never feel bloated or tired afterwards. Sometimes I eat vegan for a while if I go on vacation with some vegan friends or I eat more meat for random reasons and never felt any difference. I have the feeling that when people do try to actively do something to improve their wellbeing the bode has some kind of placebos effect. You believe that eating meat is better: you feel more energetic after eating meat. You believe vegan diet is better? Same things happen.
With this I am not saying that either option is equally healthy! On the contrary there is a very strong scientific evidence towards a plant based being healthier!
There may be short term benefits to a keto diet, but longer term is not so clear. And health is only one element. Red meat is absolutely devastating to the environment and water supply, with immense greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, and polluted water tables, on top of the incredible cruelty of factory farming and slaughter.
Keto is responsible for me losing 170lbs, putting my diabetes into remission (eliminating daily insulin). If it kills me at 75, so be it. That is better than dying in my 50s from diabetes.
As for all the other stuff, all farming has environmental impact. You can argue degrees of impact, but at the end of the day I am just not willing to only eat items that have a lower environmental impact, but require me to stick a needle in my stomach every day and still be at a high risk of dropping dead 20 years earlier.
No it's not. Monocropping is far worse for the environment and entails mowing entire states down, repeatedly tilling and saturating soil with herbicide and pesticide, destroying millions of acres of former prairie land, and genetically engineering crops for glyphosate.
Ruminants like cattle, sheep, etc have existed naturally for over 50 million years. They are an essential component of prairie land ecosystems. And much of the land that they occupy is non-arable for crops.
Red meat is the closest thing to a natural human diet there is.
For 2 million years, your ancestors basically ate the diet from this article. Our biology is highly evolved for it, with agriculture being < 500 generations old.
Im over 3 years now with brief breaks away from keto. Long term checkmark.
>And health is only one element.
Deliciousness is another yes.
>Red meat is absolutely devastating to the environment and water supply,
How does a cow in a giant field eating grass and pooping tons of carbon down into carbon sinks damage the environment? In fact, Cow farming is great for the environment.
> deforestation, and polluted water tables,
I think you've confused all the problems with the unethical and immoral agriculture. Fertilizers and pesticides are so tremendously destructive to the environment.
>on top of the incredible cruelty of factory farming and slaughter.
Totally agreed here. We need to ban factory farming.
Carnivore and keto diets are pretty much how much of the world ate until the 40s or so. Carnivore works for me, I did that for a few years some time back. I've been keto with a carnivore slant for four years. My blood work is similar to yours.
I don't care what anyone else eats, have at it. But if you pay attention to those A1C commercials that are all over the place, cut down on the sugar a bit, would you?
> Carnivore and keto diets are pretty much how much of the world ate until the 40s or so.
I guess it depends on "where".
The so-called Mediterranean diet, which is the "normal" way of eating in Italy, basically consists of bread/pasta/vegetables and (olive) oil (but is not in any way vegetarian or vegan as eggs/poultry/cheese/fish are also largely present).
Traditionally red meat was eaten once or maybe twice a week.
> Carnivore and keto diets are pretty much how much of the world ate until the 40s or so.
This hasn’t been true since the dawn of agriculture. People mostly ate some kind of grain or tuber. Sometimes as gruel/meal, sometimes as bread, sometimes as mash but most people have been peasants since the dawn of farming and peasants eat carbs.
A clean metabolic panel is an important but insufficient signal of good health. Meat is jam packed with vitamins and nutrients, so it would be strange if he was severely lacking in any of the important categories.
The real question will be what will the results be when he gets a colonoscopy at 40. I have a family friend who has been a long term meat-only person, and he is 50 and has a very bad case of diverticulitis as well as gastric reflux. Maybe he would have gotten them regardless, or maybe if he tried eating a little fiber he could have avoided it. I personally would be taking something like psyllium husk if I was going on that kind of diet(which I did when I went keto, but I was just doing it for fun and not weight loss, so it was hard to stick with).
I suspect I’ve had some form of IBD for years, but unfortunately much of what I’ve read indicates that truly managing it means a strict diet and eschewing certain foods, I’d almost rather just live with the discomfort at this point.
Sounds like this guy is in the category of people for whom keto diets can work wonders. It's definitely not worth it for me, I've tried, and I suspect it's the same for most people.
Have you tried low carb? I tried keto for a while, and noticed a few benefits, but it was hell not having the occasional bowl of rice or slice of bread. So I switched to a mostly low carb diet, but allow myself to have things like rice and bread 1-3 times per week. I’ve found almost no difference for me between this and keto in terms of physical benefits.
A useful way to interpret this blog post is “I had weird health issues that were resistant to treatment, but dramatically changing my diet helped”.
This blog post does not contain useful advice for most people, but is a) vaguely interesting to see how someone managed to control rare health issues, and b) may be helpful for folk who have been trying and failing to deal with major health issues similar to the author.
I don't really understand people trying to reinvent the wheel, why not look for diets around the world which work, look at life expectancy in Japan, Spain, Italy, South Korea, Singapore, Cyprus etc. (though quite odd to see at top places odd landlocked Switzerland, dunno when that happened, never noticed)
The problem is that many people start to develop problems in digesting many types of food that would normally be easily assimilated.
The causes could be many but the most likely culprits are antibiotics and pesticides damaging the gut lining and flora.
The consequence is that people is losing the ability to safely eat foods that would be normally considered safe and healthy.
In all probability the reason that a meat only diet works for so many people it's that it is a subtype of low FODMAP diet.
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/22466-low-f...
This is generally a healthy way of eating, but one word of caution:
Without any carbohydrates at all, your SHBG levels will generally get very high, and you may end up with long-term hormonal issues. It's also questionable whether very-long-term gluconeogenesis is good for your liver. More studies are needed.
Paul Saladino, who used to be very strict carnivore, has recently recommended introduction of fruits and honey into an animal-based diet to address the SHBG and long-term gluconeogenesis concerns. He is still vehemently against grains and vegetables, but regularly includes 100-150 grams of carbohydrates from fruit/honey sources daily now, with positive effects on his (hormonal) blood work.
>You are wrong and will probably die of a heart attack.
This keto fad has been going on for years. The actual science is in on this.
Dietary cholesterol has nothing to do with anything. In fact, high blood sugar tends to damage your serum cholesterol. You basically have to go into a long fast in order to let your body clear out the damaged cholesterol. But often people dont do that, so slowly but surely the damaged cholesterol builds up. That's when you start having heart attacks.
What keto does is effectively limit the amount of damage to ldl. Carnivore completely eliminates this.
If you're concerned about other people's diet and heart attacks. You pretty much have to recommend carnivore to them.
>Also, murdering and exploiting animals is not cool.
Murdering and exploiting animals that wouldn't exist otherwise. As humans have been 'murdering and exploiting' animal for 100,000 years... not going to win much argument in ending this.
I do believe synthmeat will be a thing in the future. I optimistically hope to see this day.
Some people have sensitivities to certain foods, which in rare cases can cause skin symptoms. For those people it can be useful to try an elimination diet to see if the symptoms disappear after a few weeks.
I'd be concerned about his heart's health. Idk you can do anything to mitigate the chronic ingestion of high amounts of trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) from causing heart disease.
Maybe he'll eventually discover an alternative that also works well.
[+] [-] lettergram|3 years ago|reply
Having done a couple of stints of meat + veggies only for 8-12 months I can definitely say you feel wired. I highly recommend, though it takes a couple weeks to break any carbs. I prefer it personally, but alas with multiple children and constant gatherings it’s hard to keep it up perfectly.
Real trick is snacks. I would make burgers and / or bacon and store it for a week or eat jerky. Worked well enough if I got hungry. After the first week or two your body adjusts to the protein & fat based meals and you no longer snack as much. At least not for me.
[+] [-] movedx|3 years ago|reply
What?
> The real Paleolithic diet, though, wasn't all meat and marrow. It's true that hunter-gatherers around the world crave meat more than any other food and usually get around 30 percent of their annual calories from animals.
> So how do hunter-gatherers get energy when there’s no meat? It turns out that “man the hunter” is backed up by “woman the forager,” who, with some help from children, provides more calories during difficult times. When meat, fruit, or honey is scarce, foragers depend on “fallback foods,” says Brooks. The Hadza get almost 70 percent of their calories from plants. The Kung traditionally rely on tubers and mongongo nuts, the Aka and Baka Pygmies of the Congo River Basin on yams, the Tsimane and Yanomami Indians of the Amazon on plantains and manioc, the Australian Aboriginals on nut grass and water chestnuts.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/evolution-of...
[+] [-] SamBam|3 years ago|reply
My understanding is that this is not true, or at least extremely unlikely. The majority of hunter-gatherer societies seemed to have subsisted mostly on plants, with meat being a minority of their calories, possibly more of a special-occasion food.
Here's a sample source:
> The real Paleolithic diet, though, wasn’t all meat and marrow. It’s true that hunter-gatherers around the world crave meat more than any other food and usually get around 30 percent of their annual calories from animals.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/evolution-of...
[+] [-] the_only_law|3 years ago|reply
One thing I’ve noticed about hunter gatherer societies today, at least from various films and documentaries, is that they tend to be smaller both in height and mass than say, the westerners documenting them. That being said they seem to have significantly more stamina and incredible physical skill (watching a guy stand on the edge of a cliff and hurl sticks to knock flying bats out of the air was mindbending)
I would guess they eat a higher percentage of meat, but probably less in total.
[+] [-] IG_Semmelweiss|3 years ago|reply
- Do not attempt if you have children - Do not attempt if you dont control what goes in the fridge. - Do not attempt if you cant deflect peer pressure.
[+] [-] KennyBlanken|3 years ago|reply
No.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleistocene_human_diet
tldr: Homo habilis ate some meat, and Homo erectus was more of an omnivore, eating tougher-to-chew/digest foods...and even later, started to cook foods...both meat and plant-based.
The "paleo" diet is what happens when a bunch of jocks get high, watch the Flintstones and decide to base a diet off what they saw.
[+] [-] oliwarner|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eixiepia|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] freedom2099|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] apricot13|3 years ago|reply
http://bonzaiaphrodite.com/2015/07/when-vegans-get-sick-exce...
[+] [-] c0nducktr|3 years ago|reply
I'm not on a vegan diet, or a carnivore diet, but I worry about my teeth all the time. What happened when you changed your diet? Are these teeth issues, or gum issues, or both?
[+] [-] rdednl|3 years ago|reply
I consider myself vegetarian although not 100% strict and in the past 4/5 years I ate red meat when I wanted to try specific foods, or dishes and every single time I felt in the exact same way that the author felt when eating vegetables. When I eat red meat, I am tired, I don't sleep well, I can't exercise well and I can't concentrate. And all my (mostly) vegetarian friends feel the same way when eating red meat.
This to say that his single data point doesn't mean anything: most likely my body is not used to red meat anymore, in the same way that his is not used to vegetables anymore.
[+] [-] freedom2099|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] colordrops|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kcplate|3 years ago|reply
As for all the other stuff, all farming has environmental impact. You can argue degrees of impact, but at the end of the day I am just not willing to only eat items that have a lower environmental impact, but require me to stick a needle in my stomach every day and still be at a high risk of dropping dead 20 years earlier.
[+] [-] chrisco255|3 years ago|reply
Ruminants like cattle, sheep, etc have existed naturally for over 50 million years. They are an essential component of prairie land ecosystems. And much of the land that they occupy is non-arable for crops.
Red meat is the closest thing to a natural human diet there is.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-2-million-years-humans-ate...
For 2 million years, your ancestors basically ate the diet from this article. Our biology is highly evolved for it, with agriculture being < 500 generations old.
[+] [-] incomingpain|3 years ago|reply
Im over 3 years now with brief breaks away from keto. Long term checkmark.
>And health is only one element.
Deliciousness is another yes.
>Red meat is absolutely devastating to the environment and water supply,
How does a cow in a giant field eating grass and pooping tons of carbon down into carbon sinks damage the environment? In fact, Cow farming is great for the environment.
> deforestation, and polluted water tables,
I think you've confused all the problems with the unethical and immoral agriculture. Fertilizers and pesticides are so tremendously destructive to the environment.
>on top of the incredible cruelty of factory farming and slaughter.
Totally agreed here. We need to ban factory farming.
[+] [-] fortran77|3 years ago|reply
But so is obesity: https://www.webmd.com/diet/obesity/news/20191220/growing-obe...
[+] [-] thehonest|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] moltar|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] silicon2401|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwaway0x7E6|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] smm11|3 years ago|reply
I don't care what anyone else eats, have at it. But if you pay attention to those A1C commercials that are all over the place, cut down on the sugar a bit, would you?
[+] [-] jaclaz|3 years ago|reply
I guess it depends on "where".
The so-called Mediterranean diet, which is the "normal" way of eating in Italy, basically consists of bread/pasta/vegetables and (olive) oil (but is not in any way vegetarian or vegan as eggs/poultry/cheese/fish are also largely present).
Traditionally red meat was eaten once or maybe twice a week.
So, not carnivore and not keto.
[+] [-] Blackthorn|3 years ago|reply
Umm, what? The history of humanity is one of agriculture.
[+] [-] barry-cotter|3 years ago|reply
This hasn’t been true since the dawn of agriculture. People mostly ate some kind of grain or tuber. Sometimes as gruel/meal, sometimes as bread, sometimes as mash but most people have been peasants since the dawn of farming and peasants eat carbs.
[+] [-] oh_sigh|3 years ago|reply
The real question will be what will the results be when he gets a colonoscopy at 40. I have a family friend who has been a long term meat-only person, and he is 50 and has a very bad case of diverticulitis as well as gastric reflux. Maybe he would have gotten them regardless, or maybe if he tried eating a little fiber he could have avoided it. I personally would be taking something like psyllium husk if I was going on that kind of diet(which I did when I went keto, but I was just doing it for fun and not weight loss, so it was hard to stick with).
[+] [-] the_only_law|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jdpigeon|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryanSrich|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] octokatt|3 years ago|reply
This blog post does not contain useful advice for most people, but is a) vaguely interesting to see how someone managed to control rare health issues, and b) may be helpful for folk who have been trying and failing to deal with major health issues similar to the author.
[+] [-] Markoff|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] codeflow2202|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] caeril|3 years ago|reply
Without any carbohydrates at all, your SHBG levels will generally get very high, and you may end up with long-term hormonal issues. It's also questionable whether very-long-term gluconeogenesis is good for your liver. More studies are needed.
Paul Saladino, who used to be very strict carnivore, has recently recommended introduction of fruits and honey into an animal-based diet to address the SHBG and long-term gluconeogenesis concerns. He is still vehemently against grains and vegetables, but regularly includes 100-150 grams of carbohydrates from fruit/honey sources daily now, with positive effects on his (hormonal) blood work.
[+] [-] thehonest|3 years ago|reply
Also, murdering and exploiting animals is not cool.
[+] [-] incomingpain|3 years ago|reply
This keto fad has been going on for years. The actual science is in on this.
Dietary cholesterol has nothing to do with anything. In fact, high blood sugar tends to damage your serum cholesterol. You basically have to go into a long fast in order to let your body clear out the damaged cholesterol. But often people dont do that, so slowly but surely the damaged cholesterol builds up. That's when you start having heart attacks.
https://www.healthline.com/health/high-cholesterol/sugar-and...
What keto does is effectively limit the amount of damage to ldl. Carnivore completely eliminates this.
If you're concerned about other people's diet and heart attacks. You pretty much have to recommend carnivore to them.
>Also, murdering and exploiting animals is not cool.
Murdering and exploiting animals that wouldn't exist otherwise. As humans have been 'murdering and exploiting' animal for 100,000 years... not going to win much argument in ending this.
I do believe synthmeat will be a thing in the future. I optimistically hope to see this day.
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] atc|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] braingenious|3 years ago|reply
I made fried rice today and it was great. Thank you for coming to my TEDtalk.
[+] [-] ethbr0|3 years ago|reply
You forgot the closing about how because you made great fried rice today, we will all be able to solve world hunger in 2 years.
[+] [-] wiradikusuma|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nradov|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TedDoesntTalk|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] uf00lme|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hereme888|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sneak|3 years ago|reply
I'll still eat low/no carb vegetables like cucumbers, pickles, broccoli, etc, however. A diet of no soluble fiber isn't workable for me.
[+] [-] neuralRiot|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 0xbadcafebee|3 years ago|reply
tl;dr if you eat enough fat with your all-protein diet, and get enough vitamin C (e.g. from liver) to ward off scurvy, you (might be) okay
[+] [-] excitednumber|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stevebmark|3 years ago|reply