My Experience Eating Nothing From Plants, aka Zero Carb

nancy sutton wrote:Interesting topic.  I just ran across this interview of Jordan Peterson by Joe Rogan (I don't necessarily agree with either of their opinions in other arenas, however).
There is also another interview available with his daughter, Mikhaila.  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLF29w6YqXs

It is interesting, isn't it Nancy?  It is so backwards to everything we think we know, it takes a while to wrap one's head around it.

As for the Petersons, those two are relative newcomers to this way of eating but I am sooooo glad that they decided to try it and are sharing their experiences. Their experience is that of most folks who give this way of eating an honest 30 day try.  It tends to bring about profound positive change. Their stories are both ones of amazing healing and growth, as is mine and many, many others.

Here's Mikhaila's blog:

http://mikhailapeterson.com/about-me/

And here are a whole lot more testimonials, from ex-vegans to powerlifters to people laid low by lifelong chronic illness, all finding their health:

https://meatheals.com/

If you are out there and wondering how to get well, or better, or reach your best, this is worth a 30 day try.  I guarantee you will learn an immense amount about yourself that will help you going forward.

As I understand it, eating nothing but meat is good and helps some people that have problems with their digestive system, in the same way some people are allergic to nuts or strawberries or you name it, but this doesn’t mean this particular foods are harmful for the general population, in the same way eating only meat cant work with people prone to gout disease.
The negative side of eating only meat will be the gut flora and the high levels of cholesterol and triglycerides mainly.
Every food will be first digested in the small intestines where there are no that much bacteria, but then in the large intestine the effect of bacteria on what is left will be very strong, if you eat mainly meat you will start to breed bacteria that are good at digesting meat, because what type of bacteria you will have there is pretty much a simple result of natural selection based on the type of food you eat. Now why this may be a problem?
Well just think about the difference between a carrion and a rotting vegetation, most types of rotting vegetation don’t provoke such negative reactions in humans because the bacteria there feeding on these plant materials have the enzymes that are good for exactly that, digesting plant materials, this cant harm animals that much, while with carrion the bacteria there are good at digesting flesh, and we are made out of flesh, so these bacteria are good at harming you.
When you eat meat it is good to eat lots of vegetables with that, like green leafy stuff, so that you will encourage the good bacteria to take over and to suppress the carrion bacteria to take over, which may irritate your large intestine and may cause cancer in some people that are prone to that.
I guess people are indeed different and some may not get such problems indeed, but how are one to know for sure about these things. Also leafs and other vegetables are hardly a carbohydrate, you cant reach the energy in there like cows and goats, but you can get the vitamins and the minerals, so not eating even that looks strange to me, one should have some really bad medical condition to have the excuse to avoid that.

Roy Hinkley wrote:I've had something of a change of heart recently.
I had an audiobook, How Not to Die.  I'm not going to preach here but it's convinced me to try and make vegan work.

He has a website - actual results from scientific studies ... before the results get sanitized for public consumption. This is truly the best "food as medicine" resource I've ever found.
https://nutritionfacts.org/

I have seen so many posts and videos of ex-vegans who said it ruined their health, that I would be very cautious. Scientific studies go into all directions anyway! I prefer to cross those informations with anthropology, and most people have been close to 50 - 50 % animal and plant food. When doing an elimination diet, it is possible to re-introduce for some people, when the digestive and immune system get better, thus also the nervous system allowing rest & digest. This is called HORMESIS. We need some challenge, but not too much. You can blow a candle, but the wind will reinforce a wild fire! So, it is had true that "what does not kill us reinforces us", because what does not kill us can damage and weaken us too!

Then about eating greens with the meat... some people have success with high protein diet because it seems that they can have a liver problem that is overwhelmed by vitamine A. In that case liver and eggs will not be welcome in the diet.... and most dairies either!

Roy Hinkley wrote:I've had something of a change of heart recently.
I had an audiobook, How Not to Die.  I'm not going to preach here but it's convinced me to try and make vegan work.

He has a website - actual results from scientific studies ... before the results get sanitized for public consumption. This is truly the best "food as medicine" resource I've ever found.
https://nutritionfacts.org/

I stumbled across Dr. Greger about two months ago. I started by reading Michael Pollan some years ago and then dug deeper into nutrition, also watching documentaries like Forks over Knives and similar. I think they are really convincing, with lots of testimonials. Then you come across other diets like low carb / paleo / keto etc. And they also have convincing testimonials.

So is there more than one truth?

Yes, I would say so.

There is no One Nutrition Fits All. There is also genetics and lifestyle.
For example, my grandparents and their siblings. Very long-living, around 100 years. They ate traditional German food, some meat, but not too much. Mostly local and regional veggies and fruit. Fermented food (sauerkraut, yoghurt, kombucha), sourdough bread, linseeds. They did not exclude anything. But they cooked every single meal from scratch. They had an active lifestyle, did most errands on foot, drank only water (and coffee and very little alcohol). They had no overweight, no allergies or chronic diseases (although one grandmother had Diabetes the last years of her life). In some members (maternal side) there were extreme levels of colesterol but it had no harmful influence on their cardiovascular system.

My husband's family from Argentina: Lots of meat and refined carbs (white bread, pasta, pastry). Cardiovascular diseases, cancer. I have never met his grandparents as they were already dead when I met my husband so I can't say anything about their lifestyle. My FIL died from cancer, my MIL is currently struggling with cancer. Did they just have bad luck with their genetics, or did their nutrition and lifestyle not match their genetics very well?

I think everybody has to find out which nutrition suits them. In the meantime, I stick to some rules that seem plausible to me:
Maintain an active lifestyle. Eat lots of regional and seasonal fruits and vegetables. Buy ethical meat only (and eggs from my own chickens). Buy raw milk. Consume fermented food regularly (kimchi, yoghurt, kefir). Include cruciferous vegetables and pulses in your diet. As little sugar as possible. Only drink water (we never buy any soda).

Apart from that, I am still trying to find out the best diet for me as I have some problems with bloating. I know I can't go totally whole-grain, I can't tolerate much from the cole family in one go and even have to have an eye on all garlic/onion/leeks etc, carrots, corn, bell peppers and much more. But luckily those are minor problems, I feel well and don't have any weight problems (never had).

I- ZC being mostly useful to people with auto-immune disorders - including crohn or UC ; psoriasis and arthritis - I suggest reading this:
https://ggenereux.blog/2016/04/22/ending-the-mystery-of-auto-immune/

The success of ZC can also come from getting rid of excess Vit A, if eggs and butter are excluded. Greens are by far the richest source of Vit A. People who have eaten enriched food could be concerned most.
Grant is not on ZC at all but meat and rice and a sort of bean that has less vitA. Of course if you eat only the beef, you get the same benefit as him, so it depends if the person has intolerance to carbs or not, in addition to a problem with vitA. This is worth checking! VitA, if not used by the body, is a burden on the liver.

This forum, that is all about carbs, and more VitA rich liver and oysters than muscle meat, has a serious discussion about this diet, very well explained by the OP, here:
https://raypeatforum.com/community/threads/grant-genereuxs-theory-of-vitamin-a-toxicity.24722/

II-
The state of our digestive system depends on the vagus nerve, and let's say the right balance of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. The vagus nerve is the main parasympathetic nerve and its correct activation in "rest & digest" state is needed for the digestive system to work well.

You can also read here about the "cell danger response" or CDR. Whatever attacks the body puts not only the ANS but all cells in defense mode, which take away a lot of our vital energy.
I considere it as a MUST read!

https://chronicillnesstraumastudies.com/cell-danger-response-disease/

By the way...
Veronique Mead has eaten ZC for a few years, and she is now able to increase again her range of eating.... She was a doctor and has then started to study the somatic field of early inrecognized trauma, and she is trained in Somatic Experiencing (SE) which I am also.

SO
If what you eat puts your cells in CDR mode, you will not feel good. And it is personal, though it would be interesting to know more about who can benefit from which diet! How much time for trials we could save....

It is difficult to know what is the problem because our body is so resilient that it takes time to be so bad that we have consequences. But when we reach unhealth, well we know that it takes time for the body to go back to a secure feeling allowing to switch back to a better metabolism. We are all mostly in adaptations to our environment, and to often to a bad environment. The body, when you do better for it, is suspicious for a long time before accepting to change its coping and adaptative ways!

ZC works first by removing triggers. "What does not kill you reinforces you" is not true if you have been damaged as it is close to killing. You are reinforced when you can successfully adapt, this yes. But it needs to be progressive, and it relies on the self-regulation of the 2 branches of the autonomic nervous system - ANS - which is like the movement of a pendulum. The wider the better.

Hormesis is important, triggering some defense to reinforce us. So for those who cannot apply this in their diet, it is needed to apply it in other parts of the life style, like exercise and the correct circadian rythm with light to begin with. Cycling heat and cold is also reinforcing us. But too much of what is an aggression will not reinforce us, we have to take care of what we can through self-feedback and self-respect. We also need to increase exercise, heat, cold, exposure to light, in a titrated way. All this is supportive to and supported by the ANS. We need safety forst and foremost, and then increase stimulation without hurting us. Coherence, homeostasis, regulation according to the surroundings.

Xisca... so much wisdom here!!  Thanks : )

Greens are by far the richest source of Vit A. People who have eaten enriched food could be concerned most.

Plants have carotenoids, which is not vit A, the human body use that to produce vit A as much as needed, you cant harm yourself by consuming too much carotenoids. But consuming too much animal products can give you that overdose, which I think prove something about the evolutionary history of human metabolism.

Yes carotenoids can also be harmful.

I posted in Roy's thread, but I wanted to add my support and experiences in this thread.  Thanks for starting it, Matt, and for the great videos.

First, I'll say that I agree with Maria that there isn't a single diet that works for all of us.  What I've read is that 10-15% of us are 'carb adapted', so they don't experience the same results with a high carb diet as the rest of the population.  There are also some people who are more sensitive to carbs than the average, so we all have to find what works for us.  I'm T2D and for years I followed the suggestions from my doctor, a diabetes nutritional workshop, the Canadian dietary guidelines (all the same stuff).  I took the meds prescribed and exercised.  All that got me was progressive weight gain and more meds.  I've researched many diets over the years and tried all that seemed legit, so I feel I have a good understanding on how my body works. Here are a few I've tried:

High carb vegetarian - felt shitty and gained more weight, also had a spike in my long-term blood sugar levels
Atkins - I lost weight but my blood sugars didn't improve much.  
Paleo - This worked very well for me and was a huge step to where I am today.  I lost weight, felt great, dropped my BS levels and really cut down on my hunger, which naturally led to:
Intermittent Fasting - This was a natural progression for me.  I've always struggled to eat breakfast but 'it's the most important meal of the day', so I did for years.  Once I switched to paleo I started eating within an 8 hour window, then just ended up eating once a day because that worked best for me.  
Ketogenic - This is where I ended up.  It doesn't require you to eat only once a day, though I do, and it's changed my life.

I came across paleo very early on in the movement, but there weren't any studies that I could find that supported it.  It made sense, but I need more than that because I can be pretty stupid at times.  It wasn't until a few years ago that I came back around to it though several books that cited studies and gave a much more in-depth explanation of why it works.  When I did try it, though, it worked very well for me.  As I said above, I ended up eating just one meal a day even though the suggestions were to eat in an 8 hour window.  This is essentially intermittent fasting for 16 hours a day.  I then found this site which really brought it all together for me.  How our bodies deal with nutrition, how to deal with the underlying issue, not the symptoms, and all backed by a critical analysis of the statistics and studies that support the various schools of thought on diet.  Once I found that site, it was like a revelation.

The guy who runs the site is a kidney doctor who's only about 2 hours away from me.  His patients were mostly morbidly obese diabetics, so he ended up looking into diabetes as it was the disease that drove most of his practice.  He was able to explain the mechanics of diabetes in a way that I found very easy to understand.  Once I understood how my body was acting and reacting to my diet, it gave me the tools to fix the issue.  I was already motivated to make a change as the reason I was researching nutrition and diabetes was because I needed to go on insulin, according to my doctor, and I had zero interest in that or the complications.  So, what does Dr. Fung recommend?  He's a proponent of a Low Carb, High Fat diet.  He also is a proponent of fasting, the ultimate LCHF diet.  I know it sounds extreme, but it doesn't have to be.  Eating only within an 8 hour window give you a 16 hour fast everyday.  This lets your blood sugar drop, which increases insulin sensitivity.  For extreme cases, he often suggests fasting for a day or more.  He's been able to get many of hit patients off insulin and often all other diabetic drugs within a few months.  That was my experience, too.

This is really hard for me to admit, but I was once over 275lbs.  I'm not sure how much over because I couldn't face weighing myself.  I'm 5'6" and, when I was younger, I was at the national level in a couple of sports, so it isn't like I hadn't been healthy before, or didn't know how to train.  Through extreme HIIT and calorie reduction, I was able to drop a fair bit of that weight, but I still stalled at about 225.  I had a specialist comment on how amazing that was, given the weight-gaining effects of the meds I was on.  That got me involved in what I was putting in my body and I ended up dropping most of the meds, to the chagrin of my doctor.  That made it easier to lose or even maintain the weight, but my blood sugar kept rising until we got the insulin stage.  

With that motivation and what I'd learned, I decided to try fasting.  At that time, I was already on the paleo diet, so I was in ketosis, though I didn't really understand that at the time, but it means my body was already adapted to burning fat for fuel, not carbs.  That, and the fact that I only ate once a day, made fasting surprisingly easy for me.  There are a whole host of good things that your body does when fasting, such as an increase in your natural HGH, more energy, and clearer thinking, all of which I experienced.  I would've seen the same results with a keto diet, but not as quickly.  Fasting allowed me to jump-start my weightloss and it's remained an effective tool if I fall off the wagon and need to get back on.  After I lost the weight I needed to lose I switched to a ketogenic diet, which is similar to paleo.  I had a meter that would measure your breath to measure my ketosis, so I used it to test foods that I added back in to my diet.  Dairy is very interesting in that it has sugars but also fat.  The fat offsets the sugars to some extent, though to different degrees in different people.  Some people on paleo or keto avoid dairy, but I found it didn't raise my blood sugar noticeably or kick me out of ketosis, so that's great for me.  My tests were done with raw milk and the cheese I made from it, so I got full fat.  

What I've read about protein has shown me why the Atkins diet didn't work for me.  When you eat fat, it stays as fat.  If you eat too much protein, however, your body can turn some of it into glucose, giving you a blood sugar spike.  I tried this out with my glucose meter and also the keto breath meter and I found, for me, that too much protein didn't work for me.   I also came across other research into protein that supports this and, sadly, also finds a correlation between too much protein and aging/cancer issues.  Personally, I think that just about anything these days can give you cancer, so I don't worry about it too much, but I do think that a moderate protein diet makes the most sense.  That leaves me with fat for calories but, happily, meat has fat.  Meat is around 25% protein, so if I want 60 grams of protein, I need to eat about half a pound of meat a day for a moderate intake.  This is where I differ from what Matt's doing.

In the end, I was able to go from 210 when I started doing extended fasts to 160, in 4 months.  The fasting re-set my hunger signals which made it much easier.  I used to be able to eat about a pound of cheese without feeling full but now I feel full when I've had enough.  I've done several 5-7 day fasts and the longest I've done is 11 days, but you don't need to do that if you aren't in crisis.  I've seen a lot of people who've lost a lot of weight end up with lots of excess, saggy skin.  I lost over 100 lbs without any saggy skin and I think it's because of the fasting.  When you fast, your body scavenges what it needs.  I had lots of fat, so energy wasn't an issue, but my body used the excess skin for protein.  This seems to be typical with fasting.  

Now I typically eat a HFLC diet.  I do eat a lot of veggies and greens, but my low carb allowance is about 25-35 grams of carbs a day.  I don't eat root veggies and you have to watch some things like peppers, but there's an awful lot to eat.  I have huge salads with full fat dressings and/or veggies with my meat.  I don't need any meds for my blood sugar, my colitis is gone, along with a host of other issues, and I feel great.  I do miss grains and I occasionally fall off the wagon or have holiday dinners, but I'm convinced that it's the best for me.  Someone mentioned that it takes 3 days for your body to switch over to burning fat, which it may, but I found it takes me 5 days.  Once you do, though, it's great.  

Thanks to everyone who's contributed here.  I'm always interested in learning more about what works and doesn't for nutrition and I hope everyone here finds something that works for them.  I urge you to check out the site I linked, or take a gander at his books, The Obesity Code and The Diabetes Code.  Dr. Fung is incredibly good at explaining what is happening in our bodies, and that's definitely good to know.

Xisca Nicolas wrote:Yes carotenoids can also be harmful.

Only if taken as supplements, it is imposdible to harm yourself by eating too much plants, while it is possible to overdose yourself by eating animal products.

Borislav Iliev wrote:

Xisca Nicolas wrote:Yes carotenoids can also be harmful.

Only if taken as supplements, it is imposdible to harm yourself by eating too much plants, while it is possible to overdose yourself by eating animal products.

Nope, not only supps can hurt us!

Yes some people can hurt themselves by eating too much plants. Not everything is safe in nature! Mostly, plants have toxins that are a good stimulus for some persons, but too much of a good stimulus can lead to wreak havoc on the body. Most people know nothing about the toxicity of plants unfortunately. Different people will react to different toxins, like saponin or oxalic acid or salicilic acid....

And caroten seems to act like an inflamatory substance like an excess of omega 6 fats. Carotens are a problem for people with a slow liver and thyroid, and the big quantity of caroten in many plants, and even greens may also lower thyroid according to the thyroid specialist Peat!
“I avoid carotene, because it blocks thyroid and steroid production, and very large, excessive, amounts of vitamin A, retinol, can do the same.”
"Carotene is highly unsaturated and it has the same effect of interfering with thyroid function because of this series of unsaturations."
http://www.functionalps.com/blog/2012/10/08/carotenemia-hypothyroidism/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCOpp8qRl_Q

A nutritionist commenting on the possible usefulness of a 3 months vitA detox diet:
https://butternutrition.com/vitamin-a-detox-diet/

Going by that logic drinking water is also harmful if you drink too much, also breathing oxygen is harmful if you breathe too much, the point is if you eat some normal diet that has all sorts of plants, you should not be worried that you can overdose with carotenoids.
Humans get sick of eating the same thing for too long and thats how nature figured out a way to make us eat diverse diet of many things, you should try intentionally and very hard to include so much carotenoids to get that harmful effect.
It is similar to drinking too much water, you should intentionally make yourself drink too much in order to get that harmful effect.
Carotenoids have nothing to do with the detrimental effect of omega 6, this involves the synthesis of prostaglandins

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Metabolic-pathways-for-omega-6-and-omega-3-fatty-acids-that-result-in-a-variety-of_fig2_275836096

carotenoids actually have anti inflammatory effect

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5905192/

Borislav Iliev wrote:Going by that logic drinking water is also harmful if you drink too much

Drinking too much water can actually kill someone.  If a person drinks too much while exercising they can enter hyponatremia, which can lead to unconsciousness, epileptic seizures, or even death.  The doctor that first identified the issue with marathon runners was Timothy Noakes, the same guy who defended himself for suggesting a HFLC diet (and won).

^Sure, drinking too much water is not good, my point was under normal conditions a normal human should not be worried how much water he has consumed over the day, a problem can happen only if someone actively make himself consume much more than the needed.
In the same way someone can get too much carotenoids only by taking supplements or by consciously creating a diet too high in carotenoids(with the intention to get exactly that), under normal circumstances you should not worry about it.(like thinking you should exclude carrots from your salad, because you had pumpkin for breakfast or smth.)

Brace yourselves, meat eaters... global Big Ag is trying to take out meat!!   I hope this is posted a few other places on Permies:

https://www.dietdoctor.com/report-cut-red-meat-eating-by-80-percent-to-save-the-planet?utm_source=Diet+Doctor+newsletter&utm_campaign=d22d5496fb-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_01_23_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_41db911777-d22d5496fb-466571785

Read the links to - the make up of the 'commission'; the soy interests, et al; the environmental value of livestock, etc.  My favorite re: accusations of animal cruelty is that when raised naturally, instead of 'industrially',  they have the best life possible, with the exception of one bad day... actually, only one bad moment, when done right.

And here's Dr. Georgia Ede's (a carnivore) response:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/diagnosis-diet/201901/eat-lancets-plant-based-planet-10-things-you-need-know

I think this may be a positive move.  This huge campaign tells me that healthy folks are a real threat to the (well subsidized by our tax $) sugar, soy, seed oil and grain industries.  Yay!  This sounds like deja vu of the '80's when the sugar industry promoted the 'fat is bad (not sugar)' canard, taking a page from Big Tobacco's playbook.  And how many people unnecessarily died from cardio et al diseases?  (An engaging, non-diet-partisan history of that is 'Death by Food Pyramid' by Denise Minger (sp?).   Also, Taubes' latest 'The Case Against Sugar' details
that deadly campaign, also.  

I am actually coming out of the carnivore diet!

1) I found out that the toxin that is not ok for me it OXALATE. So I reintroduce low oxalate plants.

2) NEVER start the carnivore diet without getting informed about oxalate, because zero carb will have your body unstore too much if you go down to zero oxalate too quick. (no oxalate in animal foods)

3) My blood tests are not that good. I have uric acid going up.

4) My liver is congested. My hability to eat meat has diminished by half.

5) My hair test showed an increase in iron, but with a lowering in blood, showing I store iron. And even my B12 markers show that it is not high.

I think that gluco-neo-genesis can be taxing on the liver. (it is making sugars from proteins) I think when we can stand it, it is better to get our glucose directly from carbs.

I also did not put on muscles at all and was craving eggs and coffee, both high in SULFUR, which is what helps with oxalate. Anyway sulfur is a very needed unknown element. The low oxalate veggies are just the ones that are high in sulfur, garlic, onion, brassicas...

When we don't get sulfur from plants, and they are more available there, our body breaks methionine and cysteine, to get the sulfur that is part of them! If needed, the body can also break our muscles to get the sulfur from there. This is actually why we can loose muscles when we are ill or fasting, and we will not loose fat only.

We need to increase sulfur intake slowly, because sulfur needs sulfur for assimilation. Having sulfur producing bacterias is also known as a tip the body uses to get sulfur... Eat your cabbage!

On carnivore, I wanted my coffee with coconut oil and egg yolks... the THREE of them are rich in sulfur! And indeed I was also adding garlic and onion to my meat quite frequently... Trust your guts!

Eating zero carbs indeed bought me enough time to get my guts better....
And as I am an Aspie, well, the autistic spectrum more often has the 3 issues together: gluten, casein and oxalate. good to know!

I was shocked that the carnivore world pretends "there are no ex-carnivore" because this is not true, and many people have stopped the diet without saying anything. Either they got the result they wanted, and did not need it anymore, or they got some health issues, including a lack of vitamine C and an excess of vitamine A.

I was also shocked they don't warn about oxalate dumping. (I will make a post about it soon) I remember sharing some signs in carnivore groups in FaceBook, and no admin was telling anything. This point might be changing now, because of those who like me were not happy by the holding of vital informations.

Reducing our diet can absolutely valuable, but we need to know more why, how long, etc. It is obvious that native people were omnivores and following a local diet. We messed up somewhere, and a reduced diet is much less resilient and sustainable.

As the science about how to choose is still missing, maybe it is time to come back to the good old ways without science: clinical evidence. We need to share what worked and not, and how we got aware of what did not work. It is difficult to choose between 2 options: 1) I did not do it right, so I try better. 2) It does not work for me, or no more, I have to come off of it.

Then what to do and how to reintroduce foods? So I decided to form a FB group to talk about the different aspects of us humans having come out of our omnivore diet.
It is called "We are omnivores. So why can't we?" https://www.facebook.com/groups/2161806330588185/

Interesting thread. Big variety of opinions and advice. Hard to know what to do.
This makes good sense to me as the starting point:  https://growfood.com/414/humans-carnivore-herbivore-or-omnivore-by-john-coleman/

Robert Joseph wrote:Interesting thread. Big variety of opinions and advice. Hard to know what to do.
This makes good sense to me as the starting point:  https://growfood.com/414/humans-carnivore-herbivore-or-omnivore-by-john-coleman/

I think it is oriented, because not all animals in these categories are similar, even different apes... When I have seen the representation in drawings, we are obviously closer to a dog than to a gorilla! And our stomach acid is lower than this. So this

Comparative anatomy works on the simple and demonstrable fact that the biological form usually defines function.

is not true unless taking ALL our biological form into account!! Is often forgotten that we have many features other animals don't have, so why would physiology change when not needed? Like for example we don't NEED fangs and claws!

The best starting point for me is anthropology. As long as people were not too numerous, they had an omnivore diet, and the amount of vegetal / animal foods varied according to the place, avaibility, seasons... but was always as high in animal foods as possible.

And everybody forgets in general about insects eating...

Why on earth try to show what we can eat with such information, when
- other animals just know
- you can see what humans do and have done in the past
- you can see what babies will eat when proposed food.
By the way, too many babies are poured food into their mouth... Let them choose! And also stop purees! They stick in the mouth and cannot spit what they don't like, and it messes up with their instinct and belly feelings! For me, videos on Internet are unequivocal: meat and fruits. Fruits were seasonal according to the place where we live.

And don't forget we can escape predators too well to be plantivores... We are obviously not fond of letting predators regulate our population! So the best way to not have to end up with wars would be to accept than meat eaters are regulated by the amount of food available. Eating more meat would keep us in check....

Compared digestive systems, about specific species. Not even all herbivores / all carnivores have the exact same digestive system!

Robert Joseph wrote:Interesting thread. Big variety of opinions and advice. Hard to know what to do.
This makes good sense to me as the starting point:  https://growfood.com/414/humans-carnivore-herbivore-or-omnivore-by-john-coleman/

Closest look... part of it is false.

Jaw: I do not see us as having the jaws and muscles of herbivores, and do we more easily move our mouth up and down or side to side? We do not chew side to side.

Incisors: If you have seen dogs eating: they use their incisors to pull bits from bones, and can use their molars for this, because of their wider opening. We use our incisors for all this. We can also cut fruits etc.
But how can they HONESTLY compare to herbivores when for example sheep have no upper incisors at all!!!

Canines: As well said, they are more for defense, like in some apes.
But about evolution... why would we develop canine if we could develop other "tools" and weapons?

Mollars and chewing: Again, have a reak look at herbivores... Nothing to do with us. And it is not true that we have to chew extensively. If we cut meat in the right size, we can also swallow it.
The presence of enzymes to start starch digestion proves that we can digest it, but it indeed says we are omnivores. As food changes with the seasons, it says that we are adapted to change food with a better resilience than other species!

Stomach type: They obviously should have separated ruminants from other herbivores with a simple stomach. It is not possible to analyse each part without relating to the others. Look at the intestine of simple stomach herbivores compared to ours!

About guts:
Human small intestine - 20ft, Human colon - 5ft, Average human height - 5.5ft.

Average herbivore small intestine - 80ft, Average herbivore colon - 160ft, Average herbivore length 6ft

Average carnivore small intestine - 19ft, Average carnivore colon - 6ft, Average carnivore length 4ft

Stomach acidity.... a blatant lie in the growfood link, as it is simply not true and not controvertial:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastric_acid

The pH of gastric acid is 1.5 to 3.5 in the human stomach lumen, the acidity being maintained by the proton pump H+/K+ ATPase. The parietal cell releases bicarbonate into the bloodstream in the process, which causes a temporary rise of pH in the blood, known as an alkaline tide.
The highly acidic environment in the stomach lumen causes proteins from food to lose their characteristic folded structure (or denature). This exposes the protein's peptide bonds. The gastric chief cells of the stomach secrete enzymes for protein breakdown (inactive pepsinogen, and in infancy rennin). Hydrochloric acid activates pepsinogen into the enzyme pepsin, which then helps digestion by breaking the bonds linking amino acids, a process known as proteolysis.
In addition, many microorganisms have their growth inhibited by such an acidic environment, which is helpful to prevent infection.  

And this acidity is also what triggers the release of what comes next: alkaline fluids from gall bladder and pancreas.

Looks like I posted on this thread a couple  of times five  years ago.  I'd like to add my thoughts now, five years later.

First, it's astonishing the amount of nutritional misinformation that's permeated our culture.  There are a number of reasons for this.  One is money -- big ag has promoted things like soy consumption, seed oils, sugar (is good for you?!?), and processed foods of all kinds.  They make money off this stuff, most of which, a couple of generations ago, was agricultural BY-PRODUCTS, not considered fit for human consumption.  Another reason is religious.  There are several religions which teach that eating meat is bad.  There are various reasons for this, not the same reasons in every religion that teaches it, and I suppose if your reasons for not eating meat are religious, you may want to stick with that even if your health suffers.  

At this point, late 2023, there are many (and increasing daily) practicing medical professionals who promote a low or zero carb diet for medical reasons to their patients.  The supposed studies that say that eating meat is bad are ALL seriously flawed.  

Replying to some of the comments from a few years ago (in no particular order, just as I jotted down notes while re-reading the thread):  Fiber is not only NOT necessary for gut health, it's actually contraindicated for a lot of people.  Things like Crohn's, IBS, and chronic constipation are improved, and often cured, on the carnivore diet.  (Avoid cheese if you continue to have trouble with constipation.)  My youngest daughter and I have long had trouble with chronic constipation; going carnivore has completely cured that.

Grass-finished meat is probably slightly healthier than standard meat from the grocery store, but the differences are not huge.  Even standard grocery store meat is vastly better than the Standard American Diet.  And keep in mind that if you are buying meat from ruminants (cattle, sheep, goats), most of them spend almost their entire lives on pasture, only being finished for a few weeks in feed lots (cattle -- not sheep or goats, at least not that I've ever heard of).  They aren't going to lose all of the nutritional benefits of their year and a half or two years on pasture, in just the few weeks that they spend in the feed lot.  The one exception would probably be an old dairy cow -- unfortunately, a lot of dairies do still have their milkers on confinement feeding, and those old cows do end up being butchered.  Because the meat is not as tender as a younger animal, I doubt that much of that meat ends up on the plastic trays at the supermarket, though.  

Someone has already addressed this, but it bears repeating:  Meat, even standard meat from the grocery store, is far more nutritionally complete than plant-based foods.  Vegans have to eat how many supplements in order to get a complete diet?  While meat eaters usually need none, or very little (and would need far more if they dropped the meat out of their diets).  It's also absolutely critical that the fat in a meat diet is much healthier for the human body than the fat in a vegan diet.  I've come to believe that seed oils are even worse for us than sugar is, and sugar is bad.  Non-seed vegetable oils (coconut oil, olive oil, avocado oil) are better, but still not as healthy as animal fats.  Not what the standard nutritional advice has been telling us for the past few generations, is it?  And how is that working out for us?!?  Epidemic obesity, diabetes, autism and autoimmune disease rocketing, and much more.  

Pasture-based animal agriculture is FAR LESS harmful to the environment than traditional crop-based agriculture -- and can be integrated with permaculture.  I would even say that grazing and browsing livestock improves permaculture.  Properly managed grazing (and browsing) vastly improves the land and the ecosystem.  True, it's not always properly managed, but I think progress is being made.  Shutting livestock agriculture down is progress in the wrong direction -- it will harm the environment, as well as damaging our nutritional status.

Most people actually need MUCH MORE protein in their diets than they are currently getting.  I'm 5'3" and should be eating about 119 gms. protein daily (and am getting fairly close to that at this point).  Taller people need to get more protein than that.  Protein does NOT cause gout, by the way.  Oxalates (from plants) are a major culprit in gout, and eating too much carbohydrates/sugar is the other major culprit.

Carbohydrates are absolutely NOT an essential nutrient for any adult.  They may be essential for infants, but even then should only come from mother's milk, NOT from soy-based formulas.  Even many professional athletes eat strictly carnivore, though, as Dr. Anthony Chaffee (a former professional athlete, now a neurosurgeon) says, most of them won't admit to it in permies, because they have an advantage over other players who still eat carbs, and they are trying to keep that performance advantage!  

I would say that what our ancestors ate is probably mostly irrelevant.  Food wasn't often so plentiful that they had a lot of choice -- they ate what they could get ahold of, and were thankful for it.  We need to figure out what works for us, never mind what worked for them!

You can do carnivore with no gallbladder.  I restarted carnivore almost a year ago, and had to have my gallbladder out in April (I'd been having trouble with it for a long time, just didn't realize what was going on).  I'm doing much better without it, to be honest, though I did take ox bile supplements with meals for about a month, and still do once in a while if we have a meal with more fat than usual.

Our food bill on carnivore is the same or lower than it was when we weren't on carnivore.  I seldom buy any expensive cuts of meat (a bag of frozen shrimp for a treat once in a while, and once in a great while I'll get a beef roast, but mostly we eat the cheapest hamburger, a little pork and chicken, and once a week or so some fish (usually canned).  

Five years ago, when this thread started, I wasn't able to make myself weather the 'keto flu' that I experienced on starting carnivore.  A year ago, I'd been eating too many carbs (and knew it), and was having severe muscle and joint pain, and trouble with arthritis which includes severe back pain.  I was just about non-functional, and was at a point where I was either going to have to go to the ER (I was in that much pain), or restart carnivore and tough it out until I was past the 'keto flu.'  Having a strong aversion to most modern medical care, I chose to go back on carnivore.  I felt pretty yucky for about three weeks -- I dealt with that by eating small amounts of low-carb vegetables when it got too bad.  So every two or three days, I'd have a few bites of broccoli or sauerkraut or cooked cabbage.  That got me through that period.  It wasn't until after my gallbladder came out in April, though, that I really started to feel well on the carnivore diet, even though my pain levels did drop to almost unnoticeable.  After I'd been carnivore for a few weeks, I decided to put my daughter on it, too (she's autistic, has celiac disease, and has lupus, in addition to other problems).  It took a bit longer to get her settled in to it, as she's always loved her carbs, but now she asks for meat, and (except on her bad days, which we still have not figured out the cause of) she eats meat quite well.  It's a little harder to tell with her, because she doesn't communicate well, but from what I can see, she's feeling better, too.  The bad days don't come as often.  Her weight is down to 107 at her last Dr. visit (her lowest was 98 lbs.).  I'd like to get a few pounds on her, but she's only 5'2" and small-bones, so that's not too bad, and she doesn't look like a famine victim, like she did the last time she was this low -- she's retaining muscle even though she gets very little exercise.  I've only lost about 20 lbs. and need to lose a lot more, but even if I never lost another pound, I feel so much better that I'm sticking to this.  And when I do go off carnivore, I really pay for it.  The consequences -- back, muscle, and joint pain, and sometimes gut pain -- are so quick that there's no question what the cause is.  

Would I like to be able to eat a wider variety of foods?  Absolutely.  But not at the price of being in severe pain all the time!

At this point, late 2023, there are many (and increasing daily) practicing medical professionals who promote a low or zero carb diet for medical reasons to their patients.  The supposed studies that say that eating meat is bad are ALL seriously flawed.  

AMEN!

Replying to some of the comments from a few years ago (in no particular order, just as I jotted down notes while re-reading the thread):  Fiber is not only NOT necessary for gut health, it's actually contraindicated for a lot of people.  Things like Crohn's, IBS, and chronic constipation are improved, and often cured, on the carnivore diet.  (Avoid cheese if you continue to have trouble with constipation.)  My youngest daughter and I have long had trouble with chronic constipation; going carnivore has completely cured that.

I never had digestive issues until about 5 years ago. Tried several expensive and complicated elmination diets that didn't help. Turned out I just needed to eliminate plant foods! It is so wonderful not to have constant pain and heartburn.

Meat, even standard meat from the grocery store, is far more nutritionally complete than plant-based foods.  Vegans have to eat how many supplements in order to get a complete diet?  While meat eaters usually need none, or very little (and would need far more if they dropped the meat out of their diets).  It's also absolutely critical that the fat in a meat diet is much healthier for the human body than the fat in a vegan diet.  I've come to believe that seed oils are even worse for us than sugar is, and sugar is bad.  Non-seed vegetable oils (coconut oil, olive oil, avocado oil) are better, but still not as healthy as animal fats.  Not what the standard nutritional advice has been telling us for the past few generations, is it?  And how is that working out for us?!?  Epidemic obesity, diabetes, autism and autoimmune disease rocketing, and much more.  

This has been borne out in our experience. And even though our freezers were full of pork, it has still worked okay with me supplementing some grocery store beef (the cheap stuff like chuck roast). My last stupid diet had me eating spoonfuls of plant oils, not the worst ones but definitely doing better with my tallow, lard and butter.

Our food bill on carnivore is the same or lower than it was when we weren't on carnivore.  I seldom buy any expensive cuts of meat (a bag of frozen shrimp for a treat once in a while, and once in a great while I'll get a beef roast, but mostly we eat the cheapest hamburger, a little pork and chicken, and once a week or so some fish (usually canned).  

Ours is definitely lower.

So glad to hear your daughter is doing better.
We are about 6 weeks in and experiencing pain this week which I suspect is oxylate dumping.
I am sleeping soooo much better and overall getting stronger and having more energy and forgetting less. And I can't "feel" my digestive system which is wonderful. This is the easiest diet I've ever tried. A huge factor is that my cravings are practically nil. We are sticking pretty close. I do have one cup of coffee, and a little bit of honey and we are eating dairy as our A1/A2 Jersey heifer had just given birth when we started. hahahaha

I started a new thread only because it felt like I would be hijacking this one and what I wanted to do was a little different. You might like it. Lots of Dr. Chaffee, my favorite!

Just came across this thread and it’s appropriately timed considering my wife and I are planning to do some variation of a carnivore diet very soon.

Anyone here any updates from matt since the last video he posted? Wondering how long he’s been on the diet and how his symptoms are at this point. And if he’s had his bloodwork checked all along the way.