New Community, I’ve created some seed posts!
Carnivore - The ultimate elimination diet
Purpose
- lifestyle
- food
- Science
- problems
- Recipes
- Sustainability
- Regenerative lifestyle
Rules
- Be nice
- Stay on topic
- Don’t farm rage
- Be respectful of other diets, choices, lifestyles!!!
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Honestly, are there that many people who do a carnivorous diet?
Omnivores, sure, but exclusively meat?
I think that the Inuit traditionally eat overwhelmingly meat, as there isn’t a lot of plant food available, but I don’t know about exclusively.
Like, vegans already have their own issues in getting the right nutrients, and I’d think that carnivores would have a harder time. Scurvy?
Probably not that many, honestly. It’s niche. Even the intuit today have moved to a mostly western diet, with its incumbent issues.
Right now the most mainstream use case for carnivore is as a elimination tool - people having some gut or inflammation issue go strict pure carnivore for 6 weeks or so, then introduce different foods back into their diet - very slowly - until the issue happens again.
Like, vegans already have their own issues in getting the right nutrients, and I’d think that carnivores would have a harder time. Scurvy?
In your own example, the Intuit did not suffer from scurvy. Also, meat has vitamin C in it, yes really, yes I know some places list it as 0… it’s assumed 0, but when measured, its there.
Think of it this way, if there is something necessary for animals to have, and you eat the animal that has it… you probably get it to… at least the essential forms of it. This assumes your eating the entire animal, tip to tail, meat, fat, organs… especially liver! This is why ground /minced meat is so great, especially if you can get a mix with organ meat in it… all in one, one stop shopping.
Like, vegans already have their own issues in getting the right nutrients
It’s not difficult to eat a variety of foods and take a multivitamin and an omega 3 everyday 🙄
Waauw, the instant downvotes
Even if you don’t care about animal welfare this is like making a community for private jets, coal power, or other destructive things.
On top of that it comes across as (or straight up is) a reactionary response to everyone saying meat is unsustainable. Nobody would be talking about carnivore diets if vegans didn’t exist.
I personally have had enough of reactionary bullshit and it’s a big reason I left Reddit, not gonna buy into the same shit coming here
It is a dangerous diet, people saw through the grift.
Indeed - Carnivores are clearly a underserved minority in the fediverse. That is why I decided to make the community, a safe space for brisket!
At least vegetarian and vegans can block it
That would be a good outcome! some people, however, live to downvote things they don’t like - over and over, every day! Oh well, thats life in the fediverse.
I’m actually subbed to multiple vegan/veggie communities - and I only upvote there. I’m mindful it’s a safe space for vegans to discuss amongst themselves and I’m thankful I can read and participate.
You sound so spiteful, your arteries are going to get blocked.
You figured me out. Only a spiteful person would downvote the last 20 posts somebody made on social media because they want to eat a different diet.
A stereotype personified
This is just a troll community that is cutting its nose to spite its face because the poster has some revenge fantasy towards the vegans users of Lemmy.
The carnivore diet is not healthy as humans are supposed to eat vegetables and fruit. You will damage your heart and increase your risk for cancer following this dangerous diet.
Red meat (beef, veal, pork, lamb and mutton) consumption contributes several important nutrients to the diet, for example essential amino acids, vitamins (including B12) and minerals (including iron and zinc). Processed red meat (ham, sausages, bacon, frankfurters, salami, etc.) undergoes treatment (curing, smoking, salting or the use of chemical preservatives and additives) to improve its shelf life and/or taste. During recent decades, consumption of red meat has been increasing globally, especially in developing countries. At the same time, there has been growing evidence that high consumption of red meat, especially of processed meat, may be associated with an increased risk of several major chronic diseases. Here, a comprehensive summary is provided of the accumulated evidence based on prospective cohort studies regarding the potential adverse health effects of red meat consumption on major chronic diseases, such as diabetes, coronary heart disease, heart failure, stroke and cancer at several sites, and mortality. Risk estimates from pooled analyses and meta-analyses are presented together with recently published findings. Based on at least six cohorts, summary results for the consumption of unprocessed red meat of 100 g day-1 varied from nonsignificant to statistically significantly increased risk (11% for stroke and for breast cancer, 15% for cardiovascular mortality, 17% for colorectal and 19% for advanced prostate cancer); for the consumption of 50 g day-1 processed meat, the risks were statistically significantly increased for most of the studied diseases (4% for total prostate cancer, 8% for cancer mortality, 9% for breast, 18% for colorectal and 19% for pancreatic cancer, 13% for stroke, 22% for total and 24% for cardiovascular mortality and 32% for diabetes). Potential biological mechanisms underlying the observed risks and the environmental impact of red meat production are also discussed. The evidence-based integrated message is that it is plausible to conclude that high consumption of red meat, and especially processed meat, is associated with an increased risk of several major chronic diseases and preterm mortality. Production of red meat involves an environmental burden. Therefore, some European countries have already integrated these two issues, human health and the ‘health of the planet’, into new dietary guidelines and recommended limiting consumption of red meat.
humans are supposed to eat vegetables and fruit
Hmmm hmmm. Along with meat, because humans are omnivores.
If you choose to live a different lifestyle, for ethics or sustainability, then that’s your choice. But don’t go making up biological, science-sounding falsehoods. Our closest evolutionary cousins are omnivores, just like ourselves.
It is scientifically backed that you don’t need to eat meat.
New research published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition shows that both plant-based protein and meat build muscle equally well however because plant-protein comes with less ‘baggage’ in the form of harmful components it’s the more beneficial protein source to use.
A study published last week in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that dietary protein derived from plant sources built muscle just as well as protein from meat sources. However meat also comes with additional components that are harmful to our health, including antibiotic residue, hormones, saturated fat, trans-fats, endotoxins, cholesterol, Neu5Gc, heterocyclic amines and contaminants such as high levels of metals including copper and arsenic. These undesirable elements increase inflammation and promote various diseases thus making meat a less desirable option when building muscle and long term health are considered.
https://www.riseofthevegan.com/blog/plant-protein-best-for-building-muscle
Anyone can follow a vegan diet – from children to teens to older adults. It’s even healthy for pregnant or nursing mothers. A well-planned vegan diet is high in fibre, vitamins and antioxidants. Plus, it’s low in saturated fat and cholesterol. This healthy combination helps protect against chronic diseases. Vegans have lower rates of heart disease, diabetes and certain types of cancer than non-vegans. Vegans also have lower blood pressure levels than both meat-eaters and vegetarians and are less likely to be overweight.
“There’s certainly some research on the benefits of the vegetarian diet,” says Kathy McManus, director of the Department of Nutrition at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She ticks off the various advantages associated with this way of eating—lower body mass index and blood pressure; reduced risks for heart disease, diabetes, and cancer; and longer life.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/is-a-vegetarian-or-vegan-diet-for-you
The objective of this article is to present to physicians an update on plant-based diets. Concerns about the rising cost of health care are being voiced nationwide, even as unhealthy lifestyles are contributing to the spread of obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. For these reasons, physicians looking for cost-effective interventions to improve health outcomes are becoming more involved in helping their patients adopt healthier lifestyles. Healthy eating may be best achieved with a plant-based diet, which we define as a regimen that encourages whole, plant-based foods and discourages meats, dairy products, and eggs as well as all refined and processed foods. We present a case study as an example of the potential health benefits of such a diet. Research shows that plant-based diets are cost-effective, low-risk interventions that may lower body mass index, blood pressure, HbA1C, and cholesterol levels. They may also reduce the number of medications needed to treat chronic diseases and lower ischemic heart disease mortality rates. Physicians should consider recommending a plant-based diet to all their patients, especially those with high blood pressure, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, or obesity.
the only peer reviewed source you provided spends as much time detailing risks as it does explaining potential benefits, and it’s based on a single case study.
the only peer reviewed source you provided spends as much time detailing risks as it does explaining potential benefits.
That doesn’t disprove anything at all. The health benefits are there and it’s not difficult at all to eat a variety of grains, seeds, mushrooms, vegetables, fruit. You only need one of each supplement: the multivitamin and omega 3 every day.
Also byw people in general are not getting enough vitamin d and fibre in the average diet.
You’re just putting your head in the sand to keep up your old habits while ignoring the evidence just like an anti-vaxxer.
it shows that the evidence you’ve provided doesn’t actually support your claim
Now you’re just moving the goal posts and claiming what ever suits your beliefs.
no, I’m examining your position, and the evidence provided, and found that they are insufficient.
Sure you don’t need to eat anything besides condensed nutrient paste. But humans certainly evolved eating meat. There places in the world where large scale agriculture is effectively impossible because of the terrain and most nutrients come from grazing animals.
A tomato grown in Iceland has many times the carbon footprint compared a free range goat which just grazes on some fjords for a few years.
How do you spot a non-vegan? Don’t worry they’ll tell you
It’s not a troll. I genuinely don’t care what other people eat. I’m going to talk about it, and I want a place to talk about it.
The study you link to, is comically, linking all of the metabolic syndromes to the consumption of meat.
Let’s consider diabetes, type 2 diabetes is defined as the inability for the body to regulate blood glucose. Blood glucose is introduced from the consumption of sugar, or carbohydrates, or fructose.
A type 2 diabetic can bring their blood sugar down, just by not eating glucose, or sugar, or fructose, or carbohydrates.
Fat, and protein, which is what most animal food is, does not introduce glucose into the blood.
You don’t have eat only meat to avoid having too much sugar.
Just eat whole foods, there are so many grains, vegetables, fruit, nuts and seeds you could eat instead.
Don’t go for the fast food meals, processed stuff or candy.
Carbohydrates are converted to glucose in the liver. Someone who needs to maintain very strict glycemic control needs to be careful with grains and fruit.
You’re clearly talking out of your ass.
You don’t have to take my word for it.
https://doi.org/10.2337/diab.26.12.1178 - Plasma Responses to different Carbohydrates - 1977
You don’t even have to trust the literature, blood glucose monitors are ubiquitous and inexpensive. You can measure your own glucose response to different foods. This is why diabetics taking exogenous insulin have to dose their insulin based on the carbohydrates they are consuming.
That study you sent doesn’t prove the carnivore idea at all.
I can’t read your mind, when you call me names and say I’m wrong, I have to use context to guess what the topic actually is. So I gave you date on carbohydrate glycemic load, which was the content of the message that you insulted me for… A reasonable person would assume you had a issue with the topic you were responding to.
Just to front run the inevitable arguments - There are many healthy lifestyles / diets - Carnivore is one option. I have no urge to convert or decry other choices.
If your thriving, and insulin sensitive, doing something else - more power to you! Good on you.
What evidence do you have that it’s healthy? Everything I’ve seen points to meat being linked to things like heart disease and cancer.
Also, how do you rationalize choosing a diet that maximizes animal suffering and environmental harm?
All those studies linking meat to health risks usually point at red meat, and not poultry, pork and fish.
There is evidence of risks from just meat in general, but yes, it’s primary red meat and meat cooked at high heat that are the concerns.
Thanks for asking the questions! I appreciate your willingness to have a discussion!
The purpose of this community is not to change anybodies minds, or campaign, I’m happy people have chosen other diets - and I’m really glad those other paths are working for people!
What evidence do you have that it’s healthy?
The most concise resource I can point you to is : https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/skeptical-doctors They do a excellent, job and cite sources!
Carnivore is a subset of a low carb / ketogenic diet.
If you want to join me in discussing the literature: https://hackertalks.com/post/5678163 https://hackertalks.com/post/5678151 https://hackertalks.com/post/5592913 https://hackertalks.com/post/5596592 (This one requires a few more hoops and is a study about exogenous ketones, but still relevant when making diet choices)
Insulin resistance is the de facto marker of modern health issues; Carnivore by virtue of not spiking insulin, is a insulin sensitive diet, and avoids the metabolic syndrome family of problems (high blood pressure, cardio vascular disease, fatty liver disease, diabetes etc, etc)
Everything I’ve seen points to meat being linked to things like heart disease and cancer.
Heart disease is inextricably linked to metabolic syndrome, and insulin resistance; There are also findings suggestive of cancer linked to metabolic syndrome as well (see above). Carnivore, as a strict ketogenic subset, avoids metabolic syndrome entirely by maintaining insulin sensitivity.
how do you rationalize choosing a diet that maximizes animal suffering
If you choose a non-animal food diet for philosophical reasons, I applaud you, I can’t fault you, and I wish you the best success.
Personally, I have a long journey to fix metabolic issues, and the bioavailability of animal based nutrition is significantly higher https://hackertalks.com/post/5606539 and is part of my recovery plan. Getting proper vitamins and minerals is hard on any diet! Depending where you draw the line, this can be achieved with dairy, eggs, and fish as well.
how do you rationalize choosing a diet that maximizes … environmental harm?
I agree modern farming techniques need to be changed for both sustainability and humanitarian reasons. I’ve discussed the improvement of modern industrial food production before: https://hackertalks.com/post/5620914/6043326 but it boils down to
- Regenerative farming is a must
- No grain for ruminant animals, use the 15% of the earths surface that is only suitable for range land to feed the ruminants.
- Animals living natural lifestyles and diets are the healthiest, and the best for the food supply
- Removing needless medication and hormones from animal production is a must.
Keto is interesting, I haven’t personally tried it, but I definitely think it can be a useful tool, even if we don’t know how safe it is long term. However there are plant based ketogenic diets, so I don’t think that really supports a carnivore diet. It still remains that meat is linked to heart disease and cancer.
Nutrient density and bioavailability is a fair point, but nothing that can’t be compensated for by either eating more of certain foods or supplements within a plant based diet. And even if you were convinced that meat is necessary anyway, how is a full meat diet better than a mixed diet?
As far as ethics and environmental cost, while I agree with you that it could be less bad, meat production will never be ethical, nor sustainable. Raising cows for example, even with the most natural methods, still uses an enormous amout of resources including land and water for feed. And unless you’re somehow capturing the methane produced, that has a significant environmental cost as well.
The current reality of the meat industry today is much worse, though. If you’re eating meat today, you’re supporting today’s meat industry.
It still remains that meat is linked to heart disease and cancer.
As far as I’m aware the studies that have shown this link are observational (i.e. the literature will say “linked”, “associated”, “correlated”), with significant healthy user bias. None of the papers have compared ketogenic omnivore, vs pure carnivore, vs pure vegan (not keto). But if your aware of a paper that has a stronger link, I’d love to read it - I genuinely mean that, I’ll read every word of it!
I fully admit a standard american diet (SAD) - is a recipe for cancer, and heart disease! Any diet that moves away from it is a improvement! So if the studies linking to heart issues in the context of insulin resistance really apply to a insulin sensitive carnivore diet?
Allow me to flip the coin as a illustration - We know high sugar intake, and high carbohydrate intake are incredibly linked with insulin resistance - which is the driver for diabetes, cardio vascular issues. Using the same logic you have used, I could say (since all sugar/carbs comes from plants), with full accuracy and confidence, ‘it still remains that plants are linked to heart disease and cancer’. Clearly this is absurd and reductive way to discuss things.
Here is a bonus fun read on the issues with observational data and cherry picking: https://www.diagnosisdiet.com/full-article/meat-and-cancer
And even if you were convinced that meat is necessary anyway, how is a full meat diet better than a mixed diet?
If we agree that animal based foods are bioavailable and biocomplete, then a mixed diet would be for variety, or food availability. Can a insulin sensitive omnivore diet do as well as carnivore, probably. The markers I care about are all cause mortality, inflammation, gut health, and most importantly ease of compliance.
If someone has a chronic gut issue, like Chron’s or IBS… then carnivore is nearly a requirement to a decent quality of life. Most of carnivore food is fully digested before it gets to the intestines, which is why its such a boon for people with gut issues.
meat production will never be ethical, nor sustainable.
I respect your conclusions, and I thank you for sharing them with me.
If you’re eating meat today, you’re supporting today’s meat industry.
Yes, with great enthusiasm, hence my creating this community. Though I do purchase my meat directly from a sustainable farm.
There are many, many, studies showing these links. I don’t think keto is relevant in assessing the risk of meat itself.
And no, meat is not biocomplete. You’ll eventually run into vitamin deficiencies if you don’t eat anything else. Although you can always supplement.
https://health.selfdecode.com/blog/carnivore-diet/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2840051/
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/fsn3.3300
https://www.myibsteam.com/resources/carnivore-diet-for-ibs-is-it-effective
Though I do purchase my meat directly from a sustainable farm.
Even if it’s relatively “sustainable” compared to other meat production, it still has an enormous environmental cost compared to plant foods.
I don’t expect to change your mind about this, and if this diet is the only thing that works for you personally to address your gut issues, so be it, I can’t really fault you for that.
But anyone else reading this should know that it’s neither healthy nor sustainable.
You’ll eventually run into vitamin deficiencies if you don’t eat anything else.
What is deficient?
Everything is in a context, I’m just going to discuss one in your first link (which isn’t research, just a blog) - Scurvy. The intuit eating their traditional diet did not get scurvy, famously… funnily enough - meat has vitamin C in it (among other things) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22063662/
Oh, I now realize the first site also lists Vitamin A as a carnivore deficiency, but also says Liver is the best source of Vitamin A… That is … some gymnastics there. Let me say, you can’t eat healthily by just eating muscle. You have to eat the whole animal - tip to tail. Liver too! Liver is the best thing you ever eat. The fat is necessary, the organs are necessary. That is why ground meat is probably the best food you can get at a grocery store (just behind liver)
The second paper - Food questionnaire applied to a high carbohydrate population (healthy user bias/observational study)
Third paper - They even use ‘MAY’ in the title, which also means MAY NOT.
The fourth - is a article by a lay person.
This is the poor quality science issue I was referring to in the previous post.
If your going to have a blanket statement like this isn’t sustainable - you have to address real counter examples - the intuit lived without plants, and without cancer on a all carnivore diet.
There are other nutrients than vitamin c and a, but If you’re eating a high seafood diet and lots of liver, great.
Low carb isn’t going to magically protect you from cancer and heart disease. Studies don’t have to be specifically on low carb diets to be valid. Also ‘may be a significant risk factor’ is normal scientific wording for finding a statistical correlation.
the intuit lived without plants, and without cancer I don’t think we have evidence for that, and I’m not sure it’s even relevant.
More importantly though, even the best farming practices, there is no sustainable or environmentally friendly way to produce meat. Again, I’m not sure what the Inuit have to do with that, given how different our modern meat industry is. But growing food, feeding it to animals (who produce greenhouse gasses), and eating those animals is an extremely inefficient and destructive way to get food. Not to mention the horrific treatment, enslavement, and killing of those animals.
