Carnivore Diet

[Hoodie]

If you eat carbs and saturated fat you gain body fat but eating high saturated fat and protein does not make you fat without raising insulin from the carbs.

You don't gain weight because of the insulin spike from carbs. You gain weight from being in a caloric surplus. It doesn't matter what you eat to be in a caloric surplus. You can gain weight on carnivore. If I force-feed a sedentary person 8 grass fed ribeyes a day, they will get fat. Doesn't matter that there's no carbs. And getting fat that way is just as bad for you as getting fat any other way. There aren't any magical macronutrients, or evil macronutrients. There's just macronutrients.

And when you say "nutrient-dense", which nutrients do you mean? Meats are great sources of some nutrients, like B-vitamins. They are piss-poor sources of other nutrients.

I just can't see the rationale for not eating fruits and vegetables. It's not like you see a bunch of morbidly obese people who eat salads all the time dropping dead left and right.

 

[Sapcut]

Health

You don't gain weight because of the insulin spike from carbs. You gain weight from being in a caloric surplus. It doesn't matter what you eat to be in a caloric surplus. You can gain weight on carnivore. If I force-feed a sedentary person 8 grass fed ribeyes a day, they will get fat. Doesn't matter that there's no carbs. And getting fat that way is just as bad for you as getting fat any other way. There aren't any magical macronutrients, or evil macronutrients. There's just macronutrients.

And when you say "nutrient-dense", which nutrients do you mean? Meats are great sources of some nutrients, like B-vitamins. They are piss-poor sources of other nutrients.

I just can't see the rationale for not eating fruits and vegetables. It's not like you see a bunch of morbidly obese people who eat salads all the time dropping dead left and right.

You can go right now and sit on almost any bench in North America and just look at the people walking by just look at the 7 of 10 that are obese and more importanly unhealthy. Those 7 did not get that way from eating protein and saturated fat from animal products. They got that way from eating foods that raised their insulin first then the flab was gained. Not to mention probably 5 of the 7 had bad covid cases simply due to the unhealth of obesity.

Incorrect about weight gain not being from carbs. When carbs are ingested, blood sugar rises. (Some carbs raise blood sugar quicker than others). Our bodies are well designed with a pancreas and beta cells to combat the dangers of high blood sugar. So when sugar elevates, the beta cells in the pancreas secretes insulin (i.e. insulation, fat storage hormone). The insulin takes the sugar out of the blood and stores it into the flab cells making flab cells larger and humans fatter. The blood sugar then drops.

So when that person who ate the carbs, raised blood sugar, then insulin stored sugar into flab cells, then blood sugar drops......that is the person who becomes drowsy, napish, weak and starving with no energy, ironically not long after eating that previous carb meal. So that person now needs to eat food again to get any energy at all. The body flab cannot be used as energy in this scenario because insulin is in the bloodstream storing flab not allowing the burning of body flab. That is the 7 people you watched from the bench. They ate crap or they may have eaten meat and crap but they still ate crap, then their insulin dropped blood sugar, they got weak and quickly ate more crap to get more energy. And this cycle continues in an always hungry state and certainly not burning all the carbs they ingested in the process. So it is constant body flab storage.

When a person ingests a meal of fat and protein, the blood sugar does not rise and no insulin is secreted (any measurable amount). When that meal is used up as energy and the next meal is not ready yet, the body can then use body flab as energy....and there's the weight loss. That is why those people talk about having sustained energy all day long compared to the first scenario of eating carbs. Has nothing to do with amount of calories in and out.

With each scenario...carb meal vs. meat meal.....the carb meal doesn't allow the leptin hormone to work. Leptin tells you when you are satieted after a meal. When eating low nutrient carbs you are always hungry. When eating high nutrient fat and protein you get satieted. You don't get the bloated, tight physically full feeling. You suddenly have no desire to eat any more after getting flushed with nutrients. That is why a metabolically healthy person can't eat 8 ribeyes a day. They get all they need and want after about two. That does not happen with carbs. You get full when you are physically about to explode. Then hungry again soon after. Hence the 3+ meals per day nonsense that we all grew up doing. And again look around you.

Meats are full of most if not all nutrients we need to survive and thrive. Full to the brim with essential fats, all the amino acids, B vitamins, omega 3s, etc. Veggies do have important nutrients if you can ingest enough to digest and absorb to do you any good.

For the 7 of 10 obese and unhealthy, I would suggest to them to go into damage control mode like yesterday.....not to eat one green bean or one piece of fruit nor any other sugar or carb. But rather, for a time, to eat quality wild meat (super high in omega 3s), wild salmon, pastured eggs, avacado, butter, coconut oil. Then when healthy again include different fruits and veggies if desired. Excess body fat will certainly melt off but a healthy body will happen.

That is the scenario our pancreas is designed for...to seldomly bring blood sugar down to protect us, not abuse that perfect design every meal. That leads to insulin resistance, then diabetes, then the chances of cancer, heart disease, stroke and alzheimers are drastically increased. It's simply the wrong way to eat and you can see it every where you look.

 

[Hoodie]

Insulin spikes from carbs don't make people gain extra weight. Countless studies have been done on this. If you control for calories, macronutrient breakdown doesn't matter. It really is as simple as calories in vs calories out.

A person eating nothing but french fries and doughnuts at maintenance will not get fatter. Regardless of how much their insulin spikes.

A person eating a surplus of nothing but grass fed beef will gain bodyfat. Even if they're in ketosis the entire time.

 

[fwafwow]

Insulin spikes from carbs don't make people gain extra weight. Countless studies have been done on this. If you control for calories, macronutrient breakdown doesn't matter. It really is as simple as calories in vs calories out.

A person eating nothing but french fries and doughnuts at maintenance will not get fatter. Regardless of how much their insulin spikes.

A person eating a surplus of nothing but grass fed beef will gain bodyfat. Even if they're in ketosis the entire time.

At the risk of wading in between two people who sound better informed than me - I think one point is that control for calories is missing the satiation issue. If I eat more carbs, I feel hungrier sooner and end up eating more - of something - which ends up making my calorie count higher. When I did the carnivore diet, I struggled to eat some days because I was satiated.

I personally gave up carnivore but I still tend to err towards protein and fat to help minimize the craving for the processed carb snacks etc.

 

[Sapcut]

Insulin spikes from carbs don't make people gain extra weight. Countless studies have been done on this. If you control for calories, macronutrient breakdown doesn't matter. It really is as simple as calories in vs calories out.

A person eating nothing but french fries and doughnuts at maintenance will not get fatter. Regardless of how much their insulin spikes.

A person eating a surplus of nothing but grass fed beef will gain bodyfat. Even if they're in ketosis the entire time.

Alrighty then.

 

[bdan68]

Continuously having insulin spikes and high insulin levels day after day, and year after year, is what leads to diabetes. And with that usually comes with weight gain and obesity.

 

[Hoodie]

At the risk of wading in between two people who sound better informed than me - I think one point is that control for calories is missing the satiation issue. If I eat more carbs, I feel hungrier sooner and end up eating more - of something - which ends up making my calorie count higher. When I did the carnivore diet, I struggled to eat some days because I was satiated.

I personally gave up carnivore but I still tend to err towards protein and fat to help minimize the craving for the processed carb snacks etc.

This is a good point that I don't disagree with. Anecdotally, I have also felt less hunger on low carb diets.

Tons of people lose tons of weight and improve many health metrics on low carb diets. Which is great. I would just argue that the reason that happens is that they were in a caloric deficit, and they could achieve the same outcome if they restricted calories similarly eating a balanced diet. I think an overwhelming amount of evidence supports this if anyone is willing to look into the huge amount of peer reviewed research done on it.

Low-carb or low-fat is personal preference. They both work for fat loss.

I definitely do not think it is a good idea to encourage people not to eat vegetables. I can't even begin to wrap my head around that one.

 

[swavescatter]

Not going to read all the replies, but I always see the argument for:

Calories in/Calories out.

There’s a great article I read called “The Death of the Calorie” that was paywalled last I checked.

Calories are a poor measure of dietary impact. Wood has calories, but it takes longer to break down than pass through your system. Cold water is Calorie negative. Cooling cooked white rice overnight HALVES the effective caloric impact due to a coating of less digestible carbs forming on the surface.

Keto taught me that not all carbs are created equal, nor do they have the same impact. Our bodies are driven by hormones and tailored digestive gut micro biomes. We’re not bomb calorimeters that match perfectly to food labels.

 

[swavescatter]

Death of the calorie

For more than a century we’ve counted on calories to tell us what will make us fat. Peter Wilson says it’s time to bury the world’s most misleading measure

www.economist.com

 

[bdan68]

Carbs only real purpose should be to prevent people from starving to death. We can get all the nutrients our bodies need from meat. In my opinion fruits and vegetables are a waste of money and while some people may enjoy eating them, they can be very detrimental to our health. I'm just over a year now of a meat only diet. Never felt better and I'm down 60 pounds from what I was a year and a half ago.

 

[Hoodie]

What scientific evidence is there that fruit and vegetable intake is associated with adverse health outcomes? How are they very detrimental?

I'm only aware of the large body of evidence that says the opposite.

 

[Hoodie]

Fruit and Vegetable Intake and Mortality: Results From 2 Prospective Cohort Studies of US Men and Women and a Meta-Analysis of 26 Cohort Studies - PubMed

Higher intakes of fruit and vegetables were associated with lower mortality; the risk reduction plateaued at ≈5 servings of fruit and vegetables per day. These findings support current dietary recommendations to increase intake of fruits and vegetables, but not fruit juices and potatoes.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Fruit and vegetable intake and the risk of cardiovascular disease, total cancer and all-cause mortality—a systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis of prospective studies

Background: Questions remain about the strength and shape of the dose-response relationship between fruit and vegetable intake and risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer and mortality, and the effects of specific types of fruit and vegetables. We conducted ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Improving fruit and vegetable intake attenuates the genetic association with long-term weight gain

Whether changes in fruit and vegetable intake can modify the effect of genetic susceptibility to obesity on long-term changes in BMI and body weight are uncertain.We analyzed the interactions of changes in total and specific fruit and vegetable intake ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Effects of fruit and vegetable consumption on inflammatory biomarkers and immune cell populations: a systematic literature review and meta-analysis - PubMed

In conclusion, this review suggests that higher intakes of fruit and vegetables lead to both a reduction in proinflammatory mediators and an enhanced immune cell profile.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Fruit and vegetable consumption and mortality from all causes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer: systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies

Objective To examine and quantify the potential dose-response relation between fruit and vegetable consumption and risk of all cause, cardiovascular, and cancer mortality.Data sources Medline, Embase, and the Cochrane library searched up to 30 August ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

This stuff has been studied to death.

Saying vegetables are bad for you is like saying smoking is good for you.

 

[AK Shane]

Humans are omnivores. We slowly evolved from herbivores to omnivores over hundreds of thousands of years. Eating a carnivore diet doesn't make you a carnivore. Your body is still designed to be an omnivore. Which means to be healthy your body needs those fruit and vegetables.

Are 7 out of 10 people walking down the street overweight? You're dang right they are. That has nothing to do with fruits and veggies. Its because they eat crap and aren't physically active. That is exactly what those 7 adults would tell you if you asked them why they are overweight. You guys are arguing from the extremes. Carbs are bad, no fruit is bad, no ribeyes are bad. Adults know what to eat to lose weight and be healthy they just don't do it because it takes more work.

Eat lots of fruits and veggies. Nuts and legumes. A little lean meat. Limit processed wheat and flower. Cut out processed sugar. Exercise everyday. Do these things and you lose weight and feel great. And you don't have to go on some extreme diet.

 

[fwafwow]

Fruit and Vegetable Intake and Mortality: Results From 2 Prospective Cohort Studies of US Men and Women and a Meta-Analysis of 26 Cohort Studies - PubMed

Higher intakes of fruit and vegetables were associated with lower mortality; the risk reduction plateaued at ≈5 servings of fruit and vegetables per day. These findings support current dietary recommendations to increase intake of fruits and vegetables, but not fruit juices and potatoes.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Fruit and vegetable intake and the risk of cardiovascular disease, total cancer and all-cause mortality—a systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis of prospective studies

Background: Questions remain about the strength and shape of the dose-response relationship between fruit and vegetable intake and risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer and mortality, and the effects of specific types of fruit and vegetables. We conducted ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Improving fruit and vegetable intake attenuates the genetic association with long-term weight gain

Whether changes in fruit and vegetable intake can modify the effect of genetic susceptibility to obesity on long-term changes in BMI and body weight are uncertain.We analyzed the interactions of changes in total and specific fruit and vegetable intake ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Effects of fruit and vegetable consumption on inflammatory biomarkers and immune cell populations: a systematic literature review and meta-analysis - PubMed

In conclusion, this review suggests that higher intakes of fruit and vegetables lead to both a reduction in proinflammatory mediators and an enhanced immune cell profile.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Fruit and vegetable consumption and mortality from all causes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer: systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies

Objective To examine and quantify the potential dose-response relation between fruit and vegetable consumption and risk of all cause, cardiovascular, and cancer mortality.Data sources Medline, Embase, and the Cochrane library searched up to 30 August ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

This stuff has been studied to death.

Saying vegetables are bad for you is like saying smoking is good for you.

I don't believe that fruits and vegetables are bad for you. But I personally won't bother reading those first two posted studies, as the blurbs alone point out that they are at best pointing to correlation, not causation ("associated" and "suggests"). (The abstract for the 3rd study also uses "associated.") I'm not throwing stones at @Hoodie - I have just given up on any scientific study that can't get past correlation, as IMHO that the worth of any such study is merely as a reason to have a better study performed.

It is my understanding that it is extremely hard (and costly) to have *any* diet study that is set up to determine causation. I also acknowledge this cuts against a "meat only" hypothesis (which, again, I used to support but I've pulled back to include at least some fruits and vegetables).

 

[Hoodie]

I don't believe that fruits and vegetables are bad for you. But I personally won't bother reading those first two posted studies, as the blurbs alone point out that they are at best pointing to correlation, not causation ("associated" and "suggests"). (The abstract for the 3rd study also uses "associated.") I'm not throwing stones at @Hoodie - I have just given up on any scientific study that can't get past correlation, as IMHO that the worth of any such study is merely as a reason to have a better study performed.

It is my understanding that it is extremely hard (and costly) to have *any* diet study that is set up to determine causation. I also acknowledge this cuts against a "meat only" hypothesis (which, again, I used to support but I've pulled back to include at least some fruits and vegetables).

As you correctly point out, causation in nutrition would be next to impossible to prove. It's not even the goal in studies pertaining to nutrition. All it's possible to do is show association, given that health outcomes tied to nutrition are multifactorial (i.e. cancer being related to genetics, diet, environmental factors, etc.)

Association is as good as it gets. You can have a strong association or a weak association. My point is that the association of fruit and veggie intake with lower CVD and cancer mortality is so strong, over so many studies, that it wouldn't be prudent to ignore it.

If we have hundreds of large studies showing an association between fruit and vegetable intake and good outcomes, and literally zero showing any association with bad outcomes, why would anyone be concerned about eating too many fruits and vegetables?

As it stands, the whole carnivore deal is just a cute hypothesis with literally no solid data to back it up. Avoiding fruits and vegetables isn't associated with anything except dying earlier.

But that's all I can really say on the matter. If someone wants to avoid fruits and veggies, it's no skin off my back. Anyone with a computer and 10 minutes can see what the decades of research on the topic says.

 

[Sapcut]

As you correctly point out, causation in nutrition would be next to impossible to prove. It's not even the goal in studies pertaining to nutrition. All it's possible to do is show association, given that health outcomes tied to nutrition are multifactorial (i.e. cancer being related to genetics, diet, environmental factors, etc.)

Association is as good as it gets. You can have a strong association or a weak association. My point is that the association of fruit and veggie intake with lower CVD and cancer mortality is so strong, over so many studies, that it wouldn't be prudent to ignore it.

If we have hundreds of large studies showing an association between fruit and vegetable intake and good outcomes, and literally zero showing any association with bad outcomes, why would anyone be concerned about eating too many fruits and vegetables?

As it stands, the whole carnivore deal is just a cute hypothesis with literally no solid data to back it up. Avoiding fruits and vegetables isn't associated with anything except dying earlier.

You are simply way behind. You need to do more research.

 

[fwafwow]

As you correctly point out, causation in nutrition would be next to impossible to prove. It's not even the goal in studies pertaining to nutrition. All it's possible to do is show association, given that health outcomes tied to nutrition are multifactorial (i.e. cancer being related to genetics, diet, environmental factors, etc.)

Association is as good as it gets. You can have a strong association or a weak association. My point is that the association of fruit and veggie intake with lower CVD and cancer mortality is so strong, over so many studies, that it wouldn't be prudent to ignore it.

If we have hundreds of large studies showing an association between fruit and vegetable intake and good outcomes, and literally zero showing any association with bad outcomes, why would anyone be concerned about eating too many fruits and vegetables?

As it stands, the whole carnivore deal is just a cute hypothesis with literally no solid data to back it up. Avoiding fruits and vegetables isn't associated with anything except dying earlier.

But that's all I can really say on the matter. If someone wants to avoid fruits and veggies, it's no skin off my back. Anyone with a computer and 10 minutes can see what the decades of research on the topic says.

We are beating a dead horse, on a tangent from the original post, but fwiw. I have no problems with eating fruits and veggies based on association - it's not like we are taking a drug based on association. But - are you *certain* there are zero studies showing any association with any bad outcomes? I realize it's impossible to prove a negative, and I'm not suggesting there are any out there - but it just piqued my curiosity.

 

[bdan68]

But that's all I can really say on the matter. If someone wants to avoid fruits and veggies, it's no skin off my back. Anyone with a computer and 10 minutes can see what the decades of research on the topic says.

Like the decades of research that tell us we should eat sugar and not eat fat?

 

[Sapcut]

As you correctly point out, causation in nutrition would be next to impossible to prove. It's not even the goal in studies pertaining to nutrition. All it's possible to do is show association, given that health outcomes tied to nutrition are multifactorial (i.e. cancer being related to genetics, diet, environmental factors, etc.)

Association is as good as it gets. You can have a strong association or a weak association. My point is that the association of fruit and veggie intake with lower CVD and cancer mortality is so strong, over so many studies, that it wouldn't be prudent to ignore it.

If we have hundreds of large studies showing an association between fruit and vegetable intake and good outcomes, and literally zero showing any association with bad outcomes, why would anyone be concerned about eating too many fruits and vegetables?

As it stands, the whole carnivore deal is just a cute hypothesis with literally no solid data to back it up. Avoiding fruits and vegetables isn't associated with anything except dying earlier.

But that's all I can really say on the matter. If someone wants to avoid fruits and veggies, it's no skin off my back. Anyone with a computer and 10 minutes can see what the decades of research on the topic says.

Anyone with a computer and 10 minutes can see what the decades of research on the topic says.

I agree. The 10 minutes is just the beginning.

If you are interested in unbiased research I suggest just beginning with Jason Fung then perhaps Timothy Noakes, Ken Berry, Lisa Wiedeman, Peter Attia, Rhonda Patrick, Anthony Chaffee...all doctors, most that got tired of preventable diseases and more I can't think of right now. And vet them for yourself with an unbiased mind. Find out why, their underlying reasons, they say what they say and do what they do.

There is a pile of legit information available that is light years past the balanced, low fat, lean meat. eat your veggies, avoid saturated fat nonsense. And there are good reasons why it's nonsense and is actaul causation for disease and poorly expressed genetics.

 

[fwafwow]

I agree. The 10 minutes is just the beginning.

If you are interested in unbiased research I suggest just beginning with Jason Fung then perhaps Timothy Noakes, Ken Berry, Lisa Wiedeman, Peter Attia, Rhonda Patrick, Anthony Chaffee...all doctors, most that got tired of preventable diseases and more I can't think of right now. And vet them for yourself with an unbiased mind. Find out why, their underlying reasons, they say what they say and do what they do.

There is a pile of legit information available that is light years past the balanced, low fat, lean meat. eat your veggies, avoid saturated fat nonsense. And there are good reasons why it's nonsense and is actaul causation for disease and poorly expressed genetics.

Lots to unpack (at least for me) here. Are you saying that each of those doctors support carnivore, or something other than the Standard American Diet (including avoiding saturated fat and eat veggies)? I'm not trying to be super argumentative here, I'm just trying to narrow the issue before I look through some of those physicians.

I started with Attia - who I follow and respect (although I don't think he does research). I was able to quickly find a newsletter in which he takes issue with the "Game Changers" documentary, and the Standard American Diet, but while he doesn't agree with the negative views on meat from the documentary, I didn't see that he was also taking the position that vegetables and fruit aren't good for you. I could have missed it, but I went a good bit over 10 minutes in getting to that point.