Carnivore Diet: Why would it work? What about Nutrients and Fiber?

[KHashmi317]

"Carnivore Diet: Why would it work? What about Nutrients and Fiber?"

A new video that SEEMS to have some "research" legwork behind it--or is it confabulation, cognitive dissonance or "fake news" or FEPO (for entertainment purposes only)? ? 

 

[Todd Allen]

I don't think it is "fake" or FEPO.  But it is a propaganda piece in the sense that the presentation was designed with the intent to promote the viewpoint that a carnivore diet is a safe and  possibly superior diet in some cases.  There may be merit to many of their arguments but there are many hypothesized risks of animal foods not addressed by this video.  I suspect a large percentage of the harm from animal foods comes from eating unhealthy animals, processed and prepared in unhealthy ways and consumed in unhealthy quantities and frequencies none of which is much addressed in this piece.  But similar weaknesses can be seen in pro-vegan propaganda as well.

[KHashmi317]

YouTube is full of stuff like this ... hence ... one reason for posting the video was to demonstrate possible motivations/intentions for making the video (as well as vlogger's credentials -- or, in this case, lack of). I could find no further info about the vlogger to legitimize him ... e.g., lack of LinkedIn page (or link to it), etc.

The vlogger has a large subscribership as well as a Patreon plug. So, definite financial interest for created content -- legitimate or entertaining or somewhere on that continuum.

The vloggers use of multiple Journal refs, and other "authoritative" references (video lectures/seminars) may initially APPEAR impressive. But these techniques have been used for decades ... e.g., LEF and its supplement magazine.

It's possible that vlogger actually, really believes in some/all of his claims ... hence the initial motivation (and subsequent effort ) for making the video. 

Finding counterpoint (on YT , of course!!) is not hard.  E.g., the vlogger's claim about the Inuit Paradox is countered by another vlogger, also armed with an arsenal of Journal bites: 

 

 

[Clinton]

This is exactly the type of information that I used for years to justify being a ‘meatatarian’.

It is difficult and time-consuming for the general population to question and validate all of the information/misinformation we are flooded with.

 

[mccoy]

By the way, as it goes, and this is a report from Dr Chris Masterjohn, who is sponsored by organ meat producers, the Inuit seem to be the final product of an extreme evolutionary adaptation which has entailed many, many deaths. That's pure Darwinism in action: most Inuit at first died very young by eating such an extreme diet, but those who had some specific genetic polymorphism survived longer and proliferated, creating a new population adapted to eat mainly meat and fish, which could survive at least until the reproduction age.

In a few words, the truth is that most of us (the non-adapted) would be killed soon by the Inuit diet.  

[Sibiriak]

Chris Masterjohn:   What I Eat

https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/2018/06/22/what-i-eat/

Quote

 

I typically consume 3500 to 5000 Calories per day, depending on my activity level (I hit 5000 when I stack Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and strength training into the same day). Because I eat a lot of cooked and cooled starches, my diet is high in resistant starch, which is starch that goes undigested until it reaches the colon where it feeds the gut microbiome. My diet is also almost exclusively whole foods, which require twice as much energy to digest as processed foods. Therefore, my actual caloric yield when compared to someone eating a standard modern diet is going to be lower than these numbers, but this is what Cronometer, a food tracking app, tells me I am eating.

To support building lean mass, I aim for 1 gram of animal protein per pound of body weight, and at least 30 grams of animal protein per meal. I generally get about 150 grams of animal protein and another 100 grams of protein from plant foods, to yield about 250 grams of protein. My animal protein comes from two scoops of whey protein, four whole eggs, and two servings of meat or fish, each weighing five to eight ounces. I am currently experimenting with adding a third serving of meat or fish. Most of my plant protein comes from legumes.

I do not aim for any specific fat intake, but I rarely add fat to my food. Most of my fat comes from whole eggs, meat and fish, whole olives, and Go Raw sprouted cookies that provide fat from of whole coconut and sprouted sesame seeds. Overall I derive about 27 percent of my calories from fat.

The remainder of my diet is carbohydrate. Most of my carbohydrate comes from sprouted legumes and sprouted brown rice. The Go Raw cookies also add some carbohydrate, mainly from dates.

The rest of my diet provides few calories but a lot of nutrients: I mix tomato sauce (or salsa) and steamed vegetables into my starches at every meal; I drink fresh juice at breakfast; I eat an apple and a large salad at lunch; I have a bowl of mixed berries and another large salad at dinner.

[Many more Cronometer details in the full article]

 

 

[nsTemples]

I have actually been following a mostly carnivore diet for a while now. The name is a bit misleading because most of us also consume dairy and eggs.

I've been doing keto for a few years and have ever more switched into a carnivore pattern (just naturally craved it more, not following any "diet"). Then I recently started doing only one meal a day and now I also consume most of my meat raw after I learned about the detrimental substances that are created/increased through frying: Acrylamides, Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAH's), Heterocyclic Amines (HCA's) and Advanced Glycation End Products (AGE's) and so on. It's true that the carnivore diet can be dangerous, you do need to consume organ meats and/or roe for example if you don't want to take supplements. Muscle meat nutritionally is not very useful. The dairy helps get in the RDA's for Vitamin K2, however only grass fed cows produce it so food quality needs to be a deciding factor.

One thing to consider if you're trying to do this for longevity is that the meat and dairy will both increase IGF-1 which would be counterproductive for your goal. Personally I'm a hobby bodybuilder so the IGF-1 is fine for me since I prefer muscle mass.

Ask away if you have questions.

[mccoy]

nsTemples, but what about parasites and bacteria? Eating raw animals may indeed cause various infections, you don't know unless you run very specific tests on the samples. Also, it's enough to boil or steam meat or fish to avoid PAHs, AGEs, HCas formation.

We've discussed K2 at some length, apparently there is no need that the cattle is grass fed but only very specific products or brands contain K2 (Brie and gouda for example, also some fermented milks) and the analyses do not always agree on K2 quantities.

[mccoy]

Thanks Sibiriak for the very interesting report on CM's diet.

Heck, 3850 kCals, 250 gr of protein in a sample rest day! He's eating more protein than a pro vegan bodybuilder (100 to 210 g protein max), he's eating a lot anyway, even though he's pretty sure that whole food has lesser net caloric balance. The article he cites appears a little limited, only bread and cheese in their WF and processed versions are examined.

I wonder if he's a peculiar case of reduced food absorption.

 

[nsTemples]

3 hours ago, mccoy said:

nsTemples, but what about parasites and bacteria? Eating raw animals may indeed cause various infections, you don't know unless you run very specific tests on the samples. Also, it's enough to boil or steam meat or fish to avoid PAHs, AGEs, HCas formation.

We've discussed K2 at some length, apparently there is no need that the cattle is grass fed but only very specific products or brands contain K2 (Brie and gouda for example, also some fermented milks) and the analyses do not always agree on K2 quantities.

Both parasites and bacteria are largely a sourcing and selecting issue. I wouldn't consume even the most pristine pork meat raw but when we're talking beef or lamb it's not really an issue. The only parasites they can get would either get digested by humans or wouldn't be able to infect us. Pigs on the other hand are biologically much closer to humans which means eating an infected pig would have a chance to infect us too. Ultimately parasite content in meat is mostly defined by meat quality: What they are getting fed, is their stable cleaned out on the regular, is their pasture free of hazards and so on. Bacteria on the other hand forms through improper handling of the meat which again is a sourcing issue. There are many cultures all over the world that consume raw meat dishes, the Japanese have Basashi which is raw thinly sliced horse meat, all throughout Europe steak tartare (ground beef) is served at upper class restaurants while the Turks and Armenians have Çiğ köfte which is a raw meat ball. There's many more examples especially in the arab and asian world. I would not eat raw meat in a third world country or one where the animals are treated and fed badly though. But lucky for me I live in Switzerland and I wager that we probably have the most strict food regulatory standards on the entire planet (we also have some of the highest food prices on the planet). I personally source all my meat from a nearby farmer. It's demeter quality meat (even stricter than organic/free range) and I usually band together with some friends and we'll buy an entire cow that goes straight from the farm to the butcher to our freezers. Since I'm the only carnivore my friends are usually fine with taking more "premium" cuts while leaving me the organs and fatty cuts. Win/win situation.

Ah interesting, I will take a look around the forum tomorrow then. What I can tell you is that the raw demeter milk which I source from the same farmer does contain K2 in appreciable amounts as he has to get it tested on the regular. From what I read K1 is mostly present in grass and for the most part absent in soy/grain, the cows fed grass can then in part metabolize the K1 into K2 which does end up in the milk. I also consume all kinds of cheese though - but mostly for taste.

[mccoy]

MK-4 is usually not found in milk, but if lab analyses find otherwise in grass-fed milk, then that's it. The concentration is important though, there might be 5 micrograms per 100 grams and that's a negligible quantity.

[Gordo]

I'm glad the Inuit health/longevity myth was so thoroughly debunked.  I was going to say, anyone using that as an argument for their diet is clueless, they had lousy longevity then and still do: https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/12/18/inuit_life_expectancy_lags_as_rest_of_canada_living_longer.html

Even all that cold exposure can't overcome a poor diet.

[mccoy]

Gordo, even the most elementary reasoning will suggest to us that the Inuit are a population on the fringe of civilization which historically had to undergo extreme genetic adaptation to survive.

Such genetic adaptations have a name: evolutionary Darwinism, they result in survival of the favourable (to that regimen) genetic pool and extinction of the unfavourable one (those who did not tolerate such an extreme diet). 

So, exporting the Inuit diet to the general western population would mean starting again the Darwinian selection with premature death of most people. And vice versa, the Inuit are dying eating western food because they developed a different genetic setup.

The people who more or less thrive on a zero-carb diet, like Shawn Baker, are the ones who have genetic polymorphisms close to the Inuit population after the first stages of selection. They are few and far apart. Even school kids understand well that such exceptions cannot be taken as an example for the larger population. But maybe we are witnessing the results of some weird backward mental evolution. Could it be that survival in modern society requires a lesser degree of independent reasoning skills?

 

[KHashmi317]

One point the video in the OP seems to hit the mark on is fiber consumption vs. bowel motility. 

Bottom line: you can claim that fiber will make you more regular. But if you consume more fiber, that in itself will make you #2 more often.

[TomBAvoider]

The Inuit thing is obvious nonsense, but both these guys make good points. I don't think it's FUD in either case, though both have an agenda - meat-eater and vegan respectively. 

How is it possible for both to have legitimate points? Certainly it's a good example of the primitive state of nutritional science - you don't have such raging controversies over the most basic things in physics or many hard sciences. The less established a science is, the more it's possible to have massive controversies over the most basic things. Nutrition science - and medicine in general - are simply put, extraordinarily primitive (as of 2018).

The other thing - as one of them observes - there are tremendous individual differences. What is a hormetic dose for one is a killing dose for another and has no effect on a third. DIfferent people do well on completely different diets. I see this all the time - the exact same diet or lifestyle intervention has a completely different effect on different people. For example, I have struggled - for decades now - with trying to lower my total and LDL cholesterol. Despite super human efforts, both dietary and lifestyle, I am simply unable to get my LDL below 120 or so, and total cholesterol below 200. And believe me, I've tried pretty much everything and am unusually capable of extreme measures (near starvation level of caloric intake etc.), compared to most folks out there. Yet I see very simple measures amazingly effective for many people, while even heroic measures have no effect for me.

In fact, I finally broke down, and at the urging of my PCP, I've gone on a statin in April - atorvastatin 10mg/day. Immediately my LDL and TC levels collapsed - 78 and 171 respectively. So far I've been on it for a bit less than 6 months, and have detected no negative side effects - or any effects at all that I can observe (other than my blood results). Now, I am aware of various deletrious effects of statins, but after a lifetime of trying everything else, I have very reluctantly turned to this. Statins are the only thing that have affected my blood cholesterol numbers appreciably. Whether it'll do me any good healthwise, or any good on balance is unknown, but FWIW, the numbers are better. LDL: 78 HDL: 79, TC: 171.

So there you have it - *extremely* different strokes for different folks. I am more and more of a believer in medicine, as well as DIET and LIFESTYLE (exercise etc.) that's tailored to the individual. 

[mccoy]

15 hours ago, TomBAvoider said:

In fact, I finally broke down, and at the urging of my PCP, I've gone on a statin in April - atorvastatin 10mg/day. Immediately my LDL and TC levels collapsed - 78 and 171 respectively. So far I've been on it for a bit less than 6 months, and have detected no negative side effects - or any effects at all that I can observe (other than my blood results). Now, I am aware of various deletrious effects of statins, but after a lifetime of trying everything else, I have very reluctantly turned to this. Statins are the only thing that have affected my blood cholesterol numbers appreciably. Whether it'll do me any good healthwise, or any good on balance is unknown, but FWIW, the numbers are better. LDL: 78 HDL: 79, TC: 171.

Very interesting and eloquent example Tom, objectively it appears that there is nothing else you could have done and it is very reasonable to guess that in your case the benefits outweigh the potential disadvantages.

 

By the way, I was forgetting: a case like yours has been cited by Dr. Esseltsyn in one of his podcasts, a guy following his diet, which is almost no fats, and still exhibiting a total cholesterol of 200. I think the same Dr. esseltsyn advised such guy to take statins.

[Sibiriak]

Quote

TomBAvoider: I finally broke down, and at the urging of my PCP, I've gone on a statin...

 

As Mccoy has often said,  we  often have to gamble a bit when it comes  health-related issues,  and only you can weigh all your  cardiovascular disease risk factors together in making a  decision regarding statins.   (The mainstream medical position, of course,  is that 200 mg/dl total cholesterol is  right on the dividing line between a healthy level and  a borderline high level.) 

I certainly wish you luck, and I hope that the  probable anti-longevity and pro-cancer effects of statins are outweighed by whatever reduction in cardiovascular disease risk you  hope to obtain,  based on the "cholesterol hypothesis" and statin studies.  

[TomBAvoider]

Thanks, Sibirak and mccoy, I'm hoping for a the balance of benefit vs harm to work out in my favor wrt. statins, though my primary focus is not CVD but other pleiotropic benefits of statins not just through cholesterol lowering but also through anti-inflammatory effects (though my CRP is low).

[Gordo]

There was some media buzz recently about statins:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180905184813.htm

 

[Saul]

Seems like a good study; large number of people, well-made study.

Results:  No surprise.

  --  Saul

[TomBAvoider]

I still have a few years to 75, and I don't have diabetes. As frequently with statins, paradoxes abound - f.ex. there is good evidence that some statins might strongly promote DMT2 in the first place, so this study is somewhat surprising - perhaps.

[mccoy]

Speaking of statins, I don't know if you guys came across it, the last episodes of Peter Attia's podcast with Tom Dayspring as a host deal with statins and they seem to provide very valuable info. The whole series of podcasts on applied lipidology lasts about 7 hours (I've been listening to all of'em) but statins, pros and cons, alternatives, are treated in one of'em specifically.

https://peterattiamd.com/tomdayspring4/

The podcast notes are packed full with info and pictures. A really good job.

 

 

[Genny]

There is no free living society in the history of the world that has existed carnivorously.

Not. One. 

Maybe you could survive. I wouldn’t recommend anything that extreme.