Carnivore Diets

The carnivore diet, or "zero carb" diet, has been the focus of a lot of controversy lately. Many people are skeptical of it so I will be demystifying carnivore diets in this post.

I completely encourage carnivore diets, on this blog, because they help blood glucose regulation. 

Aside from metabolic health, carnivore diets are also a great option for people who have autoimmune conditions, digestive issues, issues with hunger and satiety, are unable to moderate their carbohydrate intake or simply hate vegetables of all kinds. Let's first discuss how the carnivore diet can help with all these issues:

• Auto immune issues: Meat is processed in the upper digestive tract, reducing the amount of unwanted material in the gut. This causes less gut irritation and autoimmune issues. Not eating vegetables means you are not consuming their proteins, lectins or phytotoxins, which affect protein synthesis, nutrient absorption and enzyme activity. Disruption to these processes may cause immune system abnormalities, allergies and other serious health problems.
• Digestive issues: We have a hydrochloric digestive system, which reduces bacterial overgrowth in our intestines. When you eat indigestible plant material, you are forcing your digestive system to act as a fermentation vat, which automatically promotes bacterial overgrowth. This can cause gas, bloating, acid reflux, diarrhea and constipation. The best way to keep your gut healthy, is to reduce the number of bacteria that are not supposed to be there.
• Affect on leptin: Protein is the antidote to starvation. Keeping a surplus of protein calories alongside a deficit of energy calories (carbs and fat), puts you at a metabolic advantage against obesity. 
• Hunger and satiety: Protein is the macronutrient of satiety. The body will continue demanding food until it's protein requirements are met for the day. If you only eat meat, you are guaranteeing that the body will meet its demand for adequate protein, therefore reducing hunger. This causes you to not eat excess energy dense food as compensation.
• Moderating carbohydrate intake: If all carbohydrates are off the table, then no carbohydrates will be eaten in excess. No more struggling with trying to determine your carbohydrate allotment for the day and deciding which way you will meet it.
• Hating vegetables: Not enjoying a low carbohydrate diet, because of the absence of grains, and having to replace them with vegetables, is a problem for many. Some people truly hate vegetables and the only "plant" food they ever ate was grain based. Good news kids, you don't have to eat your vegetables! You can replace the grains and the vegetables, with meat instead.

Below I clear a few common misconceptions about carnivore diets:

• Meat has all the nutrients you need, and they are all bioavailable to us. None of the fruits and vegetables, you see in the market today, were ever available to us at any other time in human history, before agriculture. This means that none of the "nutrients" these plants contain are necessary for human life. If they were, we would not be here. We had survived, prospered and evolved intelligence before plants became available to us year round and in their current form.
• It is very easy to turn meat into human, but much harder to turn plants into human. For this reason, meat is easily absorbed and metabolized by the body. The body recognizes and can use all its complete amino acids.
• Numerous long terms studies have been done on eating only meat and no adverse effects or nutrient deficiencies have ever been found.
• Humans evolved eating meat. Our digestive system is designed for it, our large brains are attributed to it and we left the trees because of it. We are not early, plant eating hominids. They are all extinct. We were the ones who survived. The large vegetarian apes, that remain, are all in the jungle and not creating iPhones.
• Protein does not become "chocolate cake" through gluconeogenesis. Gluconeogenesis, "the making of new glucose", is a demand driven process that does not just use protein, but also glycerol from triglycerides (fat) and lactate from muscles. It is a vitally important part of healthy metabolic function. Gluconeogenesis is what allows, the body, to not depend on dietary carbohydrate to supply itself with the glucose it requires. Blood glucose rises with protein intake, due to the activation of the counter regulatory hormone glucagon, which releases glucose from the liver, in the presence of insulin, to avoid hypoglycemia. Though this occurs to everyone, healthy or not, people with metabolic abnormalities experience this in an exaggerated, unregulated fashion resulting in postprandial hyperglycemia. But, this is a result of metabolic syndrome/diabetes, not gluconeogenesis. Diabetes is not gluconeogenesis and it is not caused by it. Avoiding protein or restricting it only hides this anomaly, it does not "cure" it. This effect only goes into remission once metabolic syndrome/diabetes is controlled. Division of daily protein requirements, into three meals, is the best way to reduce this affect. 
• There are no studies showing that fiber is needed for humans. The only time fiber is needed is when you are eating man made, modern "food". Then fiber becomes the antidote for the poison you’re consuming. But, if you do not consume poison, then no antidote is needed. We have a very long small intestine for maximum absorption of nutrient dense foods. We have a short large intestine, because we naturally do not have much use for fiber dense food. The only benefit of fiber is feeding gut bacteria, which produce butyrate through fermentation. Butyrate is beneficial for reducing neuroinflammation and helping to reverse fatty liver disease, amongst other things. Butyrate is a type of short chain fatty acid. So, don’t let the fancy name fool you, its a fat, not a magical property of plants. Dairy has a high concentration of short chain fatty acids, including butyrate. When you eat animal foods, which contain animal fats, your liver processes all the butyrate, found in these foods, that you need with no dietary fiber needed. You don’t need bacteria to make butyrate for you. You can obtain it directly from the foods that contain it.
• Vitamin C is not needed in large quantities by human beings. The only time that Vitamin C is needed is when you are eating mostly sugar and grains. Glucose metabolism competes with Vitamin C absorption and depletes you of it. Take out the sugar and grains and the body will no longer become deficient in Vitamin C. 
• You do not need to poop daily. We have mechanisms that let us know when certain things are required. Regardless of what you want to dictate to your body, it knows what it needs and when it needs it. Believe me, you will know when it needs to poop. The reason you poop daily is to eliminate all the indigestible junk in your digestive system. Just because you don’t go, doesn’t mean you are constipated. It just means you don’t have to go. If you use most of the food you eat, then you automatically have less waste. If you eat a lot of junk, then you automatically produce more waste and this large amount of waste can cause constipation, since ruffage soaks up a lot of water from the intestine. Constipation occurs on low carbohydrate diets, because of electrolyte imbalances, not from lack of fiber. You must treat electrolytes as a fourth macronutrient, because lack of potassium will result in constipation.
• The human body makes its own antioxidants. It cannot use the antioxidants found in plants or acquired externally. Do not eat foods that cause excessive oxidative stress and your body can handle its normal rate of oxidation with its own antioxidants. Glutathione is the most important antioxidant in the body. The amino acids found in dairy allow for the body’s production of glutathione. There is a positive association between the consumption of diary and the brains concentration of glutathione.
• There is no such thing as an essential carbohydrate and carbohydrates are the only thing derived from plants. The body absolutely requires glucose to live. It just does not require dietary glucose. The body makes its own glucose, as needed, through gluconeogenesis.
• Carnivore diets are completely compatible as ketogenic approaches. The only requirement for ketosis is very little carbohydrate intake. Carnivore is as low carbohydrate as you can go. A lot of people believe that ketone production seizes, when protein is consumed, because extra protein gets converted to glucose, but this is not the case. Rather, protein is the only macronutrient that can temporarily halt fat burning, without increasing glucose burning. Protein can increase insulin, just enough, to suppress free fatty acids and therefore temporarily halt ketone production. Though you are temporarily halted in ketones, after eating, your ketone levels will return as you fast. Fasting ketones are the most beneficial, because they are coming from the breakdown of your own body fat, not dietary fat. It is completely normal for ketone production to halt after eating, since you are getting fuel from your food. There is no reason for the body to catabolize stored energy reserves during that time. 
• The best way to eat plants is when they have already been processed for you, by the animals that were designed to eat them. These animals already processed the polyunsaturated fats, used their antioxidants on the plants lectins and turned over the plant proteins for you. All you do is benefit from the plant having been turned into meat. Eating your plants as meat is the healthiest way to eat them.
• Meat does not cause gout. Gout is caused by the overconsumption of fructose and/or alcohol. As fructose is broken down, by the body, it releases purines. When the body breaks down purine it produces uric acid. When uric acid levels are very high (hyperuricemia) it forms painful crystals in the joints and this condition is called gout. Meat is not the only food that contains purines, some vegetables do too. It appears that purine from fructose metabolism inhibits the ability for the body to excrete excess uric acid, while dietary purines from meat and/or vegetables, do not. If the body cannot excrete uric acid properly, it begins building up to very high levels. People who consume a lot of fructose, consume a high glucose diet, and have metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome causes chronically and abnormally high insulin levels (hyperinsulinemia). Hyperinsulinemia impairs kidney function and impaired kidney function does not allow for the proper elimination of waste, including excess uric acid. For this reason, gout can be described as a sign of impending kidney disease from metabolic abnormalities.
• Protein does not damage the kidneys. This is a persistent myth. Kidney damage. in the context of metabolic syndrome, is caused by chronically high insulin levels. These insulin levels are most commonly caused by a high carbohydrate diet, which causes erratic glucose fluctuations putting stress, not only on the kidneys, but the entire body. The water retention caused by insulin and the need to excrete excess glucose puts the kidneys in an abnormal state that eventually causes disease. The high insulin directly affects the small kidney tubules causing inflammation, scarring and irreparable damage. The high blood pressure caused by chronically high insulin also damages the small blood vessels in the kidneys. The chronic use of medications to control blood glucose and blood pressure, also, eventually lead to kidney damage. Once the kidneys are damaged, they will no longer work properly and have a difficult time filtering substances, like urea, from protein breakdown. Therefore, it is believed that lower protein diets, for kidney patients, extends their life by lowering urea and giving the damaged kidneys "less of a work load". But, there has been no evidence showing that the restriction of protein is beneficial for people with kidney disease or anyone else. Because of circular logic, these patients and everyone else, are still being advised to restrict protein for kidney health and that's a recipe for getting fatter and more diabetic. If your kidneys are healthy, restricting protein will not keep them that way. Controlling blood glucose and keeping insulin levels normal and functioning properly will.
• Protein does not damage the liver. People who have chronic liver disease have problems metabolizing aromatic amino acids, which can result in a condition known as hepatic encephalopathy. This is not "caused by protein". This is the result of a poor functioning liver, most likely caused of non alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). NAFLD is the leading cause of liver failure and it's leading cause is fructose consumption, not protein consumption. 
• The only studies that have shown a risk of cancer, from eating meat, have been in studies inclusive of processed meats. Even these studies have shown such conflicting results that there is still debate as to where this cancer risk was actually coming from, since other dietary factors were not being included. For instance, people who eat a lot of processed meats, also typically drink a lot of sodas and generally tend to eat more junk food overall. Fresh meats have never been shown to be associated with any cancer risk. Ironically, studies on plant consumption, particularly plant based cooking oils, have shown a clear correlation to an increase in cancer risk.
• Meat consumption will not make you age faster. The only correlation between longevity and diet has been caloric. The less calories you eat, regardless of where they come from, the longer you live. At least that's the case for mice in cages. Of course, a long life does not necessarily mean an optimal life. An optimal life for a mouse versus a human, can be quite different. For humans, muscle is the organ of longevity, so the longer you can hold onto it, the longer you will live. Consuming a diet, rich in animal protein, will help preserve lean muscle mass as you age. Maintaining lean muscle mass will not only help you live longer, but it will preserve mobility and decrease the chances of developing metabolic disease, which are both the main contributors of an early death. So, for humans, the main driver of premature aging is body fat. Body fat is the canary in the coalmine for metabolic abnormalities which lessen lifespan.

Now we know that regardless of what the Plantocracy says, no, you do not need any plant foods to acquire or remain healthy. You do not need to eat more “fruits and vegetables”. This is a lie that's been perpetuated by agriculture, since its inception. It has been repeated, ad nauseum, by every government and medical agency that has ever existed. But, repetition does not make things true.

Is there anything at all good about plants? Yes. There are three things that plants do well:

• Green, leafy plants are mostly carbohydrates, in the form of unusable cellulose (fiber), which we cannot extract energy from. For this reason, they are very low in energy. Therefore, you can have a very large amount of greens and still be on a low energy diet. This seems to work well for people who cannot control their intake of excess carbohydrate and fat, and the main reason everyone orders the salad, when they are on caloric/energy restriction diets. Unfortunately, as we all know, these benefits cannot be obtained long term, as the body continues to demand nutrient density, sufficient energy and protein from its food, not cellulose. But, alongside adequate protein, plants can fill your plate without the added energy. 
• The reason plants can be considered good for you is because they are so bad for you. In low doses, plant lectins and phytotoxins cause a hormetic stress response in the body. This right kind of minor stress, strengthens the body. But, this is not a requirement, as it's just an adaptation of plant exposure. You can live just fine without it. For some people, even this low stress from plants is still too much and weakens their health, rather than strengthen it. There are other avenues that cause minor stress on the body, like intermittent fasting and exercise, which are tolerated much better, without adverse effects and all the benefits.
• This third one can be debated as to how "good" it really is. After all, it may be one of the contributors to obesity, but from a sheer hedonistic and practical standpoint, it can be considered positive. Plants add variety to meals. They are a conduit for different flavors and colors that create a more appealing experience for the palette. They are also cheap, so you can eat more, for less money.

There is nothing else that plants can provide you that meat cannot.

Here are some tips for going carnivore:

• This diet is high in satiety signals, because protein is the nutrient of satiety. Eat to satiety. This means that you don't leave the table hungry. You will be surprised how little meat it takes to reach satiation, so do not buy a lot of meat until you gauge how much you can realistically eat. Meat is expensive, and you don’t want it to go to waste. 
• How much meat you will need is highly individualized. A good rule of thumb is 1 gram of protein per kilogram of desired body weight. If you want to calculate your personalized macronutrient needs, you can use the Ketogains macros calculator. I have links and information here. Omit the carbohydrate macros from the results, and just use the protein and fat macros. Gauge as you go and adjust depending on your results and how you feel.
• You can choose lean meats or fatty cuts. It's up to you. If you choose fatty cuts, there is no need to add more fat to them during cooking. If you choose lean meats, then you can cook them in your own fats at home. Unless you are doing a protein sparing modified fast, protein always comes with its accompanying fat. The ratio between protein and fat should be 1:1.5.
• The meat you chose does not have to be organic, grass fed or pastured. There are several online, subscription based, meat companies that will ship meat to you that has been massaged by elves, if this is your preference. You can also search online for registries that list local farmers, in your area, who sell grass fed and/or wild game meat. A popular one is Eatwild.

Intermittent fasting is vital for this type of diet, because it's what mimics the way humans have eaten meat since the beginning. There was always a feast and famine cycle. To create this healthy cycle, you must practice intermittent fasting or time restricted eating. Make sure you are doing a 12 - 18 hour, water only fast, daily. No snacking between meals. Eat at meal times only.

Three Things To Keep In Mind

Organ meats - It is unknown if muscle meat alone can provide you with all the nutrients you need, long term. There is a high probability that it absolutely can, in the context of food availability. Organ meats are exceptionally rich in nutrients, but how much of them are truly needed, if you can eat every day, is unknown. If you can only eat once a week, then eating brains might be a good idea. This way you can pack in as much nutrient density as possible, considering that you don't know when you will eat again. But, if you get to eat every day, sirloin isn't so bad, as it is also nutrient rich, just not as concentrated.

Since this is a highly contested topic, you may want to err on the side of caution and do what you feel most comfortable with. A good way to approach this concern is as follows:

• If you plan on following the carnivore diet for a few weeks, then you do not have to include organ meats, if you don’t want to.
• If you plan on making this diet your long-term protocol, then you should try to include organ meats, because that’s how we always ate animals, from nose to tail. This is especially true if you plan on following this diet, long term, without the inclusion of eggs and dairy. If you cannot tolerate organ meats, then supplement with a good quality multivitamin.

Lean meats - Make sure you do not eat lean meat, like wild game, long term, if you are not adding your own fats to them at home or eating dairy. If you eat too lean, for too long, you will be on a protein sparing modified fast diet, which should not be followed unsupervised, for long term, by anyone, particularly if they do not have a lot of weight to lose and/or an excess of body fat.

Cooking: There is no need to overthink this. We started using fire, a very long time ago and yes, the meat was cooked right on the flames. We are still here. We survived the cooking even when the meat became slightly charred. Cooking makes more nutrients available to us. Eat your meat at your desired temperature. Rare or well done, either way, is just fine.

Now that you are clearer on all the myths and misconceptions, you can go ahead and begin a carnivore diet protocol.

But Will It Work To Reverse Obesity? 

Carnivore diets work like every other diet so they have the potential to fail. The only difference is that carnivore protocols give you a metabolic advantage by addressing the root cause of metabolic syndrome - blood glucose dysregulation. 

Because the diet contains no carbohydrate, the risk of blood glucose dysregulation goes dramatically down but not away. Other things affect blood glucose regulation other than diet. Medications, chronic conditions and the exaggerated stress response of people with metabolic syndrome, all contribute to blood glucose dysregulation. As long as this dysregulation persists, metabolic abnormalities will remain. As long as metabolic abnormalities remain, obesity progresses.

The main things that people with metabolic syndrome have to be wary of when it comes to carnivore protocols are:

• Postprandial hyperglycemia - Just because you didn't eat cake, does not mean your blood glucose will remain low. Blood glucose dysregulation is not solely a "carb condition". Like I stated above, blood glucose rises with protein intake, due to the activation of the counter regulatory hormone glucagon, which releases glucose from the liver, in the presence of insulin, to avoid hypoglycemia. If you have been reading my blog, you know that metabolic syndrome is a starvation adaptation. Your body is purposely trying to keep blood glucose high as a protective mechanism against lows (starvation). People with metabolic syndrome are insulin resistant so that hyperglycemia becomes easier to achieve. This means your glucagon will go wild in the presence of insulin as it's trying to counteract insulin's glucose clearance. Glucagon will break down your body and everything you eat into glucose to keep your serum levels high. You can't fix this by avoiding protein. You have to control this by portioning out your protein into three meals, dividing it as follows: Breakfast: 3 ounces protein, Lunch: 4 ounces protein, Dinner: 5 ounces protein. Do not try to eat all of your protein in one meal. This will only further disrupt your insulin to glucagon ratio. 

• Inadequate protein - Protein is very satiating and a little goes a long way so you have to make sure that you're getting enough. Track your macros carefully. Remember that meat is not just protein, it is also fat and water. Make sure you know how much protein is in your chosen cut and type of meat. Sometimes a high quality protein supplement has to be taken. 

• Inadequate calories - Because of the satiating affects of protein, many people do not eat enough calories and this will only double down your starvation response. Do not eat one meal a day. Eat two or three.