Six common beliefs addressed, Part 173

1. Low carbohydrate diets are "boring".

Yes. Compared to the variety of foods available on the Standard American Diet (SAD), low carb diets are pretty limited. After all, low carb diets consist of natural/unprocessed foods and there is only a very select variety - meat and vegetables.

For this reason, if you are bored, find something to do but don't take it out on your food. Food was not meant to cure boredom. Activity cures boredom.

2. Because I am on a budget, I eat cheap burger patties, chicken thighs and pork belly. I have not lost a pound on carnivore.

That is because you are eating cheap fat and most likely adding even more fat to it while cooking. Protein is expensive, fat and carbs are not. A lot of cheap meats tend to be mostly fat.

Carnivore is a diet modeled after our ancestral hunter/gatherer diets. Hunter/gatherers eat wild game, which is very lean. They cook over an open fire, so additional fat is not added. This means that their meals prioritize protein, not fat. That's what a carnivore diet is - an animal protein prioritized diet.

I recommend you shop more wisely and opt for cheap lean cuts of meat, instead of cheap fatty ones. Cook lean meats properly in order to make them tender. For example, meats like skirt steak are cheap but can be very tender when properly cooked. I suggest you go online and find tutorials on how to cook these lean cuts. You will be surprised what a gold mine they are.

3. There is no evidence to suggest that a carnivore diet is optimal in the long term.

I have touched upon this argument before but I will do it again.

There is no evidence that any diet is optimal in the long term. None. The reason for this is that doing a long term "study" on any diet is impossible. We can only turn to hunter/gatherers but because humans are so highly adaptable, and can thrive on a multitude of different diets, not much information has been able to be had from these populations either, as they have vastly different diets. In fact the only information we have been able to acquire from hunter/gatherers is that:

• Humans can thrive on any diet from 0% plants to 80% plants.
• No human has ever followed a 100% plant diet.

The other thing that we have learned, very well, since it has been witnessed long term, is that the Standard American Diet (SAD) is not optimal, whether followed in the long or short term. So this means that any diet chosen, as long as it is not SAD, will be better for you by default.

4. I want to try carnivore but it does not have the "benefits" of fiber and cruciferous veggies. I am also concerned about the lack of vitamins and the risk of colon cancer. It seems very boring.

Show me the benefits of fiber and don't send me to a Metamucil commercial. You also have to show me how meat lacks vitamins. You would then have to present the benefits of cruciferous vegetables versus meat.

This means that boredom is most likely what your true concern is. If it wasn't, then you would have been expressing your concern about the lack of vitamins in Dorito's chips, on the Frito Lay page, but you aren't. You are here, "concerned" about carnivore instead. We know that broccoli is not very exciting. Neither is kale or asparagus. So I am sure you are not concerned with keeping them in your diet. At the end of the day, your concern is truly over the lack of junk food that will become absent in your diet. After all, bread, doughnuts and chips are not made of meat or cruciferous vegetables.

I can't help with these type of concerns. I only help with real concerns like the risk of metabolic syndrome, as it is more rampant that colon cancer. Metabolic syndrome puts you at risk for cancer, amongst other conditions including the depletion of vitamins and minerals which cause certain deficiencies.

5. Some people's lab numbers look great and continue getting better while others never get to where they are suppose to even while following a strict dietary protocol.

"Reversal" and "remission" are completely dependent on how much proper blood glucose regulation you can regain and sustain. Like I have mentioned before, this is very individualized and dependent on many factors. Some under your control and others not. 

You have to make sure you are doing more than just a dietary protocol but an entire lifestyle protocol instead. This would include exercise and addressing systemic stress.

6. Low carb advocates have turned to carnivore now and have dumped low carb.

There are multiple reasons for this:

• Carnivore removes the question of how much or how often or which carbs to eat. People seem to have a conveniently hard time with that.
• Carnivore allows these low carbers to blame all carbs so it fits their narrative.
• Carnivore does not allow room for failure because when you do fail, any deviation you had from carnivore can be blamed and the real problem never has to be addressed.
• Carnivore, as is the case for many other "extreme" sounding diets, sell. Plain and simple. They are attention grabbers and keep the conversation going and their name in the spotlight.

This is why so many of these charlatans are now pushing carnivore. When something else comes up, they will turn to that.