Are you considering going to carnivore? This all-meat diet is trending, and many people have reported significant benefits from adopting it. However, totally dropping plant-based food off your plate could have a significant impact on your health. In this article, we’ll discuss what this popular diet is and what it does……

1. What Is the Carnivore Diet?

The Carnivore Diet is a restrictive diet that only includes meat, fish, and other animal foods like eggs and certain dairy products. It excludes all other foods, including fruits, vegetables, legumes, grains, nuts, and seeds. Its proponents also recommend eliminating or limiting dairy intake to foods that are low in lactose — a sugar found in milk and dairy products — such as butter and hard cheeses.

The Carnivore Diet stems from the controversial belief that human ancestral populations ate mostly meat and fish and that high-carb diets are to blame for today’s high rates of chronic disease.

Many people who have adopted the carnivore diet report faster weight loss, improved mental clarity, healthier digestion, and even improved athletic performance. Some have also reported remarkable relief from debilitating chronic health problems where conventional methods failed. All this considered, it is definitely worth giving a thought to.

2. Exactly which foods are on the Carnivore Diet List?

As the title suggests, the carnivore diet is made up of mainly meat. We will discuss in more detail what it specifically includes and what to avoid.

-Foods Okay on the Carnivore Diet with an emphasis on fattier cuts of meat to take in enough calories:

• Meat: beef, chicken, turkey, organ meats, lamb, pork, etc.
• Fish: salmon, mackerel, sardines, crab, lobster, tilapia, herring, etc.
• Other animal products: eggs, lard, bone marrow, bone broth, etc.
• Low-lactose dairy (in small amounts): heavy cream, hard cheese, butter, etc.
• Water

Generally, salt, pepper, and seasonings with no carbs are allowed.

• Below is a list of what you should NOT be eating:

• Vegetables: broccoli, cauliflower, potatoes, green beans, peppers, etc.
• Fruits: apples, berries, bananas, kiwi, oranges, etc.
• High-lactose dairy: milk, yogurt, soft cheese, etc.
• Legumes: beans, lentils, etc.
• Nuts and seeds: almonds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, pistachios, etc.
• Grains: rice, wheat, bread, quinoa, pasta, etc.
• Alcohol: beer, wine, liquor, etc.
• Sugars: table sugar, maple syrup, brown sugar, etc.
• Beverages other than water: soda, coffee, tea, fruit juice, etc.

While some people incorporate some of these foods, a true Carnivore Diet does not permit them:

• Milk
• Yogurt
• Cheese

Coffee and tea: These may be plant-based, but some people keep these in the diet.

The carnivore diet can be considered to be a fad. Is there evidence that any traditional populations practiced the carnivore culture?

3. The ancestral link to the carnivore diet

Many ancestral groups thrived on large quantities of animal products. However, every single one of these groups also took advantage of plant foods when they were available. The Sioux of South Dakota, the Maasai, Rendille, and Samburu from East Africa, Gaucho Brazilians, the nomads of Mongolia, the Russian Arctic Chukotka and the Canadian Inuit are all communities that predominantly ate meat and fish for their core sustenance. They however all looked for supplementation in vegetables, fruits, berries, lichen and other condiments such as honey and whatever other non-meat sources they could get.

4. Carnivore Diet Benefits

The carnivore diet, though not being a new diet in a strict sense, has gained fame in recent times. Let’s look at some of its benefits, both anecdotal and backed by research.

• Weight Loss

As with the ketogenic diet, failing to take in carbs keeps your blood sugar low at all times. You don’t get insulin spikes, so your body has no reason to store incoming calories as body fat. Additionally, the limitations on what you can eat make it almost impossible to get a calorie surplus without a concerted effort.

• Better Heart Health

While there is still no clear link between the consumption of saturated fat and heart disease, there is also a solid pile of evidence that saturated fat can potentially improve heart health.

According to the Mayo Clinic, your cholesterol ratio is a better risk predictor than total cholesterol or LDL. You arrive at it by dividing your total cholesterol number by your HDL score.

Another important factor on cholesterol is that, even though higher LDL numbers are seen as risky, the type of LDL particles you have traveling through your arteries is more important. If they’re small and dense, they’re considered more dangerous than if they’re bigger and “fluffier.” Therefore, two people with the same LDL value could be at very different levels of risk.

According to the Cooper Institute, a good way to determine what kind of LDL particles you have is to find your ratio of triglycerides to HDL cholesterol. The lower the ratio, the less the risk.

• Lower Inflammation

Simply cutting plant foods from your menu can lower inflammation by itself. “If you had a food sensitivity to some of the plants you were eating and had low-grade inflammation,” says Brian St. Pierre of Precision Nutrition, “then removing them will make you feel better.”

The liver produces C-reactive proteins (CRP) in response to inflammation, so measuring CRP levels can indicate how much inflammation is in your system. A level of 10mg/L or less is normal, and 1mg/L or less is good.

Lower inflammation means the reduction of the risk for some chronic illnesses like Type 2 Diabetes, Cardiovascular issues and other conditions that arise as a result of inflammation. A certain kind of inflammation also causes achy joints. There’s some evidence that eating more gelatinous proteins, as you find in bone broth, collagen, and gelatincan improves cartilage health.

• Higher Testosterone

Diets high in fat have been shown to boost testosterone levels. In fact, a study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that men who followed a high-fat, low-fiber diet for 10 weeks had 13% higher total testosterone than subjects who ate low fat and high fiber.

• Fewer Digestive Problems

Meat is made primarily of protein and fat, which are absorbed high up in the GI tract, leaving little residue leftover to irritate or inflame the gut. In other words, an all-meat diet is effectively a very low-residue diet and gives the gut a rest.

• Increased Mental Clarity

Just as with the ketogenic diet, carnivore dieters report thinking more clearly and having better focus almost right away. Again, as with going keto, there is a break-in period where your body has to figure out how to fuel your system without carbs, so you’ll probably feel lethargic and moody at first. You may have difficulty sleeping and even develop bad breath, an early sign that your body is making ketones, but you can ride it out. Within a few days, or just over a week, you could feel sharper than ever.

• Simplified Dieting

The carnivore diet is the simplest you will ever come across. You eat animal foods when you’re hungry…..period. If you are the kind of person who gets confused counting calories or macros, is tired of weighing portions on a food scale, or isn’t sure what’s gluten-free and what isn’t, a carnivore diet will all but relieve you of having to think.

And while a meat-rich diet may sound like it would break the bank, the amounts you actually consume may not be high, since meat is so satiating. That should keep costs down—especially if you literally aren’t buying any other food.

5. Is an all-meat, carnivore diet healthy?

Meat is an essential part of a healthy diet, but eating an all-meat diet is an entirely different subject, and I think we need to be very careful about assuming that an intervention that works well in the short term will also be safe and effective in the long term.

Different people are better suited for different diets based on their physiologies and conditions. The diet that best matches your own body could be higher or lower carb, high fat, or even high protein (though perhaps not as high as the carnivore diet). The right diet for any individual depends on their health, their goals, and which diet and lifestyle would best serve them.

• References:

1. Everyday Health(2018): On the Carnivore Diet, People Are Eating Only Meat: Here’s What to Know. Retrieved from https://www.everydayhealth.com/diet-nutrition/diet/carnivore-diet-benefits-risks-food-list-more/

2. Men’s Health(2019) : Inside the All-Meat, Only-Meat Carnivore Diet That Took the Internet by Storm, Retrieved from https://www.menshealth.com/nutrition/a27405997/carnviore-diet-plan/

3. Chris Kessler (2019): The Carnivore Diet: Is It Really Healthy? Retrieved from https://chriskresser.com/the-carnivore-diet-is-it-really-healthy/

4. Onnit Academy (2017): The Carnivore Diet: Is Eating ONLY Meat Healthy, or Totally Crazy? Retrieved from https://www.onnit.com/academy/the-carnivore-diet/

We have earlier discussed the immense benefits of the carnivore diet. Some may consider this diet to be too extreme, exposing one to potential harm. Are there any other alternatives out there that could give similar results and perhaps have less potential threats? In this article, we will explore some of these options.

1. A Low-Carb Paleo Diet

As opposed to going straight from the Standard American Diet to pure carnivore, oftentimes, a low-carbohydrate Paleo template might provide some of the same benefits, including weight loss, improved insulin sensitivity, and alleviation in autoimmune symptoms.

The paleo diet involves eating unprocessed foods that were likely available to your Paleolithic ancestors before the agricultural and industrial revolutions. While not strictly low-carb, it can be modified to fit such a lifestyle.

According to paleo supporters, returning to the diet of your prehistoric ancestors should improve health because humans allegedly evolved and adapted to eating such foods. Several small studies show that a paleo diet can cause weight loss, reduce blood sugars, and improve risk factors for heart disease

A paleo diet emphasizes meats, fish, seafood, eggs, vegetables, fruits, tubers, nuts, and seeds. A strict paleo diet eliminates processed foods, added sugar, grains, legumes, and dairy products.

2. A Fasting Mimicking Diet

Fast mimicking is a type of modified fasting. Instead of abstaining from food completely like a traditional fast, you consume small amounts of food — but you do it in a way that gives you the benefits of fasting.

A fast-mimicking diet typically lasts about five days — you’ll keep your carb, protein, and calorie intake low and your fat intake high. Calories are kept at around 40% of normal intake. This keeps you nourished with nutrients and electrolytes. It also puts less stress on your body than normal fasting while still giving you the same benefits.

Fasting and especially intermittent fasting have been shown to be an effective mediation in many diseases, including obesity and diabetes. Recently, the fasting-mimicking diet (FMD) has been found to improve metabolic disorders.

Studies show that it can reverse type 1 and type 2 diabetes, alleviate age-dependent impairments in cognitive performance, and protect against cancer and aging in mice. In humans, the fasting-mimicking diet was found to significantly reduce body weight, improve cardiovascular risk markers, lower inflammation, and potentially improve symptoms of multiple sclerosis.

3. Periodic Prolonged Fasting

Undergoing 72-hour fasting once every few months could also achieve many of the benefits boasted by the carnivore diet. Prolonged fasting causes organs to shrink and then be rejuvenated as damaged cells are cleared out and stem cell pathways are activated. Prolonged fasting (PF) has also been known to promote stress resistance.

The latest study to explore the impact of fasting on the human body concludes that it increases metabolic activity more than previously realized and may even impart anti-aging benefits.

4. A Ketogenic Diet

A ketogenic (keto) diet involves reducing carbs sufficiently to induce a metabolic state called ketosis. It’s a very powerful diet to lose fat and may protect against several diseases. The ketogenic diet has been very well studied and has documented benefits for epilepsy, neurodegenerative disease, and autoimmune disease. Ketones themselves are potent anti-inflammatories.

The ketogenic diet is a very-low-carb, high-fat diet. The goal of a keto diet is to keep carbs so low that your body goes into a metabolic state called ketosis. In this state, your insulin levels plummet and your body releases large amounts of fatty acids from its fat stores.

A big amount of these fatty acids are transported to your liver, which converts them to ketones. Ketones are water-soluble molecules that can cross the blood-brain barrier and supply energy to your brain.

So, instead of operating on carbs, your brain starts being largely dependent on ketones. It is, however, important to note that your body can still produce a small amount of glucose required by your brain via a process called gluconeogenesis.

Traditionally used to treat drug-resistant epilepsy in children, the keto diet may also have benefits for other neurological disorders and metabolic problems like type 2 diabetes. Some versions of this diet restrict protein intake as too much protein may reduce the number of ketones you produce.

In recent times, it has also become popular for fat loss — even among some bodybuilders — as it’s a very effective way to lose fat and reduces appetite effectively.

A ketogenic diet involves high-protein, high-fat foods. A very small amount of carbs is allowed. A conventional keto eating pattern is referred to as a standard ketogenic diet (SKD).

Other variations that involve strategically adding carbs are:

• Targeted ketogenic diet (TKD). In this version, you add small amounts of carbs around workouts.
• Cyclical ketogenic diet (CKD). This type has you eat a ketogenic diet on most days but switch to a high-carb diet for 1–2 days each week.

5. The Atkins Diet

The Atkins Diet is a popular low-carbohydrate eating plan developed in the 1960s by cardiologist Robert C. Atkins. The Atkins Diet restricts carbs (carbohydrates) while emphasizing protein and fats.

The Atkins diet has been popular for over 40 years. It is a 4-phase, low-carb eating pattern that allows you to consume plenty of fat and protein. It is the best-known low-carb eating plan and it involves reducing all high-carb foods while eating as much protein and fat as desired.

This diet is divided into four phases:

Phase 1: Induction. Eat under 20 grams of carbs per day for 2 weeks.

Phase 2: Balancing. Slowly add more nuts, low-carb vegetables, and fruit.

Phase 3: Fine-tuning. When you get close to your weight goal, add more carbs until your weight loss becomes slower.

Phase 4: Maintenance. Eat as many healthy carbs as your body tolerates without gaining back the weight you lost.

The Atkins Diet says that it’s eating plan can prevent or improve serious health conditions, such as metabolic syndrome, diabetes, high blood pressure, and cardiovascular disease. In fact, almost any diet that helps you shed excess weight can reduce or even reverse risk factors for cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

And most weight-loss diets — not just low-carb diets — may improve blood cholesterol or blood sugar levels, at least temporarily. One study showed that people who followed the Atkins Diet had improved triglycerides, suggesting better heart health. But there have been no major studies to show whether such benefits hold up for the long term or increase how long you live.

The Atkins diet was originally demonized, but current research indicates it’s both safe and effective as long as fiber intake is adequate. This diet is still popular today.

6. The carnivore diet as opposed to other diets

The carnivore diet is sometimes considered to be too severe. Because of the many positive outcomes of this diet for weight loss and managing certain chronic diseases, alternative, milder options can be looked into. The health movement now dictates that people proactively make lifestyle decisions that will affect their lives, and diet is key in this. We expect to see more people engaging in such diets not only as a cure for certain conditions they may have but also for the general maintenance of health.

• References

1. Healthline (2019): The 8 Most Popular Ways to Do a Low-Carb Diet. Retrieved from https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/8-popular-ways-to-do-low-carb

2. NCBI (2018): Intermittent administration of a fasting-mimicking diet intervenes in diabetes progression, restores β cells and reconstructs gut microbiota in mice. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6245873/

3. Perfect Keto (2019) : Fasting Mimicking Diet: What It Is and How to Do It. Retrieved from https://perfectketo.com/fasting-mimicking-diet-and-how-to-do-it/

4. Medical news today (2019): Fasting boosts metabolism and fights aging. Retrieved from https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/324347.php

5. NCBI (2015): A periodic diet that mimics fasting promotes multi-system regeneration, enhanced cognitive performance and healthspan. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4509734/

6. Mayo Clinic: Atkins Diet: What’s behind the claims? Retrieved from https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/weight-loss/in-depth/atkins-diet/art-20048485