I’m sure you’ve been thinking, “What food can I eat?” Generally, if a food comes from an animal, you can eat it: beef, lamb, chicken, turkey, deer, bison, fish, shellfish, pork, caribou, whale, shark, elephant, snake, crocodile, whatever. Most people on a carnivore diet limit what they eat to the animals that are available in the same geographic region where
Let’s look at cholesterol, which has enjoyed the status of being the number-one dietary supervillain for at least the past 50 years. Our interpretation of its role has gone through a dramatic change over the last several decades. The fact that we’re still unsure what cholesterol’s functions are and what significance low and high levels may mean should indicate that
Why is meat such a staple across cultures? Because human life demands it, and it’s one of our most primitive needs. Eating meat is as vital to our survival as breathing. If we don’t provide our bodies with a regular supply, then our bodies begin to cannibalize our tissues to make up for the deficit. That’s when the slow reabsorption
Obesity is probably my least favorite subject to talk about, not because it’s so contentious but because, in my opinion, it’s misunderstood. Before I talk about the mechanisms by which a carnivore diet can help people to lose weight, let me explain why I think that we misunderstand obesity. In my view, the core problem of obesity is malnutrition. We
This question is perhaps more common than any other question I receive. My smart-aleck answer often is, “Enough.” Although that might sound flippant, it’s truly a very honest and simple answer. But how do you know what is enough? I’m going to throw out some general numbers; don’t take these as gospel. I’m merely giving you some ballpark starting figures;
Often when people follow some form of a low-carb diet, they focus on monitoring certain things through blood testing to get some insight into the effects of diet. Blood testing provides some data and often can help to troubleshoot problematic health issues. Before I get into some of the common observations that I’ve made about carnivore dieters, let me put
Time-restricted feeding windows, intermittent fasting, and extended fasting are very much in vogue. The basis for this movement is recent literature that demonstrates that a prolonged period without food starts a process called autophagy in which cells recycle damaged or nonfunctioning cellular components in the absence of recent nutrition. After some time on the carnivore diet, most people tend to
Let’s talk about health for a minute. How do we even define it? Is it something that your doctor determines by taking some blood and checking an X-ray? Or is health more accurately defined as the absence of disease? Think about when you were young. Hopefully, you were full of energy, life was fun, and you were free from joint
When officials at the USDA came up with the recommended daily allowances (RDA), they primarily studied populations and individuals who consumed high-carb, grain-based diets. In a 2007 Institute of Medicine review of the RDA, several speakers asserted that the Dietary Reference Indices should be based on a higher standard of evidence than what had been used to formulate the recommendations.
The end goal of nutrition has a simple two-pronged explanation: It provides us with energy, and it gives us structural components to build and maintain our animal-based cells. We don’t need anything from a plant to accomplish either of those goals. Anything your animal cells need is found in other animal cells. It’s as simple as that. You don’t need
