11. An Intro to the Carnivore Diet – Carnivore Deep Dive Pt. 1/6

TL;DR: The carnivore diet is a diet of only animal-based foods. According to proponents, humans thrive on a carnivorous diet despite common belief, whereas plant foods have historically only been used as backup foods.

Introduction

This article is part 1 of a 6 part series covering the carnivore diet in depth. The carnivore diet has recently risen to popularity in the health sphere for it’s ability to heal long-term chronic diseases and conditions and enhance overall health. The book The Carnivore Code by Paul Saladino is the primary reference for this article. Saladino is a medical doctor based in California who has risen to fame in the medical community for promoting a meat based diet. This diet is controversial and has received backlash from the scientific community even as it gains in popularity.

Why Would I Try the Carnivore Diet?

There seem to be two main groups of people who are growing advocates for the diet: those with chronic health conditions who say it has healed them when nothing else worked, and those who are looking for an edge performance-wise mentally and physically. It seems to help in both of these areas due to the high nutrient density of animal foods, the ketogenic state of a very low carb diet, and the relief it gives to the digestive and immune system by removing mild plant toxins that for some cause major issues and for others cause minor issues.

What Topics Are Covered in These 6 Parts?

This article series will dig into the claims made in support of a meat based diet and allows you to form your take on the evidence presented. There are 6 parts to this article series:

  1. An Intro to the Carnivore Diet
  2. Were Hunter-Gatherers Healthier Than Us?
  3. Do Plant-Based Foods Have a Dark Side?
  4. Are Animal Foods More Nutritious Than Plant Foods?
  5. Is Red Meat Actually Bad For You?
  6. What to Eat on a Carnivore Diet

Can You Summarize the Book?

The main argument that Saladino makes in this book is that contrary to popular belief, animal foods are healthier than plant foods. He argues that humans are much more adapted to eating animal foods, and have historically only used plant foods in periods of starvation. He highlights two main underlying reasons for this.

The first is that animal foods are more nutritious than plant foods. This is because, at a fundamental level, plants work on a different operating system than animals and this is why nutrients like iron are much less bioavailable in plants and why it takes so much more plant food for herbivores to attain a large size than carnivores. 

The second is that plant foods also cause stress on our bodies and often trigger immune-related diseases. The reason for this is that plants can’t run or defend themselves like animals can, so they use chemical defense mechanisms, or natural pesticides, which is why they shouldn’t be eaten in large doses. Herbivores have many methods for dealing with these toxins like compounds in their saliva that break them down, and large digestive tracts for processing and extracting nutrients. They also rotate the plant foods they eat so they don’t get too much of any one toxin – as they say the dose makes the poison.

Saladino’s optimal diet for humans is a fully carnivorous diet with mostly red meat, organ meats, sea foods, bone broth and animal fats. He says the closer to this diet you get, the healthier you get. He does note the importance of taste and the social implications of food, and says that whatever makes you feel best is the best diet even if that’s not the carnivore diet. He also provides different tiers of the diet ranging from carnivore-ish to full carnivore.

Saladino supports his arguments based on both human history and fossil records, as well as hundreds of scientific studies.

Here are the main points from the book:

  1. Animal foods are more nutritious than plant foods in almost every way
  2. Animal fat is very healthy and human metabolisms run much better on fats than carbs. Overconsumption of carbs, especially at the same time as fat, overload our mitochondria and cause insulin resistance, diabetes, chronic inflammation and weight gain. Chronic inflammation is the root cause of many diseases including heart disease and animal foods were improperly vilified for this.
  3. Plant foods all have some sort of harmful plant defense compound that inflames the immune system and or disrupts healthy digestion in humans. Some plants are worse than others and they fall along a spectrum of harm.
  4. Eating primarily meat is the healthiest diet and many populations throughout history support this.
  5. All the studies showing that meat is unhealthy and plants are healthy rely on correlation studies not backed up by randomized controlled trials. Correlation findings are due to the healthy user bias and unhealthy user bias, and when these are removed, meat appears as the healthiest food group even accounting for the Blue Zones

The references used throughout this 6 part series are included at the end of Part 6 under the corresponding chapter number from The Carnivore Code. It’s helpful to have your own copy of the book and to use this article as a guide.

Who is Paul Saladino?

Paul Saladino [b]

“Food has everything to do with whether we become deeply sick or vitally healthy”

For a guy with salad in his last name, he doesn’t have a lot of love for vegetables. Funnily enough for one writing a carnivore book, he was once a raw vegan for 6 months until he lost 25 pounds and had digestion problems that forced him to stop. Saladino’s father was a physician and his mother was a nurse, and he himself completed 6 years of pre-med, 2 years of physician assistant schooling, 4 years as a physician assistant in cardiology, and 4 years of residency in psychiatry at the University of Washington. He was disappointed that patients were not getting any better, and their diseases were only slowed by medications. He was constantly questioning the medical system and asking professors and doctors why patients weren’t getting better, but received a lot of resistance to getting answers. 

Saladino had health issues as a child while eating a standard American diet including obesity, eczema, irritability and asthma. He tried the paleo diet with some improvement, but still had issues. He had a terrible experience with an infection in his skin due to the eczema during medical school and tried many things until seeing Jordan Peterson talk on the Joe Rogan podcast, as well as his friend Danny Vega explaining how the carnivore diet worked for them.

Consider reading our article on which diet is best to get some context on diets from UpRiver’s perspective.

My Personal Experience

I’ve been tinkering with the carnivore diet for two months now, mainly because I wanted to see if I could eliminate issues I think are linked to my immune system being chronically stimulated by certain foods and improve my digestion and energy levels. I am also constantly in search of the optimal diet for mental and physical performance. I saw so many things line up and make sense when I started learning about the carnivore diet that I had to try it out and compile some of what I knew.

I noticed an improvement in my digestion and energy, but the biggest thing I noticed was a boost in mental clarity and energy and a big reduction in anxiety. I feel more myself overall. Maybe this is due to the nutrient boost and removing some plant foods that were bothering me, but I actually think it has a lot to do with the simplicity and discipline it gave my life.

After learning that it’s essentially totally fine to eat only meat and so many people have done it throughout history, I don’t worry about always trying to balance my diet perfectly, and I just go with what feels good. I don’t feel like I’m eating an unbalanced diet when I eat large amounts of meat anymore. I have been forced to consider each time I want a certain food whether it’s a need for my body, a real hunger, or a need for my mind to be stimulated with something, just a craving. This has developed my intuition and body mind connection . It has changed my relationship with food down to its core.

I have had a couple issues with the diet so far as well. I feel somewhat socially isolated from others who are eating a more “normal” diet for starters. However, when I do tell people about it, it sparks an interesting conversation.

Another issue I had was that the protein in the diet was so satiating that I would under eat, but that is a common problem for me regardless. The standard solution for this is to eat more fat, which I have been trying to incorporate more.

A third issue is that sometimes I can get bored with my meals, but yet again I realized that this has more to do with me adapting to the lifestyle rather than it being boring in itself. There are so many different animal products and recipes.

Lastly, after heavy weight lifting three times a week, I noticed I would become exhausted after even when I ate a lot of fat for fuel. I found eventually that it was beneficial for me to include carbs like sweet potato, popcorn, honey, berries, and bananas after workouts and this actually made me feel better than meat alone. I think being dogmatic about carnivore or any way of eating leads to a psychological stress that outweighs any benefits.

And here’s a nice closing quote from the Bible to give you a little taste of history:

“And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground”
“And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord.”
“And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering.“
“But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect.”

-Book of Genesis 4th chapter, 2nd to 5th verse [5 Ch.6]

Abel, front, and Cain, back, first sons of Adam and Eve, making their sacrifice [a]

More Resources on the Carnivore Diet

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