The Benefits and Controversies of the Carnivore Diet

The video discusses the carnivore diet and its potential health benefits. It explores the conflicting opinions surrounding meat consumption, with some claiming it causes inflammation and health issues, while others report weight loss, improved gut health, and reduced symptoms of autoimmune diseases. The video further addresses concerns about nutrient deficiencies and fiber intake on a carnivore diet, emphasizing that meat does contain vitamins, minerals, and even some vitamin C. It also suggests that the carnivore diet can be beneficial for individuals with certain health conditions such as bloating, SIBO, IBS, leaky gut, and autoimmune disorders. The presenter acknowledges that the diet may not be optimal for everyone in the long term and recommends adding variety to the diet over time.

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  • People who follow a carnivore diet report various health benefits, including weight loss, improved gut health, and resolution of skin issues.
  • However, there are also opposing views that claim that eating meat can cause inflammation and contribute to diseases like cardiovascular disease, cancer, and type 2 diabetes.
  • Meat contains essential vitamins and minerals, such as thiamin, B vitamins, potassium, magnesium, iron, and even vitamin C.
  • The recommended daily allowances (RDAs) for nutrients are based on synthetic isolates and may not accurately represent the nutrient content in whole foods.
  • People on the carnivore diet tend to have good nutrient levels and do not experience deficiency diseases.
  • Fiber is traditionally believed to be necessary for bowel movements, but some studies suggest that a zero-fiber carnivore diet may lead to optimal bowel movements.
  • The carnivore diet can be beneficial for individuals with severe bloating, SIBO, irritable bowel syndrome, leaky gut, autoimmune conditions, or high sensitivity to various foods.
  • While the carnivore diet can be effective for some people, it may not be the optimal long-term diet for everyone.
  • Adding variety in the long run may be more beneficial for overall health, but individuals can experiment with reintroducing certain tolerated plant foods after experiencing improvements on the carnivore diet.
  • Individuals interested in trying the carnivore diet are advised to start with a shorter period, such as 30 days, and assess their health improvements before deciding on the duration and long-term approach.

Transcript

Hello Health Champions. What would happen if you only ate meat for 30 days? Well, there is this thing called a carnivore diet, and a lot of people are getting very interested in that because people are reporting health benefits. They say that they’ve had weight loss plateaus that finally break through, they have gut issues that resolve, skin issues that resolve, even severe things like rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory joint pain. Autoimmune diseases tend to improve, people also say that their mood improves, their anxiety and depression decreases. But then on the other hand, there are people who say meat is absolutely not good for you. It causes inflammation, it’s full of saturated fat, it will raise your triglycerides, move you closer to cardiovascular disease, cancer, and type 2 diabetes. They’re saying that everything wrong with you is because you eat too much meat. Most regulatory agencies around the world, including the USDA, say that you should increase your fruits and vegetables, eat so many every day, but eat meat rarely, especially red meat. The meat you should eat should be mostly chicken and fish, and lean sources of meat, and of course, they say to avoid saturated fat. So how can we have two camps that are so diametrically opposed? In this video, we will try to clear up some of the confusion and answer some questions about meat. Is it harmful? Why are some people experiencing benefits? Who might benefit from the carnivore diet? Is it the best diet for everyone in the long term? And if we do try it, how long should we try it for? The most common objection to the carnivore diet is that if you only eat one thing, you’re too limited, and you will develop deficiencies. You can’t get all your nutrients from one thing. While fruits and vegetables contain vitamins and minerals, meat also contains plenty of them. When you eat a sufficient amount of meat, you can get all the essential nutrients. Meat provides vitamin B, potassium, magnesium, iron, and even some vitamin C. People often say that meat has no vitamin C, but even regular steak contains some vitamin C. Adding a little bit of organ meat like liver can provide adequate amounts of vitamin C. The recommended daily allowance (RDA) for many nutrients is based on synthetic isolates tested on animals, not based on nutrients from food or human experiments. The RDA is a rough approximation, and we don’t know exactly what those numbers should be. However, people on the carnivore diet tend to do well when measured for these nutrients. They don’t appear to have deficiencies or low levels. The body also uses nutrients more efficiently when not competing with glucose from carbs. People on the carnivore diet tend to be healthier and show improvement in their symptoms. The carnivore diet is often a last resort after trying various other diets and elimination protocols. It eliminates everything until only one food is left, which is meat. Meat is a neutral food with the lowest number of allergies, and the least amount of inflammation and immune reactions caused by plants. Plants have defenses like lectins and other compounds to protect themselves from being eaten. Some people are more sensitive to these compounds, leading to inflammation, gut issues, skin rashes, and autoimmune conditions. The carnivore diet can be beneficial for people with severe bloating, small intestine bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), irritable bowel syndrome, leaky gut, inflammatory skin conditions, or autoimmune conditions like Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, rheumatoid arthritis, or lupus. It can help calm inflammation and improve symptoms. However, the carnivore diet may not be optimal for everyone in the long term. Variety in the diet may be more beneficial, and it is recommended to try the carnivore diet for a specified period such as 30 days and then gradually reintroduce neutral plants to see how the body responds. It may be better to add variety over time rather than sticking to a strictly carnivore diet indefinitely.