And I’m not talking about the carnivore stuff and all that. I’m referring to the whole using clean meat as a centerpiece of the diet but bolstered by other animal products like butter and eggs, as well as fruits like avocados, berries, watermelon, red peppers etc.
Edit: a couple more staples for those who don’t know: honey, organ meats, raw dairy like kefir,
I honestly think diets like this despite helping people lose weight short term come from people that dislike eating their veggies.
Bottom line, 40-,50% of your diet being fruits and veggies should be the goal. Get some legumes in that 25% and you’re doing great. Plant based diets with variation is what most good and sustainable diets boil down to.
I have been pretty much doing that recently. And I didn’t really think it was a real movement as just a way to satirically go a different way from “plant based diet”. The “consensus” or maybe just the fashion seems to think that it is wrong but old fashioned diets have been keen on meat for millennia. Since having great results going low carb I have been doing plenty of research and experimenting with low carb/keto/carnivore/paleo/wholefood. I have been vegan in the past and was brought up in various vegetarian households in the 70’s and 80’s. I moved away from that lifestyle and honestly kind of hippy alternative culture when i left home, starting my career cooking and getting some basic qualifications. Before also just having periods of eating commercial mass produced and junk food and being poor and eating whatever I could. So I would like to think I have a reasonably broad and tolerant view of food. However the “food wars” don’t really allow a middle way it seems sometimes. I’ve been delving pretty deep into the stats on
https://ourworldindata.org/diet-compositions
For example, which uses data from faostat from the UN. This way we can cut through some of the loud opinions on diet and nutrition and see how people eat ourselves.
It’s clear that some of the longest lived nations in the world eat plenty of animal products, and there is a couple of phrases that get stuck in my mind, one being “meat and 2 veg” and “eating the fat of the land “
When we take into consideration certain organisations and their guidelines for example.
“The acceptable macronutrient distribution ranges (AMDR) set forth by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies recommend that people get
45–65% of their calories from carbs20–35% of their calories from fats10–35% of their calories from proteins”
There is a reasonably wide window of macros. Interestingly certain countries with the highest longevity might have distributions outside of this range. Notably fat consumption is up in the 40% range for some. Certainly there are some countries like say Japan that are outliers in this regard with a higher carb to fat ratio but are they doing better than say Norway or Spain that have great longevity and eat more animal products and fat? My assumption is that a lack of dairy consumption and a known increase in lactose intolerance is key here. But they do make up for beef and dairy with eggs and seafood for example. 2nd highest consumption of eggs in the world.
Whilst the carnivore approach to a radical elimination diet helped me and reputedly many others, it’s common to not maintain that even though some do. When looking at dietary patterns around the world it’s clear that meat is an important part of it, whilst a lopsided macro balance is often skewed due to the prevalence of poverty and cheaper foods being required. Notable are places that don’t have the access to meat, animal products and fats. Even high consumption of fruit and veg doesn’t seem protective when there is insufficient animal products and fat in the diet.
So it’s clear that while the highest percentile of animal products in the diet is not required for a long lived population as shown by countries such as Japan, South Korea, Canada they still have a medium consumption, whilst very low consumption is often correlated with poor longevity. Despite the 10-35 % recommendations of protein, even Australia with an impressive 1021 grams of animal products per day and a longevity of 84 tops out at 8.7 % of energy from animal protein but get 41% of calories from fat.
The USA with a lacklustre longevity of 77, might eat the most animal products per day at 1140 grams, but this is where the apparent protective effect of meat consumption appears to tap out.
So whilst it’s hard to tease out from all these stats and correlations what the perfect diet is, it does seem that the recommendations for macros are a good starting point . I personally after looking at this faostat data realised that the nutrients macro guidelines don’t really explain the common anomalies with countries at the highest longevity in the world.
In a survey of countries with the highest longevity in their regions, (Africa, north America, south America, Asia, Europe, Oceania) had a consistent higher % of animal products in their diet than the lower longevity countries in their region. These being Algeria, Canada, Chile, Japan, Norway, Australia.
So the meat based diet is really just a slightly old fashioned diet that has proven itself down the ages and despite the down votes of the vegan brigade is still a valid way of eating.
Let’s be clear though, diet, as long as you are getting enough calories of sufficient nutrient density is not that clear a signal, it’s still all over the place with any anomalies and correlations and external factors to consider.
The clearest signal by FAR with diet and longevity is access to clean water and sanitation. Smoking, drinking, obesity, lack of exercise, are far bigger problems that have very clear health ramifications also. It is to some degree a first world problem for us to argue about fad diets when there are much bigger things to tackle first than whether to include meat or not in our diets.
Sadly we won’t get a clear consensus anytime soon as its pretty unethical to bring up people their whole lifetime on different diets by force and the evidence is often of the weakest types. To some extent one might have to go their own way depending on culture and proclivity, as long as one has an eye on healthy whole foods and a minimal approach to processed foods you’ll probably be doing ok.
Tldr
Meat=goodVeg=good
I am no expert, the following is just my opinion/best guess:
Some plants are not meant to be eaten, they release chemicals that can kill or upset things like insects. Some people may have conditions or be more sensitive to these chemicals themselves, which makes it basically poisonous in some cases or close to it. It’s possible everyone has at least a small sensitivity. So an animal based diet gets rid of all of these. You’ll notice some of the people in the animal based diet community advocate for eating fruit still, because it doesn’t have these chemicals. That’s because plants supposedly make fruit because they want you to eat that instead of the parts of it that help it live.
There is also this thing that goes along with almost any popular successful diet, which is that you’re not eating junk. If you are the guy into eating a big mac combo 3x per day, and want to get in shape, and all your friends have a diet that helped them, it doesn’t matter if it’s vegetarian, vegan, carnivore, keto, none of them are great, but none of them are 3 big mac combos. And at least the more meat heavy diets of these usually have more protein/healthy fats.
I’ve been doing this for over a year. Couldn’t figure out why 6 days in the gym heavy lifting mixed with cardio and I wasn’t hitting what I wanted. So cut out sugar, soda, fast food, pre packaged or ready to eat crap and holy smokes!!!! Been an amazing year. Dropped 30lbs. Feel great body and mind are clear. Not going back to anything the FDA says is good for me😂🤣😂
It’s essentially an extreme elimination diet that helps people feel better because they cut out potentially offending foods, and also often cut calories to the point that leads to weight loss, helping in the short term for many people.
Unfortunately long term, this is not sustainable en masse and the rise of this stuff on social media is likely to contribute to a lot of early CVD and diabetes.
That sounds like kids’ food.
If you want to eat a healthy diet, vegetables should be the centerpiece of the diet, especially including dark green vegetables, not just peppers, but other vegetables too, such as peas, or broccoli, or spinach, and many, many more.
To this should be added a couple accompaniments from among categories such as clean protein, long-chain carbs, or fat-rich nuts. Meat is a fine choice for the protein, especially non-red meats such as chicken, fish, or other seafoods. Dairy is also a fine choice for the protein. Same goes for eggs. But these should not be the centerpiece of the diet.
Further ingredients should be treated like condiments and flavorings: cheese, butter, honey. These are things to use sparingly; they’re so calorie-dense, that other use cases quickly become too rich.
Rejection of pasteurized dairy is pointlessly restrictive. Pasteurization is not a problem from a nutritional perspective.
One good thing I can say about what you’ve described, is that organ meats are an underappreciated food type. But I see no reason to pair this advantage with all of the pointless restrictions that seem to be associated with the diet as described.
As described, this sounds like nothing so much as a rebranding of the same Western diet that gave us the modern obesity epidemic. Vegetables are an extremely important part of a healthy diet.
I just saw an interesting podcast on proteins and animal proteins give us the complete amino acids that we require as opposed to plant sources which generally have to be combined with other plants/foods to be complete or at least have to be eaten in large quantities to make sure that we get enough. Apparently children are so efficient at utilizing proteins from their food that they can get by with much less but adults and especially seniors require so much that this is important. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqmG2y4IeY8
Animal based foods are far less healthy than vegtable based. Saturated fat is suspected to be the cause of many diseases. Cultures with high plant based diets and low animal based diets are far healthier with less disease.
Recommend reading “proteinaholic” for more information.
like fruit, vegetables, honey and animal products? Sounds pretty decent and yes you can get all of the needed nutrients this way. many people can likely eat more flexibly than this and still be healthy though
The argument of plants vs. meat is an interesting one, however pointless IMO and honestly people need to give it a rest.
The answer is never going to be one single ratio, diet, set of foods, or whatever other cookie cutter answer given.
Get appropriate micronutrients and macronutrients for your lifestyle through foods that are as accessible, easy to digest, and sustainable as possible.
The reality of that is going to change from week to week, let alone person to person.
I’ve never understood the need to follow some scheme or program to imply once a specific way is always best (I understand wishing that worked… but it doesn’t l).
Foolish and misguided quasi science nonsense.
A macro is a macro. You can eat an unhealthy ratio of macros on a plant based diet, an omnivorous diet, or a carnivorous diet.
A micro is a micro. It doesn’t matter if you get your calcium from plants or meat. The point is to get your calcium.
Just plan your diet sufficiently.
I don’t buy it, before modern supermarkets people weren’t eating meat everyday. Most of our grandparents weren’t eating meat every day. I went vegan for a year and it did give me brain fog but that was because I didn’t eat meat for an entire year. I think if I were to only meat once a week I wouldn’t have felt any brain fog