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Carnivore and Bile Acid Malabsorption
I think you need to realize that animals serve as a handy filtration mechanism for us. They have livers and detoxification systems just like us, and those systems are built specifically for the level of plant consumption they evolved with. Sure, it is still possible for them to become toxic with something if absorption exceeds their ability to eliminate it, but it's a much safer bet that eating an animal built for plant consumption will lead us to consume fewer toxins than if we ate plants directly ourselves.
If you are going to eat plants, external processing is obviously the mechanism by which humans can manage to do so without keeling over in short order. Processed "white" foods have way fewer toxins and anti-nutrients, which is why they became ubiquitous. Because of that, the main thing you get from processed plants is carbs, not micronutrients. You get micronutrients from animal products. Trying to get micronutrients from plants is a game you're going to lose in the end, and why do it when you're just fighting your body's design?
When you process plants, you usually reduce the fiber load and increase the rate of carbohydrate absorption, which leads to insulin spikes and hunger dysregulation. There's a whole long list of reasons not to eat carbs, just watch any of the growing number of carnivore YouTube channels out there. Anthony Chaffee recently started a channel and seems to be doing a decent job. Judy Cho has a good variety of guests with different backgrounds on her podcast. Paul Saladino has had some excellent guests on, although lately he seems to have fallen off the wagon.
Interesting to hear about your experiences with magnesium. I've already become somewhat constipated from cutting back on the Mag, but I will try to stick with it and see if things normalize. It's become obvious that the magnesium is not eliminating my muscle problems, so I might as well see what happens when I completely remove it. I've been pretty convinced that the muscle problems actually stem from Vitamin A detox, but I can't seem to find a way to slow it down enough to keep the muscle problems at bay. I think the constipating effect if probably due to the same issue as the rest of my muscles.
I've tried supplementing calcium on a low Vitamin A diet, to no avail. I was consuming a lot of milk kefir before I went low Vitamin A and was having muscle problems back then as well. I don't think there's good evidence that magnesium depletes calcium either, whereas magnesium is necessary for calcium retention and utilization. Dairy is super high in calcium and really not a natural thing to consume. I would once again point out that people on muscle meat carnivore diets don't need supplements of any kind, so they are apparently getting enough calcium from meat alone, whatever the underlying mechanisms might be.
Quote from wavygravygadzooks on April 10, 2022, 2:32 pm...When you process plants, you usually reduce the fiber load and increase the rate of carbohydrate absorption, which leads to insulin spikes and hunger dysregulation. There's a whole long list of reasons not to eat carbs, just watch any of the growing number of carnivore YouTube channels out there. Anthony Chaffee recently started a channel and seems to be doing a decent job. Judy Cho has a good variety of guests with different backgrounds on her podcast. Paul Saladino has had some excellent guests on, although lately he seems to have fallen off the wagon.
I was low carb for many, many years, and it didn't help me. It's on the long list of special diets that didn't help me. When I was, back then, on one of my restrictive diets, I was at the mall for an exhaustive prom dress search with my daughter. I had no idea what to eat from the food court, it was all filled with this or that that I was avoiding. At the time I was low carb and full of the idea that carbs were bad news. But the white rice seemed to be the one thing I could eat. So I did it.
I felt great, had no issues with the challenging day that might have been kind of hard if it had been ruined by blood sugar issues. I felt great.
I guess that was one step on the long trip that has brought me back around to accepting that I'm an omnivore that eats all the macros, a diet that is traditional for my ancestry. A diet that took my grandmother to age 99.
Other things that didn't fix me were gluten free, dairy free, sugar free.
The one special diet that I tried back then that seemed to have any effect was the "plant poisons and rotten things" low food-chemical diet, which is quite similar to low VA: bland. However, they didn't limit vitamin A and I continued to have poisonings.
Well, just remember, the deeper the hole, the harder it is to climb out, and it never feels easy trying to climb out of a hole. When I finally gave up sugar, and then starch, after being on a high-carb diet for the first 30 years of my life, I could barely move for over a week. It was the most tired I'd ever been. But my energy levels have been way more stable ever since.
Your immediate ancestors probably have the genetics that enable them to better tolerate carbohydrate intake than other regional groups (this is generally recognized as a trait of European ancestry), but I guarantee your relatives lived to an old age in spite of the carbs, not because of them. All of us have ancestors that ate predominantly meat and fat farther back in time, and that is where the bulk of our current genetic make-up is derived.
I suppose some things about low carb stick with me, I don't usually eat just carbs, for instance (like the rice meal at the mall). I do feel like the animal foods are much more nutritionally dense. But conversely, I actually think of whitish carb/veg as being calories that are freer of VA. In my mind, it's a good mix. I can't help but think this is why the square meal was invented.
Let me know how it goes! Have you tried to play around with salt? I minimised it and also found no adverse affects. I've been feeling really good in the past few days. Maybe I'm just over a major detox cycle, who knows. Or maybe it is because I eliminated coffee. Seems like pure red muscle meat and water is best.
@everyone
Here are some links of Miki Ben-Dor's talks. He does an amazing job of looking at human nutrition through an evolutionary lense. He points out in great detail how we are extremely well adapted to hunting and eating large ruminant animals.
- Stomach acidity (same as scavengers)
- fat cell morphology (same as carnivores)
- amylase genes are not fixed (indicates a non consistent starch consumption)
- megafauna extinction (due to humans)
- Isotopes and trophic level (indicates humans are high level carnivores with 80% + animal food)
- 77% shorter large intestine than expected (inability to ferment fiber effectively)
- 66% longer bowel than expected (for fat and protein absorption...)
- .....
He also explains that YES we did eat plants but the question is HOW MUCH. His theory is that we had to fill the remaining 60% of non protein calories (about 40% protein is the limit) with either fat or carbs. As the prey size declined and we had to hunt smaller animals that had less fat we needed to get the remaining energy from somewhere (aka plants). We sought out plants that gave us ENERGY not unusable fiber. We just wouldn't have wasted energy for that. (Yes it came with fiber I know but we probably would have chosen the least fibrous plants we could find.) His conclusion is, that if you want to eat plants for taste then do it but it isn't at all necessary. You may do even better without them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKLCp4rIBIM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_DMlpz-iaI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cfxPn5eNXs&t=1915s
There is much more. Just included a few. Let me know what you think..
@nina Amber O'Hearn is preparing a talk on salt and the carnivore diet, maybe for the Ancestral Health Symposium this summer. I have gone on and off salt several times during my five years on carnivore. It certainly is a confusing topic and may be confounded by toxins in the modern environment than weren't present prehistorically.
Glad to hear you're feeling so well!
I've kind of experimented with different salt intake. I've had times where I realized I was putting too much on, that's for sure.
I love Miki Ben-Dor, he's so honest, he's got the traits you want to see in a scientist. Definitely one of the people who's providing a well-rounded, non-dogmatic assessment of why people should be eating mostly meat and fat even if we have a history of eating some plants on the landscape.
Quote from lil chick on April 11, 2022, 5:57 amI suppose some things about low carb stick with me, I don't usually eat just carbs, for instance (like the rice meal at the mall). I do feel like the animal foods are much more nutritionally dense. But conversely, I actually think of whitish carb/veg as being calories that are freer of VA. In my mind, it's a good mix. I can't help but think this is why the square meal was invented.
This reminds me of this quote from one of Grant's books. He is comparing his skin to his brother's skin using a fluoroscope.
I clearly had a lot of carotenoids and /or retinol in my skin compared to him. Why is that? Well, consider what my brother’s diet looks like; it’s coffee and toast at breakfast, burgers at lunch, and steak and potatoes for dinner. He drinks beer, does not smoke, and doesn’t drink milk. He’s perfectly healthy and has no sign whatsoever of inflammation, skin diseases, or any other disease. How’s that for ironic? I’m the one that eats “healthy”, and I get diseases; he doesn’t, and he’s just fine.