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Carnivore diet (all animal foods)
All,
I have not posted on these forums in about 5 months, but I wanted to give an update.
I started a carnivore diet in November 2018. So now I have been on the diet for 5.5 months. I have ONLY eaten beef and drank water in those 5.5 months. I mostly try and eat fatty beef such as ribeye, ribs, short ribs, chuck steaks. I also eat beef bone marrow for extra fat. I feel significantly better than I did 5.5 months ago. I chose beef because others who have health problems said they eventually narrowed down to beef being the best option for them. Other animals gave them issues, but beef seemed to work best for most people. I do eventually plan to try pork, but not yet.
Anyways, I took accutane in 2010. I started having health problems in 2013. I first noticed pelvic floor syndrom and a year later a doctor diagnosed me with osteopenia. I do not know if either of those are related to accutane. I do not think Accutane helped my long term health, but I cannot prove accutane caused any health problems at all.
Doctors were unable to help me in 2013 and 2014. I saw a lot of doctors so and took a lot of tests and nothing helped. I kind of gave up on doctors then. I started taking supplements, vitamins to see it would help. It did not. I started eating "healthier." More fruits and vegetables, less junk food. It did not help. I eventually decided to try a "whole food plant based diet" which is vegan. It did not help. The vegan diet is when my health went from bad to worse. I have never recovered from that vegan diet. I do not recommend anyone do a vegan diet. There is probably a small percentage of population that thrives on a vegan diet, but most only get worse.
One of the issues with a vegan diet is oxalates. I suspect Oxalates caused my original health problems in 2013. And probably all my health problems since then. Animal foods do not contain oxalates. My health has been improving slowly for 5.5 months now. I plan to continue the carnivore diet. Apparently it takes about 10 years to slowly get rid of the oxalates from your body. If you want to learn more about oxalates, google Sally Norton and watch all her youtube videos.
There is a wealth of information about the carnivore diet online. Sometimes people refer to it as "zero carb." There are endless hours of youtube videos and podcasts on the diet. I think the carnivore diet works because it removes plant toxins (yes every plant is full of toxins in my opinion), it adds healthy protein and fat and allows the body to heal.
I have a long way to go on healing my body. I do not believe I will ever fully heal. I think I will have to remain on the carnivore diet forever. I do think my body will continue to heal noticeably for 5-10 more years. I do think I will get to a point where I feel 100% as long as I stay on the carnivore diet, and that is good enough for me.
Carnivore diet is a trap.
Oxolate and other anti nutrients that the carni youtube community likes to beat on aren't a big deal and might have adaptogenics qualities. Besides they are so easily deactivated with cooking.
The reason the better off carnivore dieter chose beef is because other meat like Lamb and chicken has higher VA. Game meat has lower but is very expensive.
You are eating a very limited diet that is as much of an experiment as the vegan diet. I was there before. You will never thrive without carbohydrates and might damage your kidneys or get other problems like high cortisol. This has been talked about here.
You don't need to go that extreme if your goal is to lower Va.
I did the carnivore diet for about 7 months back in 2016. At first I felt good - finally free of itching and insomnia - but then the insomnia crept back and got even worse, my acne resurfaced, and my thyroid tanked. I feel so much better with a high carb diet (still eat meat), but then again, everyone's different.
Hi Mike,
Thanks for the update.
It’s good to hear that you have found a diet that’s working for you.
Thanks for sharing your experience with the oxalates. I think it would be prudent to pay heed to that warning.
Obviously, there’s more than just vitamin A for us to be concerned about. There’s glyphosate and potentially others too. I think that once we've overwhelmed or exhausted the body's defences to one toxin, we'll become more vulnerable to the others.
Grant
Very interesting, @ggenereux2014. I keep wondering why even though I am doing well with a low vitamin A diet, I still cannot handle sulfites (or even high sulfur foods) or high histamine foods.
Many people on carnivore diet have oxalate dumping, oxalate are for me a big problem together with vitamin A toxicity, many symptoms overlap, oxalate are strong toxin if they accumulate in body for years, they can accumulate in every organ, brain, eyes. I am doing now low vitamin A and low oxalate diet, if eating oxalate foods, I know what symptoms make oxalates, pain in the kidney area is very typical for me, I am shaking, have internal tremors and headaches and if eating vitamin A foods, I usually get nausea, sunbathing in the sun makes it worse. But I eat everything - meat, low vitamin A, low oxalate gluten free grains, legumes, fruit, vegetables, seeds - only low oxalate (coconut, sunflower, pumpkin) and I am making progress, I think that a long-term carnivore diet is quite restrictive and deficient in some nutrients - folate, vitamin C, K, E, boron, calcium, potassium, copper, magnesium, manganese... fiber-not good for gut microbiota. Oxalate inhibits biotin-dependent enzymes, biotin, B6, B1 are important for people dealing with oxalate issues. But I understand why people have such great benefits on a carnivore diet, there is no gluten, no oxalates, no lectins, no vitamin A - if they only eat muscle meat but they do not know why they have benefits on this diet.
https://bmccancer.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12885-015-1747-2
Interesting write up on breast cancer and oxalates.
Yes, if you are eating a diet low in oxalates, I would guess you are oxalate dumping. Based on my personal symptoms, I suspect my body dumped oxalates for the first 3 weeks of carnivore, then for about 2 months after that, I felt like my body was not dumping oxalates at all. Then I felt the dumping start again. Cant prove any of that, but that is how I felt based on symptoms.
I do want to dispel some myths here about carnivore diet. I'll start by saying everyone should do what is healthiest for them and works for them. Everyone is different. There is no perfect diet for everyone. Some people feel better eating carbs and that is fine. Ignore everything Ronnie wrote because it is all false. Also, carnivore diet is not restrictive of any nutrients. Zero fiber is the best amount of fiber for many people and their microbiota.
Quote from Bella on May 16, 2019, 8:46 am@mike and @bludicka, Do either of you think that oxalate dumping could be involved in the detox symptoms some of us experience?
I’m starting to wonder...
Hi Bella,
I’m wondering about that too. There must be an explanation as to why some people are experiencing this detox setback phase whereas others don’t at all. I was suspecting that it might be due to vitamin E supplementation. Now, with multiple people raising the concern about oxalates, the oxalates could also be a reason.
A while back I had suggested that Brazil nuts were a good source of calcium, zinc, and vitamin E. Unfortunately, they are also a high source of oxalates too. Therefore, I think I need to retract that recommendation. I suggest that we cross them off the menu just to be on the safe side. Each person needs to find their own safe foods list.
Grant