carnivore

Carboholic vs. Carnivore?
03/28/2010 - 22:19

 

These elders from the Troibriands (Kitava is part of this island chain) are clearly suffering from the effects of yam consumption. (more) Those carbs really catch up to you when you get old, especially since the islanders are only slightly more active than the average westerner. 

Whereas this raw reindeer eater is much superior on his diet of mostly meat. 

All in jest of course. Really, all of these men look healthy and certainly seem to have aged better than most Americans. I'm not against carnivory, but I personally don't see the need to restrict my diet to one that I find to be boring, expensive, and time-consuming when it doesn't seem like people eating unprocessed carbohydrates are exactly wreaked by them. 

In fact, given Western standards of lean beauty (which I would say are often totally unconnected to health and I personally don't expect to look like I do now once I am 60 and have had several children), the Islanders look much healthier and more attractive at any age, though there is probably more incentive to look great if you are going around without many clothes. I think a bad reaction to carbs is more a testament to a damaged metabolism, poor gut flora, or epigenetic problems than our evolutionary heritage. 

 

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Raw Meat?
02/03/2010 - 21:57

 

Raw flesh might sound scary, but every traditional healthy culture studied by Weston A. Price ate at least some raw animal products. I was reminded of that when I dug up this article from the Washington Post about raw meat eating in Siberia. Raw meat also has a following in NYC too and I know several people who subsist on over 50% raw. I started doing raw foods as a vegan, but I gradually moved over to raw meat when I found that raw veganism made me feel malnourished and fatigued. That was a time in my life when I had been a little wild and I had probably done some damage to my stomach. I found raw meat, eggs, and fish was about the only thing that I could eat that didn't make me feel like crap. I never fell ill during this time. 

Why don't I eat raw anymore? Well, I certainly eat plenty of raw foods still, primarily oysters, fish, and some grass fed meat. But raw is expensive because you really have to be careful about sourcing and you absorb fewer calories per gram of meat according to Richard Wrangham's book Catching Fire. I'm also a foodie at heart and once my stomach was healed, it was hard for me to find a reason not to eat delicious cooked food. But the raw paleos have some good arguments for their way of eating and it is definitely beneficial to eat some raw food even if it's just an oyster or two. 

There has also been lots of buzz about carnivore-only diets in the paleo community lately. Such diets are traditional and there are numerous instances of healthy peoples like the Inuit who ate that way. Arctic explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson was perhaps one of the first urban NYC cavemen when he frequented Greenwich Village Salons back in the 1930s. Studying the Inuit, he was amazed to find that there were healthy despite eating a diet of almost 100% flesh. Back in the States, he did a study where he and another explorer agreed to eat only meat for a year to prove anyone could be healthy on such a diet. The diet was a success and he remains an idol to the carnivore community. I suggest everyone check out his excellent books.

I think though that while such diets can be successful, they are not paleo (there is no evidence of completely carnivorous pre-neolithic cultures) and not necessarily appropriate for everyone. In the long term, Inuit suffer from osteoporosis, probably because of excessive amounts of protein. There are some genetic differences that appear to allow them to eat their diet more successfully. Carnivore is just one option to investigate if other diets don't work, but it can be a difficult road and perhaps it's not so optimal for the long term. 

Either way, there is much we can learn from cultures like the Inuit. Here are several rules I have gleaned

  • Eat both marine and land animals
  • Eat LOTS of fat and enjoy it!
  • Eat at least some of your meat and fish raw
  • Eat nose to tail...marrow, brains, eyeballs, and all the nasty bits
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