RH Clark

Probably nothing you would consider credible. I'll state again I'm not promoting the carnivore diet. I'll say I'm intrigued by the information I have looked at about it. I think it's beneficial to look into these things objectively. My major concern of strict carnivore is that it would differ from any historically known human diet. Humans have relied heavily on animal protein and fats for food historically, but not exclusively as far as I know except for extreme examples of tribal peoples.

My personal diet consists primarily of animal proteins as free from contamination as I can get and fresh vegetables, fruits, nuts, berries, yogurt, cheese and occasional grains as free from contamination as I can get. Sometimes I wonder if I'm too concerned about contamination when I am on my bike at the light breathing the exhaust of some jerk in a supped up 4WD pouring black smoke out his tail pipe.

PeteHski

What intriguing information did you find?

I had a quick look and quickly dismissed it as a bunch of unqualified pseudoscience and fad diet pushers and cultish influencers. Qualified experts in nutrition seem pretty unanimous in raising a big red flag over the carnivore diet and especially the extreme beef, salt and water version. Short term weight loss appears to be the only potential “benefit”, but mainly because of its highly restrictive nature.

terrymorse 

I don’t think a vegan diet would be considered extreme. Not sure if this was implied or not, above.

Pretty easy to get a balance of macronutrients on a vegan diet.

RH Clark

No offense intended Terry. I went vegan for about 4 months once, but I do consider the vegan diet about as extreme as the carnivore if you use the metric of comparing either to a traditional diet of native people. In other words, I don't think any group pf humans have had a diet of all meat or all plants historically.

terrymorse 

Well, India for one has a long tradition of plant-based diets, which is encouraged by Hinduism and Buddhism. Some estimate that about 400 million in India currently are vegetarian/vegan.

PeteHski

A vegan diet is nowhere near as extreme as the carnivore diet. It doesn't exclude any of the macronutrients for a start.

RH Clark

That's good to know. Do you know if it has been a vegan diet for long periods, like hundreds of years perhaps? Would the Traditional Hindu- Buddhism diet exclude all animal products?

Either diet would still be considered extreme by many definitions. It just depends on how you qualify it.

terrymorse 

Wikipedia says vegetarian tradition in India dates back to the 6th century.

If you define extreme as “not what many people are accustomed to”, many diets would be extreme.

RH Clark

That's vegetarian rather than vegan though, right? Wouldn't vegan by definition be an extreme take on vegetarian? I was labeling both vegan and carnivore as extreme if you consider the diet most humans have consumed throughout history. I don't know of any culture that has ever been either all animal products or no animal products.

Iride01 

Meat doesn't have a wide variety of nutrients. It does have some high quantities of a few nutrients that are very important. But otherwise they are a desert for many of the nutrients you can only get from vegetables. With a very few exceptions, vegetables can provide most all the needed needed nutrients because they come in enough variety to let you change up your meals so that you do get the nutrients you need.

boozergut

My wife is from India. I have made two long trips to the north the south and the west coast. Yes, there are vegetarians everywhere. But they also cook many things in ghee and they eat the heck out of sugary sweets. There are plenty of moti and mota (fat) people there I can assure you.

terrymorse 

As far as I can tell, dietary veganism is essentially vegetarianism, with the additional specification of no eggs or dairy. That doesn't seem extreme to me.

Veganism also existed in ancient times, although the word "vegan" is quite new.

RH Clark

That just comes down to your personal point of view. Obviously since you are Vegan you see benefits in eating that way, so it doesn't seem extreme to you. The same could be said for anyone adhering to Carnivore however in my opinion. They may not label themselves as extreme either. Obviously, they see benefits or wouldn't continue for years. Some of them even reversing serious health conditions along the way. Granted those conditions were the result of an unhealthy SAD diet, with the exception of some who have used carnivore to control autoimmune disorders where literally any other food causes symptoms.

PeteHski

Or maybe they simply don't like eating vegetables. I've known a few people like that, although they usually eat fries for their carbs. Millions of people also eat the crappy Western junk diet for years and the only benefit is that they enjoy eating it.

RH Clark

Yes, I think that's sort of the appeal of Carnivore. I tried carnivore for 3 months when I first started trying to lose weight. The appeal to me was a way to diet by eating food I loved and not having to eat less than I wanted.

I'm still undecided on how healthy it is long term, but it does seem to be helping a lot of people get control of their bad diets in the short term. My thought is that many of them will find a more broadly balanced diet easier in the future by using carnivore in the short term to break food addictions.