Are you tired of counting calories or juggling the percentages of carbs, fats, and proteins that you consume in an effort to improve your health? You can discard all that bother by adopting the carnivore diet, which is simplicity itself. Eat nothing but meat, preferably fatty beef, and drink nothing but water. Don’t worry about sticking to a schedule for meals. Just eat whenever you are hungry, and keep on eating until you feel full. No need to worry about measuring servings.

That is the carnivore diet in a nutshell.

Wait a minute. This sounds crazy. Eat fatty beef, and only fatty beef, until I am full? This is supposed to improve my health? I’m supposed to lose weight on this diet? This goes against everything I have ever heard about healthy eating. How could this diet possibly make sense?

The rationale for the carnivore diet is based on the assumption that you are not healthy, and that your ill health is due to what you are eating. What you are eating is bad for your body and brain. Even if you don’t feel particularly unhealthy, your health is probably not the best that it could possibly be. Following a carnivore diet will heal those subclinical problems and make you a better and stronger you. Anyway, that’s the theory.

Actually, it’s not a theory. It’s a conjecture. In science, a theory, such as Newton’s Theory of Gravity, or Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, is buttressed by massive amounts of experimental data that confirms the validity of the theory. A conjecture is a guess that somebody makes and then states, without any backup other than that it might possibly be true.

No scientific studies have been conducted that concluded that a carnivore diet is healthier than any other diet. Proponents are basing their support of the diet on a belief, not on data. There is scant support for that belief.

Is it even possible that humans could satisfy all their nutritional needs, and at the same time avoid heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and other metabolic disorders, by eating only animal products?

Yes, it is possible. At least some people can, such as the Inuit leading a traditional lifestyle in the far north. In their environment, animals are the only food source available. In many areas where the Inuit live, there are no edible plants. To the surprise of many, the Inuit do not have a higher rate of heart disease than do people following a modern Western diet. However, these people have adjusted to the harsh conditions of the far north over thousands of years. If you do not have Inuit heritage, your digestive system is probably not going to react to an all meat diet as calmly as theirs does.

Who are the real carnivores? They are creatures that have followed an all meat diet for hundreds of thousands of generations. I’m talking about lions, tigers, sharks, wolves, owls, and eagles. The digestive tracts of these hunters have evolved over millions of years to thrive on an all meat diet. They have always eaten nothing but meat. This is not true of humans.

Early humans were plant eaters. They could walk, but they were not very good at running. They were not successful at catching fleet-footed prey animals until after they became better runners and invented weapons such as clubs and spears. At that point, they became omnivores, capable of filling their nutritional needs with both plant and animal foods. Whereas the digestive tracts of obligate carnivores such as lions and sharks are optimized for animal food only, the digestive tracts of people are more flexible, able to derive nutrition from both plant and animal sources.

The benefits claimed for the carnivore diet include:

• Weight loss
• Better digestion
• Higher testosterone levels
• Cardiovascular health
• Curing disease
• Elevated mood
• Higher energy levels

Although practitioners of the carnivore diet claim some, or all, of these benefits, their claims are strictly anecdotal. There have been no proper scientific studies that confirm any of this.

Foods that qualify for inclusion in the carnivore diet contain only protein and fat. No carbohydrate whatsoever. This is a far larger deviation for what people are accustomed to eating than any of the diets that I have discussed in previous posts, such as the Whole30 diet, the vegan diet, the keto diet, or the paleo diet. You definitely don’t want to embark on the carnivore diet without first discussing your plans with your doctor or with a registered dietitian. Registered dietitian Abby Langer, R.D. recommends against the carnivore diet. A diverse diet of wholesome foods is much likelier to keep you healthy than is a mono-diet such as the carnivore diet, where you expect to get complete nutrition from a single type of food.

Bio:

Allen G. Taylor is a 30-year veteran of the computer industry and the author of over 30 books, including Develop Microsoft HoloLens Apps Now, Get Fit with Apple Watch, Cruise for Free, SQL For Dummies, 8th Edition, Crystal Reports 2008 For Dummies, Database Development For Dummies, Access Power Programming with VBA, and SQL All-In-One For Dummies, Second Edition. He lectures internationally on astronomy, databases, innovation, and entrepreneurship. He also teaches database development and Crystal Reports through a leading online education provider. For the latest news on Allen’s activities, check out his blog at www.allengtaylor.com or contact him at allen.taylor@ieee.org.