Hello all,

I have been eating the natural human dietary regime for over 47 years now. I do not eat anything whatsoever from vegetable sources. The only things veggie I use are spices. My diet is usually 60% fat and 40% protein by calories. I used to eat 80/20 when younger and about twice as much quantity of meat also, but that seems too much energy at my age, which is 71- even though I am very active. I think the body actually becomes more efficient with energy as you age, but I have no way of proving it true. Otherwise, my body today is very like it was at the age of 30. I figure most of what we call 'aging' is due to insulin damage to the collagen and other body structures. No carbs = no insulin. I don't heal quite as fast when injured as I did as a youngster, however. But I have few wrinkles, and my skin is still strong and elastic.

At this point I would like to point out that a zero carb diet does NOT cause ketosis. The body rapidly adapts within a few weeks and begins consuming the ketones from fat metabolism. A fully keto-adapted body excretes no ketones in the urine. A metabolic by product, 'ketone bodies' are actually a special kind of carb, and they substitute for glucose at the structures which use it. They have the added advantage of making you feel good- and well fed.

The body cannot store dietary fat, there is no mechanism for transport across the adipose cell's wall, nor can it 'burn' carbs, which actually are toxic in more than the tiny amount required by the brain and a few other structures. The body converts dietary carbs (all convert to glucose as they are absorbed) into body fat. The conversion mechanism requires insulin which is very tissue-damaging. It is correct to say that dietary carbs are the base cause of both heart blockage and diabetes, (not a disease).

I must warn all of you that it is very unlikely that very many will be able to eat as I do over the long term, or in fact, to follow any diet for long which is much different from the one you were trained to as a baby/child. This is because diet is learned much the same way language, dress and behaviour is, and is buried deep and inaccessible, a part of your acculturation/socialisation. The very thing which makes us human is that deep and almost instinctive complex of behaviour.

It requires a powerful will and a determination to change, in order to succeed in adopting the 'extreme' diet which this website is based on. Even those who are morbidly obese, as powerful a motivation as any I can imagine will have 'cravings' for what I call 'non-food' (all vegetation and carbs) which will eventually prove irresistible. A few may manage to stay on the diet for years, but unless you are prepared to stick with it for maybe ten or more years, you will drift back into eating what I consider poison. For some reason my mum was not interested in forcing me to eat the veggies I hated so, and i was able to eat only what I liked- mostly meat, especially hamburger and the fat those at our table would cut from their steaks. Still I had massive struggles abandoning the 'civilised diet'.

I suggest that no non-food be taken home, none allowed in your fridge or pantry (out of sight is hopefully out of mind). Make a request when seated in a restaurant that the bread bin be removed (but please leave the butter), and when ordering, request that the vegetables be removed from the plate in the kitchen (just say you don't like to see 'good food go to waste').

Even during the years I was soundman for Grateful Dead, I stuck to my guns and remained totally carnivorous. I am restricted by the forums rules (as I read them) from telling about my essay on diet and exercise which is posted on my website. Basically it states that humans were totally hunting peoples until the end of the paleolithic age. No paleolithic archeological dig has ever produced any food residues from vegetables. Chemical analysis of bones from the digs indicates they are the same composition as the African lion- thus, virtually no intake of vegetation. There were no 'hunter-gatherer' societies until the neolithic, even though some modern HG tribes still made and used typical paleolithic napped-stone tools. The so called Nearthin and Paleodiet thus are both nonsense, true paleolithic people were total carnivores and ate no veggies whatsoever.

In the relatively short evolutionary period since the consumption of vegetables as food there has not been any real adaptation to such low grade low energy, difficult to digest foods. Because we have no adaptation to digesting or processing vegetables as food, they are all basically very bad for us.

We evolved as an active, group-hunting animal. We have a high natural requirement for physical exercise and cannot live long or be healthy without a lot of it.

I hope my post is of some help to others. Just persist. I show that it IS possible to overcome your dietary socialisation.

-Ok.

I see that the old bugbear of 'seeing' only what fits into one's world view still holds strongly amongst some of those responding to my post. I will attempt to clear things up a bit.

My website is: www.thebear.org.

diabowl:

A zero-carb diet is the traditional treatment for diabetes (not a disease) before the development of injectable insulin, first from pigs.

Diabetes is the result of the immune system sensing the widespread tissue damage from insulin, targeting the source cells in the pancreas and destroying them. Insulin resistance type diabetes is the result of the tissues themselves rejecting insulin. Neither form is found in any other animal in nature, man's carnivorous pets fed a grain based diet may also suffer this syndrome.

In the absence of dietary carbs, the body does not need to produce insulin and the diabetes essentially 'disappears'. You will never be told this by a doctor because then you would be free of the need for medical intervention and your daily ration of drugs. All the assorted ills diabetics suffer are actually caused by insulin, cataracts, heart attacks, bad joints, etc. These are the kind of damages done to the tissues by insulin, and the injected kind is a far more powerful damaging agent than the endogenous hormone. Blood monitoring on a zero-carb regime will quickly confirm the stability of blood glucose.

foxgluvs:

Nowhere in my post do I say 'preprogrammed'. I thought I made it quite clear that a person's eating habits, including the composition of the diet is solely determined by that person's mother between birth (and about 8), the same time all the social skills which make us uniquely human ware acquired.

The name of this website is lowcarber.org,, is it not? A low carb diet is 'extreme' relative to the usual western civilised diet. My diet is just the end point of lowering carbs. My statement was not that it took 'far too much willpower', only that it requires strong willpower and great determination.

I am sure that there are a great many things known by anthropologists that you would find 'impossible to believe', however scientific evidence does not require belief, only knowledge. The composition of the materials found in paleo digs as well as bone composition tests are well known and published, I suggest a search on Google. And check the journals of anthropology in a library.

Vitamins. that is easy, there are virtually no sources of any vitamins to be in vegetation (which is why all vitamin supplements are synthetic), but all are found in abundance in meat. For example no source of A other than animal liver exists. The amount of B complex in 30 gm of fresh red meat is more than can be extracted from one hundred kilos of yeast concentrate- once it was done, but at great expense. C is not the only antiscorbitic substance, since a diet of just red meat prevents scurvy (the Inuit diet).

Moderns live a long time in spite of a wickedly bad diet but it is due to medicine. Most paleo people died either of trauma of various kinds in hunting and war, starvation or disease. Lifespan is therefore not a measure of the effectiveness of diet, as even a lousy one can get you to ~30/40. I think you mean nutritious. It is just plan nonsense to claim that there is any basic difference between individual humans so far as body functions, etc are concerned, the biggest cop up in avoidance is ' is ok for you but everybody's different', so please, let's not go there.

bawdywench:

I have eaten nothing but sirloin steaks for months on end, but I do like eggs cheese, many cuts of meat, even organs like liver tongue kidneys and brains (although the Inuit never eat any of them- and most likely neither did the true paleo hunters). Fish and chicken are nice too, in fact I have never 'met' an animal I would not eat. The one meat that needs to e eaten sparingly is liver, which contains a lot of starch (glycogen) and vit. A which is toxic in excess. Excess may be as little as one ounce of the liver of an animal feeding on fish.

Kristine:

Concerning vegetables, there is no 'baby'- it is all just a load of dirty water. Moderns do not eat any raw natural vegetation other than sugary fruit and some difficult to indigestible nuts. All modern veg foodstuff have been extensively modified by selective breeding to reduce to eliminate toxins and still require long cooking, are low in nutrients and cause a growth of harmful bacteria in the intestine, while the fibrous cellulose residues (fibre) scratches the delicate lining and causes mucus and scarring. This reduces nutrition and eventually as you age, this damage will lead to malnutrition even on a good diet. Meat leaves the stomach as a liquid after about 45-60 min, and is totally absorbed in the first foot or two of the small intestine- no scratching and no mucus formation. Human milk is very sweet, hence the 'sweet tooth' is easy to develop if reinforced by lollies as a baby. Without this reinforcement sweets are seldom later sought after. If paleo people actually ate seasonal fruits (quite possible in some places), they ate them where found, no evidence or residue has been found in digs.

The only thing careful about my diet is I don't use salt (a chemical) and I don;t cook the meat much, I make sure I eat a lot of fat. Virtually any meat is ok, even for long periods, it is a matter of personal taste, like- I really like raw oysters and soft shell crabs (and for that matter Aussie mud crabs..)

I eat butter, of course. Mayo is normally made with unsat veg oils and is high in salt. If you like the stuff, which I do, you should make your own from egg yolks, macadamia oil and lemon juice.

I love garlic.

I buy my meat like most people- at a good quality market. Due to where I live, in Australia, I am able to buy meat which is paddock fed (on grass) and not feedlot 'fattened' on grain, which only adds cost. Grain is not a natural food for bovines, and it requires the animal be fed a special mix of bacteria to digest it, also I do not particularly like the taste of feedlot beef.

Cows are NOT generally 'injected with hormones' nowadays due to stringent restrictions on residues in beef exports (usual is to feed a growth supplement for a period and withdraw it weel before slaughter), and even those who were, do not have any residues by the time of slaughter, the hormones, which are bovine, do not effect humans anyway- and the amount which is active in the animal is so slight in the relatively portion you would eat as to be measured in nanograms. hormones are not like LSD (effective in micrograms), and it requires a significant amount to have any effect at- that is- if the hormone is a human one, which is not the case with the bovine ones.

All meat is 'organic'- you cannot feed cattle (or other foodd animals like chickens ('organic' chickens suck- they are tough due to growing slower on a all grain based diet, lack plumpness and are tasteless) on chemicals like you can plants.

Paying the premium (often twice the usual amount) for so-called organic meat is like piling up your hard earned and setting fire to it- it is just plain dumb. Actually most organic meat is tough, lack a proper marbling of fat and has nothing to recommend it over normal beef in the nutrition department- save your money so you can buy more food with it.

Chocolate, 100% unsweetened, is ~50% carbs. The xanthines are what give it a bitter taste (theobromine, caffeine and theophylline). The true (best) human diet is NOT about what 'tastes good'- actually most vegetables taste perfectly awful plain and virtually 100% of babies reject them on first exposure, while all accept meats (human milk and pulped meat are the only foods a newborn can digest- but be careful with the fat content). It is the complex of spices and cooking additives/techniques which make up 'cuisine' (I am a highly skilled cook).

Once habituated to the taste of vegetables, as I have noted, it is so difficult to move away from them that most people will never do it. The excuse is always those stated in the above posts by nancy lc et al. This is just their strong socialisation speaking loud and clear, it has nothing to do what is right, good or nutricious. At birth we have no 'taste' for anything, not even our mum's milk, just a sucking reflex. All food is acquired taste. The common question about 'isn't a diet of only meat boring?, is simply the result of the heavy spicing of most food items. Actually each feed of meat, even unspiced and when it is the exact same cut, smells and tastes heavenly and is consumed with gusto. Food does not have to be used as entertainment, but that is what it has come to be in our modern culture. Meals, especially in restuarants, are commonly treated as 'showtime'.

I dispute the claim about human coproliths in association with true plaeo- lithic remains- Those have been found only with meso- or neo- lithic sites. My research has not uncovered that claim for the true paleo- period. The claim of many modern 'research' projects are questionable, since financial sponsorship can and does predetermine outcomes.

I don't think books are going to provide a way to understand something like this. No one has previously written about it, because, like doing brain surgery on oneself, examination of our 'instinctive' and unconscious socialisation process is very difficult. Babies will 'trip' inbuilt responses in the adults and other children around them to provide answers and information on skills they need according to their age-window. Children will repeat things taught them seemingly endlesssly until they become skilled.

I have been long puzzled about how easy it was for me, and how nearly impossible for virtually everyone else to adopt the all meat diet. After 47 years of this, and I am not bragging when I say that I am a bit above the average intelligence, I have finally come to the conclusions I have made about human acculturation.

For instance read my essay on Children's TV. I worked for many years as a broadcast TV engineer and technician, during which time I had a funny feeling that all was not right with Sesame Street, that it somehow was damaging kids and not really teaching anything, but I could not put a face to what it was. The essay is not about diet, but about the very insidious and hidden destruction of our society which is ongoing today by taking the irreplaceable TIME for learning essential skills amongst our kids away and subsituting the passive watching of TV (the ubiquitous electronic 'babysitter'). If you want some literary insight into how we humans learn as children to become human, read the work of the famous child educator, the Countess Montessori. Hers may be the only written work which can be said to relate in some way to our (also) dietary acculturation.

You need only understand that we have only the most basic animalistic instincts at birth and our early cultural training is fixed so strongly into who we are that it can usually override them all. Failure of acculturation therefore is a very serious and difficult to remedy disaster for humanity.

Hmmm.

'Swallow'? 'Thesis'? Nothing I have written constitutes a 'thesis' (perhaps you meant theorum), it is a recount of life experiences and references to fact.

I guess that the term 'swallow' is humorously related to the subject matter....

Sorry about that, duparc, but my website is NOT commercial in any sense of the word, it is partly a virtual gallery and show site for my art past and present, my music and an online venue for exposing some of my philosophical thoughts to those who are interested. I do not offer anything for sale anywhere on the site. I am at a loss as to what you define as 'commercial'.

'We on this site', Are you the moderator? Did you poll everyone and find that to be the case, or are you just trying to look important. I suggest you not go there. A low carb diet is what my eating regime is, it is one of the obvious end-points on the scale. Judging by the response, your attitude is in the minority.

I am not interested in attempting to justify any 'long term benefits', I simply am sharing my 47 years of experience with a very effective and healthy diet.

'Predates'? On the contrary, my diet was based on a large body of life experiences, knowledge and research by experts such as Richard Macarness, MD, and Dr Viljhalmur Stefansson- who as is well known was a subject with Dr Anderson in a year long closely monitored all meat diet in 1928 at the Mayo clinic in NYC, which, if you are 75, is prior to your birth. I am definitely not 'stepping outside any social convention'. I would really like to hear just what that term means to you! I guess this sort of information has put your social food-training and concepts under threat. I am sorry, but I can't help you with it.

Finally, although YOU may indeed be guessing (and for that matter, what you define as 'being in good shape' and mine may be miles apart), nothing I have written in my posts or on my site is a 'guess', it is all verifiable fact. I do not deal in guesses nor belief systems.

What has arithmetic to do with dietary fixation?

dodger- The usual grade of 'cooking/baking' chocolate you find on grocery shelves in the US (USDA) may indeed be as you state, but fine qualilty, European 100% chocolate and high fat cocoa is 40 to 50% carbohydrate, as is shown on the label. Try Belgian Callibrot if you can find it, for a real choc treat. Just be mindful of the carbs-

jandlsmom- I eat anything which is not a vegetable or contains carbohydrates, like milk or yoghurt. Thus any animal will do, and all cheeses- watch the label on cottage cheese, however many kinds have a lot of lactose residue. Menus? actually I don't bother, I just buy what strikes me at the market and if I happen to wind up eating the same cut of meat for days, weeks or months, like finding a great discounted/wholesale special price on whole cryovac'd sirloin strip steak, it does not bother me. Heavy reliance on 'variety' is connected with vegetation, even heavily addicted people cannot stand to eat the same one over and over.

I enjoy cooking, been at it since age 12. So, rather than menus, how about a recipe I developed?

Try this: A large chicken, 4-5 lbs (2.2+ kg). Carefully separate the skin from the meat by passing your hand gently through the evisceration opening in the abdomen- try not to tear the skin.. Make a mixture of 4 oz (100gm) of unsalted butter and the same amount of Philly cream cheese. Mix spices, like curry or chilli powder, 2 teaspoons with the softened (not too soft) cheese and butter to make a uniform paste- I like a spice mix used in Argentina, called Chimi Churi- a spice preparation which I buy here in Oz from Peter Watson in Melbourne Vic. But it is not required what spices you use, try different mixtures. Using a spoon, place the mix through the opening, some on each side, and squeeze it out between the skin and meat to form a thickness of 1/8" (3mm). Take the last bit and smear it over the skin, place on a rack over a pan in a 350F (180C) oven, preferably a fan-circulating one, and roast for 60-70 min. It is hard to stop eating this bird. The drippings make a wonderful gravy. I like this style of chook so much that I often roast two birds at once- two people can completely devastate one between them.

Opps, almost forgot:

How to make mayo- basic instructions may be found in any good basic cookbook, like Joy of Cooking, etc. Use raw egg yolks, beaten well. The oil is slowly drizzeled in while vigorously stirring. I don't add any salt, but add a bit of lemon juice. The right ratio of egg yolks to oil has to be found by experiment, to produce a nice texture. It is a bit tricky, so don't give up if your first attempt is not what you expect.

The only good veg oils are palm, coconut and macadamia nut- but only mac is easy to use in mayo, although if you can get a fine quality of palm it may be worth a try. Coconut has too high a melting point. Mac oil gives mayo a nice nutty flavour.

Ok, jandlsmom- but please read carefully my earlier posts and my essays, I think most of your questions have already been seen to.

Eggs are very good food- but not if hard cooked, which denatures the protein. Don't eat raw eggwhite, it has an antivitamin, avidin (antibiotin). I can eat a dozen eggs a day, easy.

Olive oil has a lot of poly-unsats- has a strong, not very pleasant taste, as well. Mac oil is mostly mono-ok, if not in large amounts, and tastes great. Good for frying fish, too. Palm and coconut are both saturated and therefore very good food unlike the rest of the veg oils, which are best avoided.

Smart thing is to stick to animal fat, which is the perfect fuel our body was 'designed' to use (saturated triglycerides are the kind of fat you store). High cuisine was traditionally based on beef tallow, lard and butter, vegetable oils used were few and put mostly on salads. What do you put mayo on? I can find few things other than cold chicken or fish on which it can be used- it is something put on vegetables, bread (andwiches) etc., which are not a part of my diet. I have not used much mayo in a long time. Last major use was for canned tuna, but i gave that away. I think egg 'salad' is about it.

I see acculturation is alive and well, all the comments on vegetation as well as young kids copying mum are to be expected, as the eating of veggies is learned long before speech.

So far as duparc, I am appalled to find his mind so poisoned with his own calcified ego that he chooses to call me a liar. I have no need to lie. Why bother? The way I found the Eskimo/Inuit diet in 1958 is EXACTLY as I have recounted, and I resent narrow minded fools attacking my veracity and honour. No one has to follow my path, I am just trying to share it for those for whom it may be of use. I do not expect anyone to adapt the all meat lifestyle, it is against the basic modern's acculturation as noted, and my experience has verified the difficulty.

Creationist is it? Whew. Superstition should play no part in a modern educated person's life. This is not to say that the Universe is not a conscious entity, only to say that it works perfectly without a humanoid god-figure controlling it, and follows exactly all the rules of science and nature (I suggest reading a little book called the Kybalion). In my mind, the Universe is a constantly created thing which we are part of, and is not a clock wound up once and let go. Everything in Alchemy can be tested in science and science has proven evolution. But this is not really a part of dietary practice other than to say that life is just as conscious for plants as for animals. Plants are likely to be more conscious due to a lack of an ego limiting and focusing perception due to the need to move around a seek food. It is just that we are not able to understand plants. Some research (Backster)has verified their ability to respond to music and identify threat, etc. Life lives on life, whether an animal eats animals or plants it is the way organic creatures exist, face it. We are what our evolution has made us. If we began and remained herbivorous (which we did not- earliest primates were insectivores), we would be about as intelligent as the other animals which eat plants, like cattle and sheep. The development and maintenance of a large brain and high intelligence, is a very energy intensive undertaking- and is unlikely ever to occur in a herbivore who lives on very low quality, high mass foods- and none have.

I suggest that people coming on to this thread read ALL my posts first before asking about things I have already covered, like dairy, eggs etc. Animal husbandry was a true paleo food solution, and appeared well before agriculture.

Perhaps a better comparison, rather than with the great apes, who are not in the direct human evolutionary line and separated from us over 4 million ybp, but with the tree shrew, which of all the primates of today is still a specialised insectivore. The mountain gorilla is today's largest non-specialist insectivore- massive backs provide the power to strip the bark off grub- infested trees. Captive gorillas didn't accept red meat as food, but ate vegetation on offer, the basis of the formerly held (false) assumption they were herbivores. However they all proved infertile until animal-based food was given to them in an acceptable form to replace their natural food-bugs. The tree shrew (looks like a big mouse with very human-shaped ears) evolved from a precursor insectivore placed earlier in our direct ancestral lineage. That man may have been an opportunist (like the dog) way back is perfectly reasonable, an my explain why, unlike felines both dogs and men are able to manage some vegetation- but we have very little capacity and we pay a price in tooth decay and wear, stomach/intestinal/gall bladder problems, arterial blockage and the auto-immune syndrome, diabetes. Not value for 'biological money' except for short periods of no food animal. I suggest reading about what is now known about apes in the professional scientific journals before making spurious statements about the dietary habits of the great apes, there has been extensive recent research in the literature on dietary habits. By the way- chimps like monkey meat best- and nothing better than a nice fat baboon. They hunt in cooperative groups very like we do.


The false claim about carnivores eating the stomach and/or its contents is an ancient vegetarian hoax. No Inuit would consider eating the stomach of a prey animal as food. Dogs won't eat it and neither will my domestic cat. In spite of being 15 yrs old, and castrated, he loves to chow down on wild baby bunny- he eats the little buggers bones, skull and all, but carefully leaves the furry feet, stomach and intestines in a pile in the middloe of a path. My guess is, it is 'bragging rights' he is exercising. How he could know that rabbits are a serious pest here is a mystery

'Dead dairy'- right. The cult of raw-milkers. I would have to say that the cream and butter from a home cow might be a bit tastier, but the major claim raw-milkers make is about the damage heat does to the calcium which is not a part of butter or cream, and many cheeses are made from raw milk in Europe. Pasteurisation by flash-heating and immediate flash cooling of commercially marketed diary provides protection from a range of nasties and is worth way more than any perceived loss.

Milk (of any animal) is not good for adults, especially low fat or skim- they feature prominently in the market trollies pushed by very obese individuals in all the market I have been in. Children have milk-specific enzyme systems in the stomach up to about 6 yrs, adults do not. Human babies do poorly on non-human milk, the best you can get as a substitute for mum is mare's milk.

Before that human populations were locked into prey availability, vis-a-vis the Inuit- were right up until recent time. Inuit are known to have life-spans to 90+, but most never make that figure due to various kinds of accidents, trichinosis from eating raw arctic predators meat and overall body damage from sometimes lengthy periods of starvation due to scarcity of prey animals.

Of course a meat diet did not and in fact cannot exceed or even reach 70%- it is toxic at hign levels. It was ~20% to maybe as high as 50% in times of low fat on the prey available. The all meat diet is NOT in strict terms a 'low carb diet', it is a high FAT diet. It is possible to survive a verylong period on not pretein as well as not carbs, in other words on fat alone- many months can go by. In a shortage of dietary protein the body becomes very conserving of amino acids and if not damaged, does not break them down, but recycles them

Correction (oops)

Of course IN a meat diet, PROTEIN did not, and in fact cannot exceed or even reach 70%- it is toxic at hign levels.

It was ~20% to maybe as high as 50% in times of low fat on the prey available.

You mean that direct and repeated implication that I am a liar and have commercial interests in my postings is ok, but requesting the accuser to desist is not?

Sorry about that, perhaps I am just a late comer and don't yet have defense rights.

I do not lie. My story is true and I am just trying to share my 47+ years of eating a very low carb diet with other people like my self who have a serious bodyfat problem.

I always expected to find rejection and denial, including intense and emotional arguments in favour of the accepted but untrue conception that humans evolved as omnivores. I did not expect to be called a liar and a fraud by someone who could not accept that I actually have been on this path as long as I have and found it myself by paying attention to stories told by a famous adventurer. What basis does someone have to go there?

There are many interviews I have given over the years and stories told about me which refer to my strict carnivorous habits.

I only know 3 people who have done the trip for more than a few months, and I do not expect many of the readers of this forum will even get to that place. I have therefore been careful to point out the deep social connection between food and culture- dietary carbs and eating behaviour is fixed in childhood, it is part of your permanent lifestyle. and requires great effort (call it 'will' if you like) to change.

For this reason it is not necessary to defend your diet by accusing me of perfidy, I already accept that you are not going to change, and that most likely all of you will regain the lost bodyfat restricting carbs has brought you. Those who are only very slowly losing fat or have stopped losing probably need to lower the carbs to less than 5gm/day, which I term 'zero carbs'. A diet is not going to give you a normal body to keep, only a permanent change of lifestyle is. Which is the point of my telling you how I did it, that I did with out going past my max of 186 lbs (at 20 yrs. for only 6 mos), and have maintained a nice 6-12% bodyfat for 47 years (and counting). I would weigh 320 lbs or more and probably would not have lived to reach 50 if I had not changed my lifestyle.

I just felt that I needed to let people know that eatiing nothing but meat works, and not only that but it works fantastically well. You do not need science projects or extensive research into the past to understand what works, a person's life experiences should do it- Stefansson's did it for me. And don't forget all those Inuit...

The majority of Inuit live on land and eat mostly caribou and elk. They also will eat fish and few tribes hunt whales, but the marine animals are mostly taken during the warmer time of year- the tribes that live on or near the ocean will hunt seal by staking out the breathing holes, as do polar bears.

Polar bears, by the way, are the largest bears on the planet and are total carnivores, NOT omnivores. Some monkeys are herbivores.

Fire and napped-stone tools came along at about the same time, and it is this which allowed us to become carnivorous hunters and scavengers. But you don't need to go back into the past to find the truth, your body (not your mind) knows what is right and will respond to the right mix. What is real is what you and your body are like after following your path for more than 10 years- better- for more than forty.

If you ask an Aboriginal man what traditional food is, he will name all the animals he can hunt. If you ask him about other food, he will than tell you about the 'bush tucker' you can eat when you can't find any animals. Both men and women will hunt, but men rarely gather. The Aborigines are modern hunter-gatherers, their prehistory (dreamtime) is not known to science.

Oh, by the way- it is not hard to eat raw meat, cut it small, mash it a bit in the mouth and swallow- Inuit eat a lot of their meat raw. Many of the women have worn down their teeth A(no cavities, however) from chewing on sandy hides when making clothes- it is not always convenient to cook the meat- it is easy to eat it. This is the reason that trichina is a problem in the north.

I don't think that trying to duplicate a diet like the paleolithic hunters ate is very wise and is certainly unnecessary, for one thing we haven't a clue as to what it was other than from the bones etc in the digs.

Dairy is a kind of meat, but whole milk is sugary- with lactose. Cheese, cream and butter are ok. So what if we eat the meat-foods which are available in modern times? Few of us are likely to go out and hunt for our daily 'crust' (as they say down here).

We ARE modern people, and we have special groups of people who will do the work of getting the meat and making it available to us. My eating plan is simple- I just eat meat- any meat. One to six meals a day, and I don't worry about it- it is all rather yummy. I don't like to cook things much so I don't eat pork, and turkey makes me feel sluggish for hours, so I avoid that one too. I eat a lot of fat, animal fat.

I used to take vitamins, but stopped years ago. After noticing some difficulties in certain weight lifting exercises, I had some tests done and was told by a very competent kinesiologist that I should not take synthetic vitamin supplements, because due to eating the quantity of meat I do, I was suffering from a vitamin B overdose, which was causing some muscle weaknesses.

'I (heart) animals, they're delicious'- .... from a much-loved bumper sticker.

Actually I wasn't run off, I was in hospital Tuesday/Wed for an operation to repair holes in my eardrums. I got the holes from grommets placed there to relieve blocked Eustachian tubes caused by radiation therapy in '04 for throat cancer- the cancer was killed- but not without some collateral damage. Tubes opened up after a few months, but the grommets did not 'fall out' as I was told they would. As a musician, I have been very upset over my hearing for a while, but I think this is going to work and I will get back what hearing I had, at least. Nothing can fix the roll-off that years of Grateful Dead did to me, of course. And... I used cotton wool in my ears most of the time.

We (the doctors, my son -a vet- and I) think the cancer remained in my neck due to my very low glucose turnover, since most cancers of this kind (stage 4a SCC/tonsil) metastase rapidly. SCC cells are very glucose avid. Another life plus from the zero-carb lifestyle. The specialist who supervised my treatment said my fitness level was very important and helped my recovery. I have to say, this kind of thing is not anything you ever want to undergo. One thing that was interesting was that the radiation makes it impossible to swallow anything, even water, so they wanted me to get aq tube put through my abdomen into my stomach a 'PEG" tube. I resisted and lost weight like crazy- I simply could not swallow enough of anything, even protein drinks with heavy cream, and had the tube put in. Then of course they wanted me to use a prepared liquid meal called Sustegen- carb based of course, which I refused.

I managed to get a nice food processor and made my regular meat and fat meals, turned them into a liquid, and squirted them in with a 60 ml syringe- Takes forever to get enough to eat that way, I can tell you. In the end, I still must make soup-like meals because a nerve was crushed by the tumour and half my throat does not contract to force solids into my esophagus. Nothing tastes the same either (garlic helps), but that is not as bad as not being able to simply chew up and swallow pieces of lovely rare steak. Not to complain, I like being alive and I don't have any kind of fixation on how I eat my food. Oysters are a love from my youth, and I can still chew them up and wash them down ok, So all is not lost.

They said it was very odd I should get this kind of cancer, it is usually a mark of smoking tobacco and drinking hard spirits. But I was exposed to years of heavy tobacco smoke during my days as a soundman- smokey bars and clubs, limos and venues- Garcia for one smoked Camels.

I smoked for a couple of years from about 11, but it made me feel shitty in the morning and I gave it away. I much prefer cannabis to alcohol, never liked hard liquor and gave away even having the odd glass of wine in '90 when I began lifting weights.

I don't know whether polar bears ever eat any non-meat items, certainly Stefansson did not think they did, and the polar bear is considered an endangered species due to a reduction in prey availability. That some carnivores, especially the canids, the family to which all true bears belong (pandas are not bears but large members of the raccoon family) may eat some non-meat items does not mean they can digest them- and anyway, what does this line of pursuit have to do with what a human eats? I mentioned the polar bear only because one posting said bears were omnivores, but the polar bear is not an omnivore.

...I will answer my own question- it has nothing to do with it, it is simply someone expressing unconscious discomfort at the ideas I am promoting- socialisation strikes again.

The thing which makes humans unique is our society, and our culture. Animals also may have culture, like the Japanese monkeys who learn to wash their food in the ocean from each other and chimps learning to use simple tools from other chimps, and the most extreme, learning (human) sign language from another chimp- but in humans it completely overrides all our instinctive behaviour. The upside is so obvious I don't need to mention it, but the down side is that, like trying to do brain surgery on yourself, it is very hard to understand and change- it is written at too deep a level in our consciousness.

Thanks, folks- for the defense. It IS getting a bit wearing. If a person has nothing real to say, it is best to keep the mouth shut.

No-one knows exactly what the syndrome called scurvy is, but a simple diet of raw (or lightly cooked) meat completely prevents it.

I think people need to recognise that medicine is not a science, but an art, and is based on observations plus a very conservative approach.

The profession of the 'dietitian' is even less scientific, and is basically an organised attempt to justify the common modern diet by various means, such as the 'food pyramid'.

You do not need science to heal, nor to find what works in life. The longer the experience with any given path (like diet) which works, the more likely it is to be right, research or no research.

Cancer has not been shown to be connected to diet- the scare over colon cancer and meat content was related to a mixed diet, and the research is now considered suspect..

A few cancers have been shown to be connected to viruses, and those of the skin with UV exposure in a susceptible individual, but most causes are still mysterious. My developing of the specific kind of cancer was considered very unusual, and I agreed to participate in a project which is looking for causes other than alcohol and tobacco. A sample of normal tissue was taken, as well as cancerous, and I was told they suspect something concerning DNA may hold the key.

Did I understand that there is someone who wishes answers (to unasked questions)? Plese define the questions. Oh, and also, please define exactly what you mean when you use the word 'candid'. I may have a different dictionary than you do.

'Acculturation' = Acquiring culture. What you are taught as a baby/child about living as a human being in society, starting at birth and virtually complete by age 8. A kind of social toolkit. Without this we would be just another animal. Our culture is what defines humanity. It is very difficult for any person to change any part of this early training which was burned in heavily. If some of the things we need to know to be human is not learned during the several short, skill-specific 'windows' which open and close as a child ages, in time, that particular skill may never be learned (the rare so-called feral children, which were lost and raised by animals, exhibited varying amounts of disability, some could not learn to talk, some not able to walk upright). Culture includes such things ashow to walk, what to eat, how to dress, language, manners and much more.

I suggest a read of the writings of Countess Montessori, who founded the Montessori Schools. They are perhaps the best school for very young children. She defines each learning window so specific things are taught at an appropriate age, where the child is ready. Her teaching methods are very effective.

Anyone on an 'all meat diet' (i.e.-zero-carbs) who is hungry, is eating carbs, it is as simple as that. 'Hunger' indicates low bloodsugar, and once keto-adapted on a strict meat diet the bloodsugar never varies. Therefore, you will not become hungry, even after several days without food. At first, I had to remind myself to eat and it still is a problem on busy days- evening comes and I might realise I haven't eaten since daybreak. I'm never hungry.

'Candid' = Plainspoken. Open. Speaking out on the subject, not prevaricating, even when it is not PC to do so. Suits me right down to the ground.

Correct. You need to think about eating.

On a zero-carb diet, it is a good idea to eat on a schedule of some kind, because there will be no hunger pangs.

It is perfectly ok to only eat one large meal/day, like a three pound steak- but it is likewise just as ok to eat as many as six. If you are working out and trying to gain muscle mass, eat six smaller steaks rather than one or two big ones. I have eaten as much as four or five pounds of steak in a day- and as little as one or two, it matters not- but if you ingest less calories than you are burning, you will lose muscle mass as well as bodyfat. If you ingest more than you need, the body discards the excess- quite different than is the case with carbs.

Meat eaten alone is out of the stomach in about one hour. (vegetation takes 3-4 hours).

The reason you were taught to eat vegetables by your mum is because your mum was taught to eat vegetables by her mum as a baby, and her mum was taught that before her, and her mum's mum....all the way back to prehistory.

Benefit or no- health or illness- has nothing to do with why we eat what we do, we eat what we do because we were taught to eat that way. In any family the kids will eat what the adults eat and so on infinitum.

Culture is not a plan which some mysterious 'culture elite' have prescribed and agreed upon, it is a set of traditions, evolved in each society over a long period of time, learned by rote and passed down without thought or question from generation to generation. There are many cultures.

Meat is dissolved quickly by the hydrochloric acid your stomach is optimised to produce over 75% of its surface area. Vegetation stimulates the production of certain enzymes which are not quickly made and come from about 25%. The HCl is easy to turn on and turn off, the enzyme systems are not easy, and it is one of the reasons the mixed diet person experiences hunger- the stomach is busy making more digestive juice.

The bit about meat taking a long time and veggies a short time to digest is an ancient fallacy promulgated by vegetarians. Don't believe everything written in some book, there is no law against writing fiction.

This is very basic physiology. Any textbook gives the time of transit of food in the gut. NOTHING takes 12 hrs, if so why would you want to eat lunch a few hours after brekkie? and dinner after lunch?

In high school, I joined the boxing team to learn a bit of skill and get the other kids to stop messing with me- (it worked like a charm). Our coach would feed us a plain rare steak, with fat on, but with no water about one hour before every match. He said it took 45 minutes to leave the stomach, and fifteen to be absorbed into the blood- thus providing a lot of energy for the bout- he was not wrong, we won almost every match. This was in 1949, well before the diet-nazis had taken over. Obviously you would not want to be hit in the gut if there was anything still undigested in your stomach, and boxers always go for the gut.

I have said- I will eat any animal, and I love seafood. I drink about 2 to 4 litres of rainwater a day. Our rain is very pure, we do not have any air pollution in the southern hemisphere because there is virtually no nuclear south of the equator.

The truth is, there is no excuse to eat any carbs at all. Your body has a built-in fat level it will maintain. Without dietary carbs it is very hard to store fat. All dietary fat must be burned, there is no mechanism to store it.

Thus, a person whose bodyfat level is above their 'fat-o-stat' set-point will lose/burn body fat no matter how many calories they eat- i.e., it is not necessary to restrict your food, eat as much as feels good. The body has a limit to the amount of fat you can eat and digest at one sitting, determined by the bile, and once you have eaten that amount, you will stop, but can still eat the lean. Forcing things will work like drinking like castor or mineral oil- it is purging.

Once you reach your proper level, which varies a bit from person to person, but is around 11-15% for men and 18-23% for women, then you only have to eat as many calories as you burn- or a bit more- to stay the same. Only a reduction below daily needs will cause a change. Extra calories without any carbs will not fatten you. To get 'ripped' like a bodybuilder (>5% bf) is very hard, and requires both discipline and a calorie reduction.

Atkins' was on the right road but some of his ideas were wrong- he made up his diet to appeal to people used to eating a lot of vegetation, he couldn't tell the truth that all carbs are the enemy of the genetically obese. I was on my routine for years before his book came out, and I pinned him as a diet-wuss. There is no such things as 'induction' in dietary terms- you eat what you eat and your body accepts what it is, and adapts. Most really heavy people cannot lose the excess body fat they carry if they eat as Atkins suggests.

I sometimes make beef jerky. It can be an excellent snack, but lacks fat and is therefore not a complete food, some supplemental fat is necessary. It can be made into pemmican, a complete food, by adding fat. The instructions are pretty simple, take lean (heavy fat marbling slows drying, and can lead to spoilage) meat, slice to about 1/8" thickness, and dry with heat at 104F (40C) max. This is very important any higher will cause the loss of nutrients, lower will not do the job quickly enough. Never use any salt or other additive, just clean, fresh lean raw meat. I have used a gas oven with a pilot light and the door left ajar, but you must check it empty with an accurate thermometer to be sure it is not too hot. If no pilot, such as in an electric oven, use an incandescent lamp, try different wattages to select the right size. Jerky is dry to crumble in about 8 hours. To make pemmican, powder the jerky and add an equal weight of, not hot (melted) tallow made from rendering beef suet. This is a greasy mass and is not really very palatable as is, but can be added to warm water to make a sort of soup. Jerky should be very dry and not leathery like the commercial junk- which means it is still too wet and will spoil. Pemmican can be kept for up to 30 years so long as it is kept sealed away from air. More information on jerky and pemmican can be found in either Fat of the Land or The US Army Arctic Survival manual 1944, by Stefansson.

I am sorry some respondents cannot seem to accept that I am not on any kind of agenda/promotion when I describe my experiences. I tell only what it is like, and I sometimes refer to things I have read. Perhaps it would be helpful for me to post a short list of pertinent articles I have collected from journals over the years. I will do that, so whomever is interested can go to the library and look them up, or subscribe to the online versions. They are mostly studies of metabolism and one very important one on the proposal of insulin as the prime cause of coronary artery disease.

The simple answer is embodied in the responses of those who have actually gone onto a zero carb regime and kept to it for long enough to become fully adapted. All the 'research' in the world is not going to change what is true and what is not- this is best determined right down at the coal face, by following the path and observing the results

The unfortunate fact is that much of the published research is badly flawed, the result of carefully selecting data (and falsifying data) and asking prepared questions so as to get a desired result- both due to incompetent training in school, and also for financial rewards. A large body of research, the sort which was used to support the low fat diet fiasco was funded by big agriculture. The important products of big ag are the mass produced, low labour cereal grains, oilseed and sugar, not animal products.

Meat and dairy are very labour intensive, and do not give a high profit return to the primary producers, the best profit is at the end of the line- at retail, the butcher does pretty well.. Thus, there is a high incentive to reduce animal fat, increase vegetable oil consumption and get people to eat grain and sugar. Similarly, the medical profession does not profit from healthy people, so there is no strong motive in the industry to support the truth.

Although many doctors are primarily motivated to help people, still, a good income is always important. The zero carb diet is perfect for diabetics, however that would cut out the need for constant supervision by a physician, and eliminate the need for a very profitable drug, insulin. The drug industry, well known for placing profit in front of any sense of proper conduct, funds a powerful lobby to the medical profession.

quax:

Neanderthal was a hominid. A member of our genus, homo. We do not know that they were different in any major way other than some physical features from other homo species or in fact, if they were indeed a different species (which means 'cannot interbreed')- altogether: A 'hybrid' might not show Neanderthal features- if they were recessive) of that period, their tools were identical- an indication of trade and the sharing of skills. The choice of defining speciation in prehistoric humans is a matter of conjecture based on what is known, and is not 'chiseled in stone', so to speak.

There is some evidence they may have interbred and were absorbed into our genotype (some individuals show features considered as being Neanderthaloid, such as a very prominent brow ridge- musician Jorma Kaukonen is an example), rather than just disappeared.

I am a modern man, and live in the modern world. It is not a part of my path to find and slavishly copy ancient ways. They are only mentioned as an indication of our evolution as carnivores over millions of veggie-free years.

In case anyone has not followed the current scandal over wheat and Iraq, cereals are very lucrative, especially for the US and Europe, both subsidise wheat so heavily that is very profitable indeed. Primary producers of meat have very heavy costs in labour, veterinarian services, land use and degradation, costs of transport- live animals have a high specific value per unit weight, thus investment is high, and they require special higher cost transport. Grain is a stable, bulk commodity like sand or gravel. etc, value is low and thus the amount of investment per unit weigh tied up is low. Not only that, but the cost of holding cattle for 90 days in feedlots, accompanied by the need to alter their lumen bacteria and the costs of the grain (not a natural food for ruminants) almost doubles the cost/per pound over grass fattening.

I live in the middle of cattle country, where the grass is exceptionally nourishing and I know the local graziers well- trust me, they all live close to the line, so close that one has opened a butcher shop in order to sell his meat at retail in order to raise his family's income level. Low fat is a huge bonus for Big Ag with its automated planting and harvesting. Whether you want to accept it or not, your data is suspect. Unlike raising grains and oilseeds which is virtually automated, the is no special advantage to being big as a meat producer other than some economy of scale on land use- it is the labour component which rules the costs. A large mob of cattle needs dozens of men to handle them, whereas thousands of acres of wheat or corn can be planted, fed and harvested by a very few operators. There are no veterinary costs to raising plants, and the product is very stable, keeps well and does not require expensive storage- like energy-intensive refrigeration, nor does it require rapid sale and consumption up on 'harvest'. Why is this so difficult to comprehend? It is so obvious.

I live in a different time zone, so i have a lot to catch up on each morning. Here is a hodgepodge of answers and ripostes.

All essential vitamins and nutrients are found in lean meat and animal fat, including Vit E. and omega 3. Vegetables do not have vitamins to any significant extent, and some vitamins cannot be soured from any vegetable, like A. Soy is toxic- and a very poor food for humans/children, perhaps dietary deficiency led to the the sweet tooth. Just steaks alone are sufficient for health and longevity, provided there is enough fat on them. You do not need variety in animals nor any organ meats unless you like them. I would suggest going easy on liver, it is starchy can fatten you and poison you with Vit A if you eat too much or too often. Brains are good, as is kidney. but both taste sweet to me.

Dr Macarness, in his (for me) seminal book Eat Fat and Grow Slim put forth the suggestion that those of us who are 'genetically obese' (my term) actually suffer from an inability to process certain intermediates/byproducts of the conversion of glucose to fat, (krebs cycle). He focused on pyruvic acid, which he said built up and inhibited fat burning. The person then falls asleep or otherwise has very low energy after a meal until the glucose clears. I had this problem- after a meal I always wanted to nap. I don't know if he was right or not about what the mechanism was, but treating it like a 'black box' and dealing only with input and output, it describes exactly what happens to me if I consume carbs.

My credentials? You're kidding of course. Credentials for what, issued by whom? My 'credentials' are 47 years of living a zero carb lifestyle and 47 years of having many friends attack and disparage my lifestyle as 'unhealthy', all the while managing to die form things which have either not bothered me or that I have overcome.

I doubt there IS a living 47 yr veteran of veganism. Or even a 27 year one.

Blood sugar is controlled in the absence of dietary intake, by the liver and is dead stable at ~100 mg/dl (there is no way you can have zero blood sugar- it is a necessary nutrient to brain tissue and some other tissues- at that very low level, equivalent of about 5 gms total in the body. Insulin is a very, very body-damaging compound,and is only needed in conjunction with glucagon to control glucose when the diet includes carbs. The ills, both serious and life limiting, ascribed to diabetes (not a disease) are due to exogenous insulin injections. Insulin is not produced in the absence of high blood sugar levels. Prior to injectable insulin diabetic people were able to live long and healthy lives on a zero carb ('non farinaceous') diet. Unsaturated vegetable oils, especially poly's oxidise to organic peroxides, the most powerful 'free radicals' known. These outweigh any antioxidants present in vegetables. Raw egg (white) contains a powerful 'antivitamin' called avidin, which destroys biotin. Light cooking (soft boiled or coddled) destroys avidin.

I make a wonderful zero-carb ice cream with raw egg yolks, heavy cream, lactose-free milk protein and various flavours like vanilla and espresso. I use a very small amount of aspartame as a sweetener, since ice cream seems to need it. I have two sizes of White Mountain churn. Typical: 16 egg yolks, 2 litres heavy cream (35% mf), one cup water with two heaping tablespoons of a 3 to 1 mixture of calcium caseinate/ion exchange whey (or use lactose free 'total milk protein'- if you can find it), 1/4 teaspoon aspartame (Nutrasweet), three cups double short-black espresso, 2 tablespoon of high quality vanilla extract. Use a 6 qt churn with coarse salt and broken lump ice. Don't let the churn go too long, or it will turn to butter. You can skip the milk protein, but the texture will suffer.

The Inuit can be taken as an example in nature that there are no nutritional deficiencies under an all meat diet: All examinations and tests done back when they still lived the traditional life showed perfect health, no dental caries, no CAD, no obesity and no diabetes, plus- barring accidents and severe bouts of starvation and parasites, a very long life to ~90+ yrs..

The eating of wheat by humans is regional, since wheat is the most toxic of the cereal grains. Unless wheat is started very early in life it cannot be tolerated- unlike rice, the least toxic. So 'food aid' sent to many parts of the world is used only as animal feed. This is a distortion, but unlike feedlot grain, the farmers are paid human food prices for the aid input. Animal feed grain is lower in required quality and attracts a much lower price, all producers attempt to sell their grain into the human market, thus massive amounts of money are directed towards human 'grain as food' promotion. The most amazing marketing coup of recent times has been the promotion of the fibrous rubbish cover removed from grain before milling into flour, as human food. Formerly this material was sold to the makers of cardboard, but some marketing genius figured out that a 'scientific study' could be configured to show some kind of benefit from including this nourishing and intestine-irritating trash in food, thus permitting the sale of a cheap waste byproduct at food prices. ABSOLUTELY brilliant.

My figures are different, and I could not decipher the official mumbojumbo on the complex website referenced. No matter. I don't really care what is done with ag products: I eat the way I do because it really works, and I have a bit of problem understanding why others seem to believe all sorts of thing that are published but manifestly do not work, especially in books, by doctors and dietitians. Some books are works of fiction, and all of those are not identified as such.

Everyone knows people who are suffer an allergy to toxic plant matter especially 'whole wheat' and peanuts- which together with rhubarb (oxalic acid) are very poisonous, and even is tolerant individuals are hard to digest. Spinach also contains quantities of oxalic acid, (a blood poison) but nor as much as rhubarb, the green leaves of which can kill if eaten.

Wheat is the major cereal grain of the west, however my remark on quantity used for animal food is total cereal grains. Actually more maize is used to feed pigs than wheat is fed to cattle. Incidentally, wild pigs are not fat, but are very lean, it is the forced feeding of food like corn and skim milk which cases domestic pigs to be so fatty.

My great uncle was a farmer in central KY. He raised Jersey cows and pigs. I remember seeing big glasses of dark yellow, raw milk in the fridge, with some extra added cream floating on top, 1/3 the whole. He separated the cream from milking his cows and sold it once a week to a local ice cream works, and fed the skim milk to the pigs. I asked him why he bothered to separate the cream, since he did not market it fresh and thus got a lower price for it (the buyers used soda to 'sweeten' it), and he said whole milk caused the pigs to not eat as much, and therefore they did not gain weight as quickly as he wanted, but skim milk had no such effect. The fat in whole milk, you see, satisfied them, and they stopped eating. Skim as well as low fat milk are perhaps the most fattening drinks you can find today, not very sweet-tasting thus leading to vast intakes (it is 'fat free', you see). So is sugar- fat free, that is.

Most cultivated vegetables are highly modified by selective breeding to remove the natural defense-toxins, so much so that tonnes of chemicals must be used to enable them to escape being eaten by 'pests'.