Carnivore diet....another fad or the polar opposite of the vegan diet (with a myriad of benefits).

Ive been known to wield hoses around this place for so long that I get blisters on my palms, but there is one large place I never have to water, and that is the 1000 square meter  “humungus” garden. That’s where the perennial grasses have grown really tall with hardly any rainfall and  no irrigation. They were germinated in a furrow of compost and survived their first year, they are now taking that soil to the next level in fertility, and their roots should eventually go down 60 feet !!! Liquid carbon ( as they photosynthesize the carbon in the air into carbohydrate) is leaked out through the entire root system to feed the bacteria and fungi attached to those roots. This is how the hugely fertile soils of many the United States were built..... a combination of millions of animals ( bison, horses, deer,Caribou etc) and  1000’s of  species of pasture plant, and dazzing diversity of soil life from micro to macrofauna.

Grasses wave  over Stew's head  as he picks berries

Boysen berries and raspberries grow near my few species of special grass and we have not had to water ONCE this season, and the soil is still damp. It takes a while to find the soil as it is covered by a foot of biomass. This is what we hope for over the whole farm. Imagine, the animals will never need hand feeding again as they feast on abundant green biomass year round.  It won’t happen overnight but it will happen. With climate change now being talked about every time I turn the radio or TV on, it must be really bad. And yes, it is. We planted seeds late today into the lane way the pigs have been in for a few days. They've been eating down the previous crop of peas and oats, and digging as they do. It is early spring and I expected that soil to be damp. Sadly it was dusty dry. We threw copius amounts of compost over the mixture of seeds. We were doing this in some light rain, and gathering darkness, and tomorrow morning I will mulch the lot with grass clippings. Then we will hope the sunflowers, beans , pepitas, corn, millet, lentils  and chickpeas come up and grow . Might get just enough rain over night on that super absorbent compost to make some magic happen. 

The hummungus garden soil developed over 3 years by applying compost, compost tea and the soil health principles. What are these principles?  

Armour on the soil...keep it 100% covered , 100 % of the time.
Minimal disturbance
Biodiversity above and below ground
Keep some living green plants all year long ( go the perennials!)
Animal integration

For a full explanation come to our soil course, Nourishing Soil in November : https://www.facebook.com/events/539099406833694/

As we are regenerating the soil over the whole farm using grass, microbes and animals, we are extremely grateful to those who buy our pork, beef and lamb  at Margaret River farmers market (unless its our monthly market @Perth’s City Farm.)  To find out our next market and to order sides of meat   please contact us.

We wish it were not so, but at some point it became  shameful in today's world to eat lots of meat, as our ancestors did. Why is the mention of "the carnivore diet" repugnant to many, and where and when did the VEGAN MOVEMENT  start?  Well it started  decades ago and stems from religious ideology and propaganda by the breakfast cereal manufacturers.   You know the old fire and brimstone preachers? One such preacher was female  founding figure in the Seventh Day Adventist church. I don't care to remember her name, as she was a nutter who scared young children. One youngster who at a tender age of 12 went to work for her, typesetting her messages to the Adventist church members , was a certain master Kellog. He spent 4 of his early teen formative  years in her employ, during which time he developed a fear of sex that lasted his lifetime. He grew up to be a doctor, who mutilated boys and girls genitals to prevent them from committing the "sin" of masturbation. Dr Kellog and his brother followed this religion and believed a vegan diet helped people of all ages to stay free of the "desires of the flesh". The bro's Kellog later invented a pile of plant based food products including soy milk and flaked and high heat extruded grains which they later marketed as breakfast food. No doubt Kellogs cornflakes and the rest did disrupt one's hormones, therefore  rendering  one  lustless and infertile.  
Later on, chemical companies supplying inputs to Agri business, notably oilseed, grain and sugar producers, soon saw the opportunity this religion afforded them. Under their considerable influence, Nutritional  Guidelines went from being animal product based to almost entirely plant based. The result? The masses indoctrinated by TV commercials joined the devout Adventists in having their   " base desires"   curbed along, with their lust for life. A woeful litany of chronic illness including depression, anxiety , obesity , type 2 diabetes and auto immune disease is being seen in the cornflake /weetbix  eating population.

Weston A Price is one of the few mobs out there who have been championing fatty meat consumption  for ever, and copping considerable flack. Despite their science backed activism for nutrient dense food,  the vegan trend is not going away. However I predict a rapid crash of the vegan wave. You see, over the festive season I have managed to get some reading in, and what I am about to share just may turn your world around. Researching this I realized my own programming, and I am not one to absorb very much mainstream media at all. Drum roll , clashing of cymbals and gongs…..

 ANNOUNCEMENT :  

 Many very sick people are consuming an all meat diet and recovering from years of chronic auto immune disease in less than a month. Yes. Do not let this powerful knowledge slip through your fingers! Any person or friends/relations of people suffering years of osteo or rheumatoid arthritis, schizophrenia, depression, bi-polar, severe acne, asthma, food allergies , Chrones, ulcerative colitis, inflammatory bowel, SIBO, cancer, diabetes, obesity, autism, anxiety conditions, OCD, ODD, ADHD, ADD, Hashimoto’s, coronary heart disease, or any other of the 200 auto immune diseases plaguing the civilized world, get this:  The front runners have been living on nothing but various fatty meats,  salt and water for more than 14 years. They found relief from their symptoms within a month, some in just days, and if they add just a tiny bit of well- cooked vegetable to their diet, their symptoms return immediately.

Dr Natasha Cambell McBride in her Gut And Psychology Syndrome lectures says exactly this, that an autistic child can become completely normal, healthy and thriving on a diet of just bone broth, meat, eggs  and sauerkraut JUICE, as long as they avoid all plant fiber. Just a whiff of anything plant brings back their autism symptoms, overnight. The hope is that they will eventually re- gain the numbers of friendly bacteria in their gut needed to properly digest plants but while their intestines are populated by all the wrong bugs, the out of control  opportunistic flora will use the fiber in that well- cooked centimeter of zucchini as  a substrate to proliferate and produce their dastardly toxins that derange the brain.

Our distant ancestors ate plant and animal products, stole eggs, scavenged carcasses and had a brain weighing 300 odd milliliters in size. Along came an ice age, the plant part of the diet was soon gone. We had to learn to follow and hunt the animals that could live on lichens found under the snow. They were fatty animals because they had to have so much insulation. I guess desperation got us working together to bring down animals, and our big brains grew bigger as hunting skills and therefore diet improved. 
Archeologists digging up ancient camping grounds find huge amounts of bones, along with the stone tools used for breaking open  bones to access marrow. Cave paintings from all corners of the world depict hunting scenes, nowhere pre- Holocene did anyone paint a fruit tree on a cave wall. Then there are coprolites …. fossilized human manure. There are no fruit seeds or plant fiber found in coprolites, just all the animal products you can poke a stick at ( eggs shells, feathers, fish bones, other small bones etc)  During this frozen time human brains grew rapidly to be a colossal size ( about 1400ml ) considering   our body size and small gut in relation to other mammals. We didnt evolve to eat meat, we evolved BECAUSE we ate meat. 

The advent of settled agricultural societies occurred about 10,000 years ago and we shrank a little in stature and brain size about then, living on less meat and more grain than hunter/ gatherers. The ancient Egyptions lived as they do today in Egypt....mainly on bread and beans , eggs, chicken and fish occasionally, some honey, salad and tahini. Sounds healthy but compared to their hunting and gathering cousins, the newly settled agriculturalists suffered from heart disease, fat bellies and diabetes. Some doctors blame the grains.

Seems like no one criticized meat until  4 decades ago.  Not only religious ideology but Dr Ancell Keyes came along. He, though not a medical doctor, had a hypothesis, backed up only by the data from countries he cherry picked to include, that animal fat caused heart disease. The hypothesis was never proved, but it gained as much publicity as pro GM scientists do today. These low fat notions came to dominate our lives. Eggs were out, margarine was in, vegetable oils were healthy, fats were blamed for every disease. To make low fat food palatable, sugar was added. We now know Ancell was paid by the oilseed, sugar and grain producers, and the “healthy eating food pyramid” that persists to this day, is upside down. Recall that Monsanto /Bayer sells chemicals and big agricultural machinery to the cropping industry. What's a bet They are behind todays  government backed push for veganism. This may seem a stretch too far, but not if you watch

The Oiling of America  here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ0WJOQzrgg&t=5s

It is sad to realize that after 10,000 years of agriculture, our brains are now smaller than the frozen cave men we occasionally dig up. The vegan diet is so popular,yet is against all science and common sense. There is  evidence that vegetarianism is causing people's brains to shrink. A study was done on volunteers aged between 60 and 83 years old. The cohort’s brain size was measured at the start, then 5 years in to the study. The vegan’s brains were the smallest in the group and had lost 5% of volume over the 5 years between tests. Meat eaters brains remained the same size.

It may surprise some that there is a clinic called Paleomedicina in Hungary, using a ketogenic/palleolithic diet ( mainly meat with 30% “ancestral plant foods)  to resolve chronic conditions such as obesity, epilepsy, diabetes, hypertension, auto immune diseases (asthma, allergy, hypothyreosis, eczema), cancer and those suffering from being medicated…..nb.  

From their website:

“Rehabilitation of chronic diseases is most effective when the diet is limited to our real physiological needs. Eating fruits and vegetables does not form part of our physiological need but are associated with risks. Plant foods can only be regarded as "relatively" safe when certain plant food items are consumed and only in limited amounts. ….. Altogether clinical experience was derived from about 4000 patients.”

Here is their therapeutic tool:  ”A Diet exactly confined to our needs”

•Animal foods include red and fatty meats, fat and offal preferably from pasture-raised animals

•Fat:protein ratio about 2:1 (in grams)

•No nitrates, nitrites or other additives in meat products

•Plant foods only include certain fruits and ”paleolithic” vegetables from organic sources

•No artificial sweeteners but honey is allowed in moderation

 Black and herbal tea are excluded

Coffee is allowed only after full regeneration and in moderation

•Eggs are initially excluded in those with highly elevated intestinal permeability and/or vaccines during the preceding 6 months

“We believe that the Paleo Ketogenic Diet ( PKD) is the only evolutionary adapted diet for humans.”

They perform an Intestinal permeability test at 4 weeks. Tapering of medicines is coordinated by the Paleomedicina team ……

NB :  Overmedicated patient (5≤ medicines and/or beta-blocker, psychiatry drugs, antiepileptics, steroid, biological therapy, immunosuppressant): the patient needs to enter the  rehabilitation center for some time to be tapered off these drugs.

“We never experienced side-effects or vitamin/mineral deficiencies due to the PKD. Our longest follow-up is 7 years. The diet is safe in pregnancy and in lactating mothers. Weaning infants onto the PKD is safe and easy too.”

 Intestinal permeability –a key issue

“Normalization of the intestinal permeability is of crucial importance. ….No other medical intervention or diet has so far been shown to normalize pathological intestinal permeability.”

 Efficacy

 “Chronic civilization disorders, including autoimmune diseases, are reversible when highly adhered to the PKD. Reversing autoimmune diseases of the CNS, however, takes much longer. In cancer patients tumor growth can be stopped and formation of metastases can be prevented. In some patients we also experienced decrease in tumor size”.

The ketogenic diet was originated in the 1920s as a therapy for epileptic children and it worked in many cases. It is very high in animal fat,   contains some protein and low carbs from fruit and non starchy veges.  Many people are trying this and/ or the all meat diet and are feeling “AMAZING”. The meat diet certainly is super simple.  A return to the way our distant ancestors ate means no sugar, no processed foods and an organic diet rich in animals fats. That’s got to be a good thing. Within a month all cravings for carbs cease and a sense of calm is noticed, some people find 2 days in this happens. In reality it maybe that withdrawal from processed foods mean Roundup ingestion ceases. This alone has great benefits.      

 Well, like an elimination diet. As the Paleomedicina Rehab states: “Every human is able to eat and utilize animal meat and fat (except for a few genetic conditions which already emerge in infancy and usually cause early death)” .[I would add that there is a mammalian meat allergy triggered by a tick bite.] The take home message is that meat is easily digested and its nutrients well absorbed. Strange then that vegetarians have always banged on about meat being hard to digest and “putrifying in the gut”. Actually it is plant foods that we cannot digest, and undigested plant matter “rots” into formaldehyde and phenols if you happen to lack a good set of gut microbes capable of digesting plant fibers. Thanks to Roundup residues on food for preferentially harming our beneficial microbes, that population is now significant.
Meat is so well absorbed, very little reaches the colon. 

Constipation is also a groundless fear, although during the transition over the first few weeks negative effects on bowel movements and energy levels could be experienced. Dr Paul Mason at the Low Carbs Down Under conference held in Australia showed that a zero fiber diet resulted in zero constipation problems. see here

Our huge brains need short chain fatty acids, and these can come from beneficial gut microbes turning a substrate of indigestible plant fiber from purple fruits and veges  into butyrate, or we can get it more directly from consuming animal fats.

Gorillas are large animals with huge bellies and quite small brains. They have a very long caecum and colon which is full of bacteria, working away on their exclusive plant leaf diet to produce fatty acids. We on the other hand are a primate with a comparatively short colon, an almost non -existent caecum (called an appendix) and a much larger brain which needs a quarter of our body’s energy to run. Organ meats are the most nutrient dense food there is....liver even has vitamin C.  Animal foods provide fat as an ideal fuel for our brains. They supply structure and nutrition for you to make all your hormones, neurotransmitters and replace/rebuild all your damaged tissues including tendons, bones and teeth. Many on the nutrient dense carnivore diet report their teeth get stronger.

If contemplating going carnivore, be assured that science is showing no advantage to being plant based.  In a study of 8000 people followed for 18 years, it was found vegetarian dieters  have higher mortality rates than meat eaters from dementia and breast cancer. 

Published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, a study called   Mortality in vegetarians and non-vegetarians took a decade of mortality data from 28,000 vegetarians from several countries and found no survival advantage to being vegetarian. The Heidleberg study results were  released in 2002. In it, 2000 people were followed for 21 years. Vegetarians lived longer than vegans and occasional meat eaters outlived them all. In another study of vegetarian 7^th Day Adventists, hip fracture rates were twice that of  meat eaters. 

Dr Michael McGregor is the feeble poster child of the vegan movement, he is endlessly quoted by them, but this man some years ago posted one of his lectures entitled " 40 year old vegan dies of a heart attack" . All the preceding statistics come from his talk. He concluded that his plant based followers should take supplements of Omega 3 and B12 to have a chance of living as long as meat eaters. .

On an all meat diet you are getting maximum nutrition and emotional eating doesn't come into it. Snacking on modern, semi- poisonous non- food when feeling low or anxious, is a trap. Who can forget the mars bar scene in Woody Allen’s Annie Hall ( was it ?) 

 A “fast” on meat, or an actual fast on nothing but salty water, seems to be like a factory reset, it brings you back from obsessing about carbs. It eliminates  excesses, addictions and emotional eating.  As meat is  deeply nourishing,  the carnivore diet can reverse the numerous deficiencies most modern people have. In most people,   bones and the brain  have shrunk  from long term malnutrition. 

Reports are rolling in from near and far that just about all health problems get sorted on the meat diet.

Beans, peas, grains  and other seeds all come packed with substances designed to deter critters from eating them: eg lectins, phytates. You can reduce lectins to safe levels by repeated soaking and disgarding the water, and then HIGH HEAT treatment, so boiling rapidly for at least 10 minutes.  You can soak and ferment grains to reduce phytates. Hence Sour dough bread is one of the best ways to consume whole grains. 

People with severe gut dysbiosis who suffer terrible conditions like those mentioned at the outset could give the Carnivore diet a try for a solid month and see what happens. Carnivore  eliminates all food additives, Roundup- laced processed foods, gluten and casein so gives the body a rest from dealing with these toxins. With  boosted  nutritional status,  thousands of people are finding enormous relief  on the simple regime of beef, salt and water. Some then experiment by adding back other meats and fish, then progressing to re -introduction of fruit, then vegetables, one food at a time. As each food is added, any symptoms are noted. 

This is essentially the GAPS introduction diet, but with GAPS we add home made fermented vegetable and dairy  probiotic cultures from the beginning, but at first just the juices of these. No plant fiber is allowed at all while the gut heals and seals on the nutritious bone broths. But this healing only takes a few weeks usually. There are proponents of carnivory that have preferred sticking with nothing but beef, salt and water for 9 years,  to the debilitating disease/s they suffer when trying to add plants back in.

People trying GAPS or the all meat, zero carbs diet often discover food allergies they didn’t know they had, which have been causing their health issues all along.

In summing up, my anecdote:  I tried a spring cleanse for a month which was essentially vegan .... and at the end I  sustained a severe knee injury . Later I tried the carnivore diet and when I finally managed to comply  for a few weeks ( it was hard going without fruits ) I noticed at the end  a considerable improvement in my energy, mental clarity , mood and joint mobility. It was scary as I thought I would get scurvy and magnesium deficiency so I started eating plants again.
 Another few weeks of study and I now know that  plants are not the innocent (sometimes super) foods they have been painted. They have chemical defences against being eaten. Plant toxins include the lectins and phytic acid mentioned above but there are more, including:  gluten, acylamides, sulphurofanes salicilates, glycoalkaloids  and oxylates.  Many vegetables are quite new to the human diet.  Many suspect the nighshade family of making their knees play up. Dr Georgia Ede has a very interesting website and does great talks and  should you wish to follow up more on the toxins in plants go here. Oxylates are a particular nightmare hardly ever mentioned but Sally K Norton is an authority on this, and the information is startling. https://sallyknorton.com/
It turns out that your body doesn't need much magnesium when it is not digesting sugar! Similarly with vitamin C, when you are not dealing with  daily plant toxins you dont need much vitamin C ! 

The main message of this post is DON'T be SCARED of MEAT or FAT. Being a classic slow learner, it has taken several weeks of positive report reading on www.meatheals.com to gain trust in meat and somewhat lose my long held, misplaced  trust  in fruit and veges. 

So I will go on this diet again but not forever, because,   as Dr Natasha says, animal foods feed you, plants cleanse you….and we need both. 

Interesting links:

Mikhaila Peterson        Fatigue, Acne, arthritis (Joint pain, joint deterioration)  and depression.

   A life saving diet      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJlCjayk1HQ

Kelly Hogan ,exclusive  beef eater for 14 years https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7U8Qv_0Lrk&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR1nOgUYywnjOMoEJ4iO_pteJuSlAaKV4N_KzpHL80Ak_EF3eSjkZNhVj7A

Dr 

Amber O’herne is another lady who lost weight, regained her fertility and got better from bi polar with a carnivore diet.

Dr Shawn Baker ,  50 year old athlete loving the improvements in physical performance and joint health , also very enlightening thoughts on how we do science https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gt3tfLVF7Y0&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR0l3cKG5idOtFQRVMvvqEcDkjtrcU7cI2ZtODwHpUBHySxJZGnGlyksA6k