
They Thrive on All-Meat Diet (1929) - sridca
http://archive.macleans.ca/article/1929/9/1/they-thrive-on-all-meat-diet
======
glangdale
A detail not mentioned here was that (if I remember correctly) they initially
ate an all-muscle-meat diet and had real problems; it was only after they
included a lot of organ meat (imitating the Inuit) that things stabilized. I
think eating liver can get you enough Vitamin C, for example.

~~~
latch
Inuits, and possibly others, also consumed predigested vegetation in animal
stomachs (1)

Also, worth noting that a meat-heavy diet can also kill you from lack of fat.
This is known as protein poisoning. This obviously depends on what your source
of meat is.

(1)
[https://www2.dmu.dk/1_viden/2_publikationer/3_fagrapporter/r...](https://www2.dmu.dk/1_viden/2_publikationer/3_fagrapporter/rapporter/fr528.pdf)

~~~
gnulinux
If you eat meat meat, as in complete meat from an animal, you're gonna be ok
(although you probably need to supplement Omega 3, something Inuit had in
excess because they ate fish too). If you eat organic low fat meat from Trader
Joe's you'll have a bad time for various reasons. Not only will you not get
enough fats, but you're gonna get very little amount of micronutrients, which
are not prevalent in muscle tissues.

~~~
virtuallynathan
Meat has plenty of omega3 and omega6 (usually more omega6) The ratio in the
standard American diet is about 20:1 (3:6) eating a grass fed ruminant will
get you much closer then that. Eating some marine products might get you
closer to the (possibly optimal) 1:1.

~~~
gnulinux
I meant to write Omega 3, that's a typo, fixed. (i.e. animal muscle tissues
are usually too omega 6 rich, so you need extra omega 3 sources)

------
teach
Yowza. My wife has a PhD in nutrition and teaches a "culture in foods" course
at university. It's about how various cultures around the world and throughout
history had all their nutritional needs met from their various diets.

An explorer might last a little while on an all-meat diet but you'd be missing
out on a lot of essential vitamins and minerals. The Inuit for example, only
avoid scurvy by getting their vitamin C from raw fish. (Cooking it destroys
the little it contains.)

Interesting article, though!

~~~
tomhoward
There's a modern movement of people adopting an all-carnivore diet [1][2], who
report it to be effective at overcoming conditions like autoimmune illness,
depression and other chronic illnesses that defied other forms of treatment.

The theory is that for highly sensitive individuals, any carb/fiber/allergenic
content in food causes inflammation and dysbiosis, which leads to these
chronic conditions.

They believe that by removing all these food components, even if the diet has
low levels of essential nutrients like Vitamin C, they are absorbed and
utilised better than in a regular diet, due to the reduced inflammatory
activity.

I haven't tried it and won't be doing it myself, but I have been through
episodes in my life where I was afflicted by these kinds of chronic "mystery"
illnesses that didn't seem to respond to any kind of treatment, and I can
understand the kind of pain and exasperation that would lead people to try
this.

[1] [https://hvmn.com/podcast/meat-heals-the-autoimmune-
disease-c...](https://hvmn.com/podcast/meat-heals-the-autoimmune-disease-case-
ft-mikhaila-peterson-episode-92)

[2]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/zerocarb/comments/8f0o1w/my_experie...](https://www.reddit.com/r/zerocarb/comments/8f0o1w/my_experience_with_medium_term_zc_for_gi/)

~~~
TACIXAT
I'm a celiac and I have a slightly different take on it. I've cut out gluten,
sugar, caffeine, sodium nitrites, and MSG as triggers for sinus headaches
(took years of trial and error to identify them all).

First, I love hearing carnivore diet stories because I relate to them a lot.
Varying symptoms, cut out some foods, drastically improved health. I lived for
23 years with sinus headaches, I had to figure out how to work through them in
college. Life is so nice now that I don't want to take a drill to my forehead.

That said, I think the carnivore diet is the shotgun blast approach. I bet
there are specific triggers for their symptoms that they could identify by
following a strict diet (e.g. chicken and rice) and slowly reintroducing
stuff.

It's an area that is drastically understudied. All the celiac papers are on
gastrointestinal issues (which I had, but the sinus headaches were 50 times
worse). My understanding is eating gluten while celiac causes your body to
attack your small intestine, which causes deterioration. This usually leads to
problems with FODMAPs. My brother has issues with lactose, and for me it was
fructose.

It's hard going to something that isn't evidence backed, but sometimes the
best we can do is do the experiment on ourselves. I'm tracking what I eat
everyday and when I get sinus headaches. I primarily eat protein. I get 3 beef
patties and 2 small chicken breasts each day from the burger place at work.
The french fries and corn chips at work are safe for me to eat, so those are
the carbs I get regularly. I take a vitamin C supplement. On the weekends I
cook steak, and some brazilian cheese breads. There is also a brand of gluten
free bread with no sugar that I really like.

I'm extremely fortunate that I work somewhere that can accommodate my diet and
that I can afford meat regularly outside of that. So yea, shout out to
everyone else with weird food reactions, stay strong.

~~~
bvinc
You'll love my story. I'll keep it short.

Basically, one day, I started getting pressure and pain and ringing in my ear.
It was really bad about every other day. I went to an ENT and he diagnosed me
with meniere's disease and told me that I had permanent hearing loss. I kept
going to doctors. One of them diagnosed me with endolymphatic hydrops.

I spent a month or so obsessively reading research papers, and internet sites
seemed to basically be support groups for people whose lives are ruined and
can never think straight again.

I had good reason to suspect it was an autoimmune disease, because steroids
cured my symptoms. I also had my personal suspicions that wheat was involved
but I couldn't correlate anything.

So I started eliminating foods and keeping a food diary. Long story short,
about a year later, I was very confident that wheat was my biggest trigger. If
I eat a large amount of wheat, my symptoms come back 36 hours later, and last
for at least 2 days.

I struggled with the fact that I have no doctor suggestions, or diagnosis, or
study of what problem I have, what it is, or any way to prove to anyone else
that wheat is causing my problem. Most people think that I'm just jumping on a
gluten free fad bandwagon. Oh well. I've tested it about 8 times, including
blind tests where I accidentally ate wheat. I've been almost symptom free for
like 2 years now.

------
davesailer
More info.

Vilhjalmur Stefansson's book, "THE FAT OF THE LAND":
[https://web.archive.org/web/20180802084820/http://highsteaks...](https://web.archive.org/web/20180802084820/http://highsteaks.com/the-
fat-of-the-land-not-by-bread-alone-vilhjalmur-stefansson.pdf)

Vilhjalmur Stefansson's coverage of the same topics from Harper's Monthly
Magazine, November 1935:

\- Part 1:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20180109155358/http://www.biblel...](https://web.archive.org/web/20180109155358/http://www.biblelife.org/stefansson1.htm)

\- Part 2:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20180104021843/http://www.biblel...](https://web.archive.org/web/20180104021843/http://www.biblelife.org:80/stefansson2.htm)

\- Part 3:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20171206075942/http://www.biblel...](https://web.archive.org/web/20171206075942/http://www.biblelife.org:80/stefansson3.htm)

The Harper's Magazine articles cover the same ground as the book but are
better written in my opinion.

Also note: I am not associated with any web site.

------
newnewpdro
Something I've read multiple times throughout the years being somewhat curious
about nutrition and diets is that the Inuit's would often eat their meat raw.

When eaten raw, there can actually be significant carbohydrates present. The
mitochondria for instance contain glucose in-flight that apparently gets
destroyed by the cooking process.

At least that's what I've read. It seems plausible to me that one could get
all the nutrition they need eating copious amounts of raw animal flesh,
drinking the blood, eating the liver, everything.

~~~
6nf
There are no essential carbohydrates. Your body can function perfectly fine
without them.

~~~
newnewpdro
My intention in mentioning the carbohydrates lost when cooked was more meant
to suggest other nutrients are also likely intact when consuming the meat raw.

The classical Inuit diet is more unique than just being meat-based, it's also
mostly raw. This detail is often overlooked by those using the Inuit diet as
proof for some dietary argument.

------
saagarjha
I’m curious how other mammals, which are essentially purely carnivorous, get
their vitamins and minerals. Presumably they’re similar enough to us that
they’d require similar amounts?

~~~
yostrovs
They, except us, guinea pigs, and a few others, synthesize vitamin C within
their bodies.

~~~
bchallenor
I find this pretty fascinating. Apparently it's a single gene that is
responsible for the inability to synthesize vitamin C. [1]

[1] [https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/401/why-do-
human...](https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/401/why-do-humans-not-
produce-vitamin-c-like-other-mammals)

------
dilap
Owsley "The Bear" Stanley (legendary SF producer of acid and sometimes sound
engineer for Grateful Dead) was huge all-meat guy.

[http://highsteaks.com/carnivores-creed/owsley-the-bear-
stanl...](http://highsteaks.com/carnivores-creed/owsley-the-bear-stanley/)

Stayed healthy till his death in a car crash at 76.

A fun story here:

[https://dangerousminds.net/comments/uncle_johns_ham_the_grat...](https://dangerousminds.net/comments/uncle_johns_ham_the_grateful_deads_all-
meat_diet)

------
mruts
I pretty much only eat meat and bread. I’ve only eaten vegetables a handful of
times in my life, usually because my parents were forcing me when I was young.
It’s not so much a conscious choice as just who I am, I personally find
vegetables pretty gross.

Though it’s not really about vegetables either I think I just have some weird
food phobias: I don’t like my food to touch, I only eat ‘plain’ things, I need
my food to be homogenous (like smooth salsa vs chunky salsa).

~~~
yesenadam
>I personally find vegetables pretty gross.

All of them?! Gee, there's such a wide range. Even, say, potatoes can be
cooked so many entirely different ways - steamed/boiled, baked, chips etc. I
guess you can say that because you've never tried almost all of them. Your
parents 'forced' you only 'a handful of times' to eat vegetables? I can't
begin to fathom how someone could have a child and virtually never give them
any vegetables of any kind to eat...

~~~
mruts
I like french fries. But I don’t rrally consider that a vegetable I guess.
I’ve tried carrots and broccoli a couple times. Carrots are okay, but I don’t
like broccoli. I’ve never tried most other vegetables: lettuce, spinach,
cucumbers, etc.

My parents certainly tried to give me vegetables. Even going so far to pay me
to eat them, but I always refused. Even as a 2 year old.

------
slics
All humans are unique in their own way- thus what might be working on some
humans it might have a different effect in some others. As an example: My wife
has horrible migraines almost every other week. She has followed so many
different diets that worked for some others but didn’t even improve her
migraines at all. Simply put, be mindful about what you read and what you put
in your body.

~~~
fouc
>The "classic" ketogenic diet is a special high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet
that helps to control seizures in some people with epilepsy. Doctors usually
recommend the ketogenic diet for children whose seizures have not responded to
several different seizure medicines.

You're saying she already tried a ketogenic diet for a few months and it
didn't help?

------
onnnon
I found Dr. Ede's website helpful on the subject if anyone else is interested.
She also includes a lot of information on other food types as well.

[http://www.diagnosisdiet.com/food/meats/](http://www.diagnosisdiet.com/food/meats/)

------
gammateam
> a lot of us might be dwelling too anxiously on what to eat and what not to
> eat

100 years and nothing has changed

~~~
sridca
Ha, post on HN that you are on a carnivore diet and people will pounce on you
to tell you that you are not eating """healthy""".

~~~
frou_dh
Warring internet factions of meme-dieters are all lamers.

~~~
sridca
And so are their criticisers. Why don't we all become nihilists and stop
curing our medical conditions via dietary intervention?

~~~
frou_dh
It's the internet part. Taking something as deeply rooted in the physical
world as food, and using online as a venue to clash over it. It's a recipe for
lame outcomes.

------
sridca
For some perspective, contrast this to the current fashionable trend of
recommending plant-based diets where people unwittingly use nutrition
epidemiology studies to validate their beliefs:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19100718](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19100718)

------
jstewartmobile
I like meat, but I wonder if the powers that be reached all the way back to
1929 for this nugget because there's a surplus they want to liquidate.

[https://www.vox.com/science-and-
health/2018/7/24/17606958/me...](https://www.vox.com/science-and-
health/2018/7/24/17606958/meat-cheese-surplus-visualized)

