Is the carnivore diet safe
Dr. Eric Westman: Is the carnivore diet safe? Is it okay to do it for a long time? And how do you get started?
In this video, I’ll provide some tips, pointers, and background about the carnivore diet, including how to get started, why I think it’s reasonable, and things to watch out for. Be sure to listen to the end of the video, where you’ll hear my final thoughts.
Who would have thought that the carnivore diet would be such a big deal? It’s very popular, and there are some influencers out there who have had truly unbelievable and dramatic improvements in their health. These are actually real, I’ve seen it in my clinic at Duke University, where I’ve been studying and using keto diets for over 20 years.
People come to me telling their stories of dramatic turnarounds in their medical problems and getting off medications. It’s amazing.
Just eat animal foods, avoid plants
In principle, you want to eat just animal foods—that’s what the carnivore diet is. You want to avoid plants. Some people go so far as to say plants are poisonous. They’re not immediately poisonous, especially if you’ve been eating them for decades and you’re still alive. But thinking of them as poison helps some people stay away from those foods.
Be careful if you’re under medical care or on medications
What do you eat on a carnivore diet?
Before we get there, if you’re under medical care or on medications, be careful. This diet is very powerful. It is very strong. Not that the diet itself may cause harm, but the medications you’re taking may cause harm, especially diabetes medicines and high blood pressure medicines. These have to be monitored on the first day of the diet change. If you’re taking these medications, be sure to do this with a doctor or someone who understands how fast the carnivore diet can actually improve your health. You may need to reduce these medications.
Salt-sensitive condition
Also, if you have a salt-sensitive condition like high blood pressure, heart failure, or kidney failure, this is the clinical world that I live in, be extra cautious. People watch this channel and some are otherwise healthy and some have medical issues, so I want to make sure you’re doing this in the safest way.
If you have a salt-sensitive condition, don’t add salt at first. You’ll want to monitor those other conditions carefully. Have a blood pressure cuff at home, and have a blood glucose monitor or a CGM (continuous glucose monitor) as you’re getting started.
What to eat on a carnivore diet
What do you eat on a carnivore diet?
It can be as simple as meat. It could be red meat, pork, lamb, or even canned meats. I’m giving you a version of a carnivore diet without the needless over-concern about food quality. Some people worry too much about small additives in food. Oh yes, some people can have cheese.
I’ve been using an approach that doesn’t obsess about food quality for over 20 years, and I borrowed a system that had been worked on for 30 years before that in a clinical setting. You want to eat animal-sourced foods, and don’t be so picky about the food quality if you don’t have to be. I’ll get to that in just a minute. Chicken, fish, seafood, and other poultry like turkey, all of these are included. Basically, it’s meat, poultry, fish, and shellfish. For those who tolerate eggs, that means both the yolks and the whites. It makes no sense to just eat the whites.
In fact, eggs may be the perfect food because you can actually make a whole chicken out of an egg. If you think about it, you can’t make a cow out of a steak; it’s just the muscle of the animal. But an egg contains everything needed to create an entire chicken, the entire organism.
The food side of this is pretty easy with practical pointers. Yes, you could have beef jerky or biltong. You could also have other things like pork rinds or chicharrones, these are fine because they are animal-sourced products. You want to avoid plant-based foods and stick to foods that come from animals.
Preparing foods
What about preparing foods? Butter is fine. Not margarine. Not vegetable/seed oils. Although I’m not overly obsessed about avoiding those, they would be eliminated on a strict animal-based carnivore diet. But butter is fine.
Getting to the reason why you’re doing this, if you’re trying to lose body fat, you don’t want to be forcing butter into your diet. If you always consider the source of the information you’re getting, and if someone is teaching you a weight loss version of a carnivore or keto diet (which is very similar to what I teach), you want to be careful about over-consuming fats, butter, and even food in general.
If you’ve already started carnivore and you’re stuck, it may be that you’re eating too much, even in the carnivore context.
The food side of things is pretty simple.
Salt
Salt is an issue in the medical world because it can raise blood pressure. If you have a salt-sensitive condition, you want to be careful with it. If you’re on blood pressure medications, you should be measuring your blood pressure at home. The medical world worries about added salt increasing blood pressure too much, so just monitor it and you’ll be fine.
You don’t have to eat three meals a day
In my world, I use simple guidelines: if you’re hungry, eat.
You don’t have to eat three meals a day on a carnivore diet. You don’t have to push fats and macros. That’s the simplicity of using this kind of approach: it’s automatic (skipping meals) when your body starts burning its fat.
A carnivore diet gets your body into a fat-burning metabolism. It’s really just a version of a keto diet. You get the blood sugar reduction, ketone production, and fat-burning effects of a keto diet, the same things I’ve been teaching people for a long time now.
I’ve learned a lot about this, so I see the carnivore diet metabolically as a type of keto diet. In our principles, we say, “Don’t eat if you’re not hungry.” You wouldn’t drink if you’re not thirsty, so unless you have a medical condition that requires it, you wouldn’t force yourself to eat. You would always overlay other dietary requirements onto this way of eating.
What to drink
Another thing to think about is what to drink. You can drink water, sparkling water, anything that has zero carbs or calories on the label. Ideally, you’d be eating things that don’t even have labels. So, water would be the best option.
Yet, you can have coffee and tea. These are low-carb or zero-carb. Wait, don’t those things come from plants? Right. Some people are so obsessed with the distinction between carnivore and plant-based that they say you can’t even have those things. Depending on why you’re doing this, you may or may not need to be that strict about eliminating plant products. I’ll get to that in just a minute. I don’t think everyone has to eliminate all plant products completely.
Getting started – a couple of things to think about
As you’re getting started, a couple of things to think about:
You might not feel well at first. It’s not the diet itself; it’s the withdrawal from the (high-carb) foods and drinks that you’ve been consuming. Commit to two to four weeks, or maybe a month. Some people even say 90 days, to fully adjust.
Most people in my sphere feel better within a week and notice their appetite decreasing. Just like a keto diet, which has a lot of research behind it, a carnivore diet reduces hunger because you’re not eating carbohydrates. Blood sugar comes down, and you fix pre-diabetes and diabetes. Yes, you fix them. You reverse insulin resistance and all of the issues that come with carbohydrate reduction (or carbohydrate restriction, as it’s called).
However, if you’ve been consuming a lot of caffeine and suddenly drop it, you might experience caffeine withdrawal. If you have headaches or sugar cravings, that’s okay, it’s just the first few days or maybe even a week. You’re going through the withdrawal syndrome that we call “keto adaptation.” As your body gets used to ketones and fats, and eliminates those old foods, you may go through this withdrawal and adaptation period. Most people feel fine during this transition, but some don’t.
If you don’t have a salt-sensitive condition, adding salt can help reduce or eliminate withdrawal symptoms during the first week or two. So, try it for two to four weeks. If you’re taking medications, please be careful and monitor yourself with the oversight of a doctor or healthcare provider if necessary.
Carnivore diet makes sense metabolically
I just want to say that there are many ways to be healthy, and there are many diets that have been studied. The keto diet that I’ve been teaching, which includes a small amount of vegetable matter, is actually very close to a carnivore diet metabolically. To me, a carnivore diet makes sense metabolically if you think of it as a cousin or a sibling, a brother or sister, of a keto-type diet.
Benefits
Now, going to the carnivore level of restricting all vegetables and even dairy might actually help you get the benefits of what we look at as an elimination diet. If you’ve had a problem with any of these foods and you eliminate them, you might actually get more benefits, not just from carbohydrate restriction, but from eliminating other problematic foods as well.
Gluten
I see some people get better on a keto diet, they lose weight, but then when they cut out all plants, they experience even greater improvements. Remember, gluten is found in bread and pasta. Gluten can cause celiac disease, and it’s something that’s already eliminated on a keto diet. So, when you’re doing a carnivore diet, you’re also getting the benefits of a gluten-free diet.
Sugars, artificial sweeteners and food additives
Sugars, artificial sweeteners, and other food additives can cause problems as well. A carnivore diet eliminates all of these irritants, which can be beneficial. However, not everyone has to be that strict. When I see someone struggling with the strict version of a carnivore diet, I explain that they have some flexibility. I help them understand why this way of eating works, and they may actually be able to add back foods that they tolerate well.
On the other hand, if cutting out gluten has resolved your gluten sensitivity or celiac disease, if it has helped you fix fibromyalgia or other autoimmune conditions that other doctors couldn’t treat, then you may never want to introduce those foods back in. That is a judgment you make, ideally with a keto-friendly doctor who won’t criticize you for eating this way.
On one hand, this diet is simple and can be easy. But if you’re taking medications, you need to be careful when implementing it. Be mindful about adding salt if you have a salt-sensitive condition. Otherwise, I’m seeing more and more people benefit from a carnivore diet, which I view as a version of keto. The level of detail you need to focus on, down to every little plant molecule, depends on why you’re doing this.
How strict do you have to be?
If your goal is weight loss or diabetes reversal, you likely won’t have to be that strict. However, if you’re trying to eliminate an autoimmune condition or fix something that other doctors haven’t been able to help with, then you may need to pay closer attention. That could mean avoiding coffee, tea, or alcohol altogether. That said, some people can still drink alcohol on a carnivore diet.
I find that the popularity of the carnivore diet has brought many more people into this health-focused space, and that’s awesome. But it’s not the only way to be healthy. If it’s not something you want to do long-term, that’s okay. Just don’t go back to the standard American diet. It was not good in the first place. Try coming part way back into eating carbs if you want to, or if you feel that it’s important for family, social living, or other reasons.
I hope you have got the benefits from dropping the carbs and eating animal products, I think that is fine. Metabolically, the carnivore diet makes sense. I hope you find this helpful.
You can watch the whole video here.
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