Carnivore Yes or No?

If what you mean by success is weight loss, then no, any diet can do that and a carnivore diet is, in that context, just another diet after all, and what drives weight loss is simply, a calorie deficit. But the no would therefore apply to every conceivable diet on the planet and where we have reduced everything down to the heat signature of a particular item in a bomb calorimeter, and using this to addressing the symptom of excess adipose or being fat is the primary focus but without addressing any reason why you need to actually lose weight.

I support a diet where whole foods dominate and a diet that is predominately based in animal products and at this time have been on a lower carb/ketogenic diet for over a dozen years after trying to figure out my own health over a few years and found that with the health issues I was having, that this way of eating solved pretty much every single concern, which is the main reason why people today have in their n:1 personal journey ended up trying carnivore and with great success.

Giving you my simple explanation in no way explains the hard sciences that are reflected in every single diet and looking there tells the story why people on the carnivore diet have good success with many of the problems associated with metabolic syndrome.

As far as ramifications for long term health, the jury is still out and always will be but not for just the carnivore diet but for every single diet on the planet. There is no current data regarding health "risks" that's reflected in a cause-and-effect relationship for any long term health or mortality for any diet. It's common to hear for example that the keto diet has no long term studies so be careful you might fall down and diet of a heart attach, that's the level of intelligence that dominates main steam media, and why it's imperative that people do their own research.

Maybe you could explain further what you mean by "the results speak for themselves".

Why on earth would anyone ever consider such a crazy restrictive diet. Well, that's a rabbit hole that for the people that actually benefit and have made that journey don't consider it to be restrictive and who for the most part actually embrace the simplicity and it's mostly because health trumps all other concerns.

It can and is in the beginning a transition where many health concerns are immediately recognized, within a day or two which is the main impetuous to continue but if a person has no immediate or obvious health and metabolic issues it's basically a no go simply because the justification has no teeth.

For the average person looking to just lose weight and all the others that have tried and failed in quick fashion, which is what actually happens most of the time, it makes their brains fall out wondering why people would even consider it. A diet like this will continue and for the most part aways be just a confusing, cryptic, perplexing or impossible diet to understand and believe it or not almost every person that are actually benefiting from the carnivore diet actually believed that as well which for many lengthened their time to engage from months to years, it's part of the rabbit hole.

No Ann, generally I like and agree your most of your advice, although I do find you try to appeal to the widest audience possible quite frequently. Your description of what a rabbit hole might consist of was, I thought quite interesting. But again no Ann your post didn't influence my post in the way you think it did, it's was for the probable defamatory diatribes that usually follow a thread like this, which is quite normal thus my descriptors for some people that may be confused, lol. I generally like to defend my beliefs and the shortcomings that come with that.

I hope you both make it out intact neither flattened and tenderized nor sharply poked!🤣

Yes, Dr. Paul Saladino wrote a book called "The Carnivore Code: unlocking the secrets to optimal health by returning to an ancestral diet". After about 5 years and now living in Costa Rica he complained he was experiencing decreased testosterone levels, sleep issues, and joint and muscle pain, which led him to reconsider the diet and now he eats mostly fruit as carbs and around 300g's of it a day and he feels better. Now he promotes a diet that includes meat, organic if possible, fruit, honey, and raw dairy. It's not unusual for people to switch their diet if they're experiencing health issues, it's done all the time.

Paul is well, a different personality when it comes to nutrition in the general sense and is well known among his peers. His commitment originally with carnivore was driven with the same enthusiasm as he shows today for adding fruit, honey and raw dairy back in, which is fine and most in the carnivore space really don't see's a problem with it, although he may say they do, some diets just don't work for some individuals, that's not disputed by most doctors or scientists.

Hardly anyone in the carnivore space is saying the carnivore diet is a pangea as a dietary intervention and actually say if a person is experience metabolic health issues that giving it a try for 60 days or so might be something to try and see what happens.

Everyone's basic physiology is slightly different and can be said falls along a continuum where people at one end of that spectrum are not effected by a specific metabolite to where a slight amount causes major health issues, gluten, histamines, fodmaps, lectins etc would be some of those examples.

If a person was to investigate some of his other video's and podcasts he also conducts his criticisms similarly towards grains for example and that's just one category, he has many, and scientifically justifies why they're not suitable for human health but more specifically why he would not consume them because of the effect it has on him personally. He goes into the same nutritional detail why grains are not suitable and why fruit is. His reasoning for adding honey was based mostly on his visit and stay with the Hadza tribe of Africa where for millennia they gathered and consumed honey. Interestingly enough the Hadza use a bird, and it's actually called the "Greater Honeyguide" to help them find the bee's that direct them to the hives. I've also used paleoanthropology as part of my "rabbit hole" academic journey in nutrition, which is another passion of mine.

Paul has come out and said that sugar or excess carbs don't cause insulin resistance or diabetes 2 and references a study to support that. Well, increased blood sugar where it progresses to diabetes is causes from the ingestion of consuming sugars and without sugar in the diet we have no diabetes 2, but that didn't stop him to prove it otherwise with a study. This is a major part of his reasoning for now consuming sugar because in his mind his research has given it a pass. Not that sugar is something to avoid, it just basic to the hard science of biochemistry that sugar does have an effect on blood sugar and the progression of disease mostly from inflammation from the overconsumption. Basically don't let a good story get in the way of a truth.

What makes science and more specifically nutritional science difficult and why we'll see a continuous flow of conflicting editorials everyday in all forms of media is the sheer volume of available studies and within those studies we can specifically find ones that would support any hypothesis or theory anyone could ever think of. Which is the basic conundrum.

A basic tenant for any good scientist is to challenge their hypothesis with vigor and commitment looking for evidence that contradicts their hypothesis, scientists minimize biases and ensure a more balanced and objective understanding of the subject and it's imperative for the tendency to "cherry pick" data that would support someones beliefs, because that is what it boils down to when that is done as opposed to truth, which is a vital cornerstone for continual scientific discovery.

If we judge his opinion as some kind of evidence that a particular diet, and in this case the carnivore diet is therefore invalid for human health based on this one video, then we would have to discount every dietary intervention that also has someone not thriving on another one. A vegan and to a lesser degree vegetarian diets are probably a good example where just a simple search will find dozens and more people letting everyone know they've also moved away from that diet, but generally it's a little more emphasized and not in a good way where the effects involve children and pets, crazy but true and for the most part when the verdict come out every year to pronounce what the best diets are they're generally near the top.