A couple of weeks ago I became attracted to learning more about the carnivore diet because it has the best track record for alleviating autoimmune disease conditions. Since I have two significantly high autoimmune antibody conditions against my thyroid and my collagen tissues, and twelve moderately high antibody levels against a boatload of other tissues, I am very interested in anything that might help autoimmune issues. I have been doing various diet-related protocols to keep my autoimmune situation settled down for the last fifteen years, but lately, they have been acting up again. So I am motivated to do whatever it takes to get things back into line.
A carnivore diet is just what it sounds like – eating beef and lamb with a little salt and that is it. After reading the book “The Carnivore Code”, I came to the realization that what the carnivore diet really is, is an allergy elimination diet. This protocol was first developed way back in the 1920s by Dr. Albert Rowe for testing and treating food allergies. I remember learning about it while I was in Chiropractic school. The reason for the carnivore concept is because the foods with the least allergenic potential are ruminants like beef, lamb (mutton), and goat. Why ruminants you ask? All plants contain thousands of toxic defense chemicals which are the most common triggers for allergies and food reactions. Animals, in general, don’t have these toxic defense chemicals, but animals that eat plants or other animals that eat plants will still accumulate these toxins – much like the issue with mercury accumulation in fish. But ruminants have four stomachs in which they ferment the plant components. The bacteria in the stomach of ruminants are able to destroy these poisons before the food is absorbed into the animal. So ruminants are the safest food to eat if you have food reactions. There are 200 species of ruminants, but the ones I mentioned are the only ones we have commonly domesticated that you have any real chance of finding at the grocery store.
So the idea is to eat a diet of only ruminants for a minimum of three to six weeks to see if your symptoms settle down. Animal flesh is almost nutritionally complete if you eat the connective tissue and organs as well as the muscle meat. You can live quite healthfully on nothing but animal flesh, fat, organs, and glands. Every vitamin you need is present, though you may want to take some additional vitamins just to cover your bases in case you don’t eat enough liver, fish roe, pancreas, and kidney. Even fiber is present in meat in the form of the connective tissue. This is important as any elimination diet still needs to be nutritionally complete, otherwise, you will simply create new problems due to nutrient deficiencies. By eliminating the offending substances completely from your diet, you allow your immune system to calm down. It is no longer being called upon to defend you from the host of poisons entering your system. Once things are sufficiently calmed down you can introduce foods you have eliminated one at a time every three days to see if you have a problem with them. It can take up to three days for a food reaction to show up, so you can’t introduce foods too quickly. A special complicating factor is that some reactions only happen when the food is either cooked or raw, or when it is eaten in combination with certain other foods. As you can see, food testing can get really complicated.
I tried a similar diet protocol a couple of years ago that was focused on eliminating one particular class of plant toxins – lectins. This was Dr. Gundry’s “Plant Paradox” program, which at the time was claiming good results with autoimmune conditions. It did not do the trick for me, so eliminating lectins was not enough for me. I know that I do well when I am fasting on just water, but that is very difficult to do long term. I typically can only do two weeks on water alone – not enough time to do a good elimination protocol and start adding in foods one at a time every three days. So I am looking at this carnivore diet as a sort of fasting on meat instead of water. We shall see.
Some of you may be saying “How can plants be bad for us? I thought they were the answer to better health.” The simple answer is, no. Plants have been fighting for their existence on land for over 470 million years. They can’t run away from critters that want to eat them, so they have to stand and fight for their right to survive. To do this they have become masters of chemical warfare. They fight against environmental stress, molds, fungi, viruses, insects, birds, and animals. They have developed thousands of poisonous chemicals with which to fight the huge number of predators they have to contend with. In tiny amounts, we can use many of these poisons as medicine. Although we try to ignore the reality, all medicines are poisons, poisons that trigger reactions in our body that are beneficial in very small amounts. That is why medicines have negative side effects, and why they all have very specific limited dosages to be used in. If they were actually good for us then we could take as much as we want. Plants are the same way. And once you become sensitive to a particular plant then the acceptable dose becomes zero.
What are some of the common poisons found in plants?
Lectins (different ones in most foods)
Aflatoxins (chilies, corn, peanuts, rice)
Salicylates (many fruits, nuts, and veggies)
Histamines (alcohol, cheese, legumes, fermented foods)
Sulfites (beer, wine, fruits, veggies)
Oxalates (really high in leafy greens)
Phytoalexins (most plants)
Tannins (tea, nuts, chocolate)
Saponins (soy, quinoa, chickpeas)
Glycoalkaloids (found in potatoes and tomatoes)
Aggultinins (like WGA in wheat)
This is the shortlist. Truly, there are thousands. And this does not include all the agricultural poisons being sprayed on the crops by humans. Any one of these could be the cause of your arthritis or brain fog or gut problems or most anything else. Everyone is different as to how many of these poisons they may be especially sensitive to. These plant toxins don’t even count old fashion food allergies to the individual plant proteins found in each plant. You add all these potential reactions to the chemicals and hormones added to commercial foods and you can see why just simply eating can be dangerous.
This is the reason for some sort of radical elimination diet of all these potentially symptom-causing foods to try and sort this mess out. But what if you are that one in a thousand that reacts to beef? Then there is a thing called an elemental diet, which is made up of completely predigested nutrients – stuff you could pour right into your bloodstream. It contains nothing natural at all, just basic amino acids, fatty acids, and glucose, plus vitamins and minerals. That is how extreme some people have to go to eliminate potential triggers for their symptoms.
So my plan is to eat just the ruminants for three weeks and see how I feel. Since I am not likely to be able to eat the suggested two pounds of meat a day, I will be taking extra B vitamins, C, choline, and a few other extras. I will stop any herbs for the time being. I am not a lover of liver, so I will be eating liver capsules along with liverwurst. I am not sure about the other organ meats. Connective tissue I can supplement with powdered collagen. I may even supplement my diet with free form amino acids, much like I would be doing if I were on an elemental diet. However, most amino acids are really terrible tasting so I will see. Hopefully, my symptoms will settle down quickly so I can start the slow process of adding new foods back in. This should be quite an adventure.
I will keep you updated on my progress.
Take care,
David