Great article and so true regarding diets. I always know it's a scam if it has any type of collectivist everybody should eat this way to fix their problems vibes to it. A diet that works to cure a nonverbal autistic six year old boy is not the same diet that a pregnant woman should undertake. Neither of those are the same diet that might help an elite level athelete versus a late stage cancer patient. Most are too restrictive and often expensive to be taken on as anything but short term resets, with what is eliminated during them often more important than what is taken in. A component of belief also will play a role.
I take an if it ain't broke don't fix it approach to eating, generally focusing on what is natural, fresh, home cooked and close to nature with no restrictions. Of course there's no money to be made from my endorsements...
There is a lot to diet. The main part is getting enough to eat without poisoning yourself too badly. Everything from there is just icing on the cake.
Like you said it depends on your situation and your goals. Sumo wrestler v Jockey. Like most everything else in this world there is a lot o intentional deception and tribalism.
Jesus h. christ, Anthony ! - I had NO IDEA that this is such a very Colpo-ish topic for you to post on ! [grin]
I'm tickled pink by this result, I promise - laughed many times while reading, in spite of having spent a week being carnivore. But I'm not actually <i>following</i> (ever hopeful re html) any of the information providers whose output I read - least of all the ones who have monetized what they eat. Fuck 'em. No, what I'm doing is reading a shitload of posts from lots of carnivores about it and finding it impossible to disbelieve so many people's glowing reports. I started carnivore to get rid of several irritating health problems - deeply serious ones like weak nails. BUT ! I also want to be able to get off all the goddam drugs the doctors have me one; and carnivore is touted by all its adherents as a way of doing that. I've even found a bloke you should look up - Dr Paul Mason, in Sydney somewhere. You and he share at least one kind of study/learning/qualification/whatever. However, knowing the way you work, you're probably aware of him already.
Listen, go for it in your usual attack-dog manner. You'll make me piss myself laughing, regardless of your destroying everything that currently fascinates me.
I appreciate your comment, Margaret, and would like to encourage you to stay on carnivore if it works for you. I'm on Day 134 now (happened to look that up yesterday), and I've experienced tremendous benefits (strengthening of nails is just one of many) that only make me want to stay with it. I've made a series of videos on YouTube about my experiences and observations just to keep myself on track, never expecting to attract an audience, but it turns out that a lot of people are interested. I try to offer different thoughts and observations from other voices, and am mindful of avoiding any "influencer"-like theatrics or promotions.
It's really worked for me, BUT I am also careful not to promote it as a one-size-fits-all solution, and do not want to contribute to or amplify any cult-like behaviour, the kind of which when coming from vegans on the opposite side is readily called out and (usually justifiably) ridiculed.
Two things I hope most people can agree upon are that factory farming and Big Agriculture are not good for people, animals or the environment, and that sugar addiction is very real and harmful.
For anyone interested, the channel "No Carb Life" (@zerocarb) is full of conversations featuring regular people describing their experiences with very low-carb, keto, to carnivore approaches to eating. It's a very authentic channel that serves up some very genuine testimonials and insights, and I appreciate that the host keeps it a cult-free zone that isn't about personalities or profits.
Yes, Dave, I'm well aware of you and your collection of interviews ! They are very much part of my saying "finding it impossible to disbelieve so many people's glowing reports", as it's perfectly obvious every one of 'em is a genuine convert.
Oh ! - it was you who told me about Paul Mason, btw - didn't know of him before.
Your interviews are going to challenge Anthony, which is A Good Thing: he isn't used to being challenged by simple faith and results. :D
And I've done it again. Sighh ... I fixed on the reference to No Carb Life rather than the original Portraits in Fitness. I am an absolute dickhead, for which I can only apologize. Please forgive ancient dickheadedness. :(
No worries. I was a guest on Dave Mac's channel a while back, but I am not the man Dave himself.
I disagree with almost everything in Anthony's post, but am not a fan of focusing on personalities and interests within "groups" or "movements," as they can easily be fragmented, turned against each other, and manipulated. So on some level I appreciate the post, but don't have the inclination to attempt to rebut it.
So my plan of living exclusively on a diet of the livers of my enemies is not going to miraculously cure my bipolar genderdysphoric hyperblastophenia? Thanks for crushing my hopes you pathetic evil substackian.
So much truth. Back in "The Omnivore" days, I lost 60 pounds going very low carb. Cutting carbs was clearly the key to losing weight!
"Just about anything new is awesome and wonderful and I-think-I've-found-the-one at first."
Exactly. Then I thought about it and figured that it may have had something to do with the fact that when you cut out so many things to eat, there's hardly any shit left to eat. Anyway, I achieved my goal, got sick of eating meat and green beans, and went back to eating what got me fat. Forty pounds later, I couldn't stomach the low carb thing again, so I intermittent fasted. Another key to losing weight!
After listening to fitness/building muscle advice to eat like a horse and 30 pounds of fat later, I couldn't stomach doing either of those again, so I just ate less. Ten years of eating like the world isn't my restaurant and I've maintained. Maybe caloric volume has something to do with this?
"Why was a guy who was in desperate need of health and life advice aggressively promoting himself as an all-knowing source of health and life wisdom?"
This is absolutely par for the course in the popular self-help arena. A classic example are life coaches: few people are more in need of a life coach than a life coach. They peek over the prison walls of their disastrous lives, see a glimmer of hope, get overwhelmed with sudden feelings of sageness, then they believe in their school-of-hard-knocks, road-tested guru status. The same goes for multi-level marketing bots, whether it's a bucket-of-powder diet, beach ball-to-beach body in 30 days, or essential snake oils scam.
Gary Taubes and Peter Attia are still spoken of in reverential tones in spite of their NuSi nonsense. When I was on Twitter, there was a never-ending circle jerk of "anything but caloric volume" as the primary cause of obesity. Every time I saw a question from one of these people like "how did we all get so fat?", I'd respond with "VOLUME" as the first reason. But nope. Clearly, this nation of people who are continually washing down chipmunk cheeks of food and snacks with half-gallon jugs of liquid cake from Dunkin Donuts are obese because they eat [fill in the blank with various accessories to the dietary crime]. "Jason Fung has a degree, you don't."
My wife feels a lot better when she isn’t eating a lot of carbs. I skip breakfast and basically do IF. None of it is magic.
I saw the Liver King back in the day, probably from a YouRube ad. It took less than a millisecond to realize he was juicing, which is fine by me. As you say, pimping your supplements/diet as the key to getting big while you’re on heavy drugs so really land you in prison.
I don’t know if you’re familiar with or remember Rich Piana (I think that was his name). He was big, partially because of implants which he probably lied about. He was also very public about his large steroid cycles. They ended up killing him, he was probably in his 40’s. At least he was mostly telling the truth.
That old adage, if it’s too good to be true, really applies to everything.
Not a fad diet, but maybe worse, I reckon nearly every middle aged woman I know are on GLP-1 agonists (eg. Ozempic). I genuinely fear the long term repercussions of this.
To your point about eliminating things from your diet, I’ve benefited from removing these “foods” from my diet.
Pretty much anything white, corn, omega 6 oils and legumes.
Thank you for mentioning long term fasting at the end of your article. It works, but you cannot monetize it. Anyone can do it for free and even save a lot of money. And it just might save your life. Feasting and fasting was the ancestral way of living. Now, it's just stuffing your face.
It’s like those young cops in NZ who are rather too well built to be believed. They tend to get antsy when I say “I can smell the trenbolone acetate on your breath from here.” [and yeah, I can]
Tony there are rogues in the Health/Nutrition space, but I look forward to your professional analysis of the Carnivore diet rather than reading scandal about the rogues from the past.
But there are a number of very qualified, current You tube posters on the benefits of Carnivore diet.
I am now in my 3rd month of Carnivore and I'm intending to continue with it. To me Carnivore is basically no carbs and no sugar (which most agree is a positive) ---so where do you see the problem?
The problem comes if you eat toxic parts of the animal or if you want to replenish calories quickly, mostly for sport.
These are the main two issues. Remember it's not about plants vs animals but what is in each. Poisonous plants will kill you just as quick as poisonous animals. Eating above maintenance (or below) doesn't matter if it's plant or animal.
Well tell me what the toxic parts of the animal are---I will mention this to my butcher--shame on him for selling me toxic food.
I don't eat organ meat, but I don't believe it is toxic., just not to my liking.
And I don't believe plants are toxic. I just don't want to eat them.
And I am not a professional sportsperson, but I am a gym person not experiencing any problems as I am doing weights and stretching and not doing the cardio calorie burn.
You don't believe the liver (known to be full of toxins, they get stored there until they can be dealt with by the body) is toxic? You don't believe pig fat full of toxic vitamin A is toxic? You don't believe Japanese Blow fish is toxic?
And you don't believe plants are toxic? I assume you are joking. Wolf bane?
In fact most plants are toxic. There are very few parts of very few plants we can eat (enough of to get out daily calorie requirements) without getting very sick. Many other animals are far better at processing these toxins than us. If this wasn't the case people would simply be able to eat leaves from plants or grass. I do not have one edible plant in my garden out of more than 20 species.
Yes, guys like this give a bad name to diets that can help people. I work with a lot of diabetics (type 1) who find big life improvements from pushing down the carbs they eat but people like Liver King prevent them from ever hearing about it.
Great post Anthony. I was one of those people they got sucked into keto and low-carb. I also tried the carnivore thing for a while, but it was simply not sustainable for me, and I noticed zero health benefits from it. The low-carb diet did help with my diabetes… Until it didn't.
I returned back to an omnivorous (because I am a human being… and therefore biologically best suited to an omnivorous diet) and the results are pretty amazing. No processed foods, just entire foods. All fruits, all vegetables, all meats… Including organ meats. Dairy products. I eat them all. I make my own sourdough bread. I make my own yogurt. If I want a sweet treat such as ice cream… I make my own and have that too. Other than processed junk… There is pretty well nothing that is off my diet.
My blood sugars have stabilized to the point where my doctor has taken me off of all medications. He said, but in his 30 years of practice, he has never done that before… That is, taken a diabetic off of their medication. He has just added more. My weight is coming down and my blood sugars are normal. And I eat carbohydrates. Potatoes, sweet potatoes, rice... even some pasta. Fruit. Homemade treats that are made with honey and maple syrup… No more sugar, alcohol or artificial sweetener. I drink orange juice. I drink milk.
I am 56 years old and menopausal. The hot flashes and night sweats have stopped. I walk daily and train three days a week with heavy weights and compound movements. Zero alcohol, ever. Not on vacation, not even to toast the bride at a wedding. I will not allow alcohol into my body.
I took one look at the Liver King and thought "this guy is geared AF". How did I know? He looked nothing like old-timey bodybuilders who did it all pre-gear, and just like all the geared to the moooon meatheads you see today.
That said, there has been some good work done on health and fitness, mainly the discussion of how bad seed oils are for you, and the benefits of natural organic vs. processed foods..
I have added your article to my global health mafia graph:
https://embed.kumu.io/0bc9597040630bb627474aef98e5e756
I once tried using mind-mapping software.
Just the once.
[grin]
Great article and so true regarding diets. I always know it's a scam if it has any type of collectivist everybody should eat this way to fix their problems vibes to it. A diet that works to cure a nonverbal autistic six year old boy is not the same diet that a pregnant woman should undertake. Neither of those are the same diet that might help an elite level athelete versus a late stage cancer patient. Most are too restrictive and often expensive to be taken on as anything but short term resets, with what is eliminated during them often more important than what is taken in. A component of belief also will play a role.
I take an if it ain't broke don't fix it approach to eating, generally focusing on what is natural, fresh, home cooked and close to nature with no restrictions. Of course there's no money to be made from my endorsements...
There is a lot to diet. The main part is getting enough to eat without poisoning yourself too badly. Everything from there is just icing on the cake.
Like you said it depends on your situation and your goals. Sumo wrestler v Jockey. Like most everything else in this world there is a lot o intentional deception and tribalism.
You're so right to say "short term resets", in a great little reply (to a great article).
Jesus h. christ, Anthony ! - I had NO IDEA that this is such a very Colpo-ish topic for you to post on ! [grin]
I'm tickled pink by this result, I promise - laughed many times while reading, in spite of having spent a week being carnivore. But I'm not actually <i>following</i> (ever hopeful re html) any of the information providers whose output I read - least of all the ones who have monetized what they eat. Fuck 'em. No, what I'm doing is reading a shitload of posts from lots of carnivores about it and finding it impossible to disbelieve so many people's glowing reports. I started carnivore to get rid of several irritating health problems - deeply serious ones like weak nails. BUT ! I also want to be able to get off all the goddam drugs the doctors have me one; and carnivore is touted by all its adherents as a way of doing that. I've even found a bloke you should look up - Dr Paul Mason, in Sydney somewhere. You and he share at least one kind of study/learning/qualification/whatever. However, knowing the way you work, you're probably aware of him already.
Listen, go for it in your usual attack-dog manner. You'll make me piss myself laughing, regardless of your destroying everything that currently fascinates me.
Seems I can't help being your fan.
I appreciate your comment, Margaret, and would like to encourage you to stay on carnivore if it works for you. I'm on Day 134 now (happened to look that up yesterday), and I've experienced tremendous benefits (strengthening of nails is just one of many) that only make me want to stay with it. I've made a series of videos on YouTube about my experiences and observations just to keep myself on track, never expecting to attract an audience, but it turns out that a lot of people are interested. I try to offer different thoughts and observations from other voices, and am mindful of avoiding any "influencer"-like theatrics or promotions.
It's really worked for me, BUT I am also careful not to promote it as a one-size-fits-all solution, and do not want to contribute to or amplify any cult-like behaviour, the kind of which when coming from vegans on the opposite side is readily called out and (usually justifiably) ridiculed.
Two things I hope most people can agree upon are that factory farming and Big Agriculture are not good for people, animals or the environment, and that sugar addiction is very real and harmful.
For anyone interested, the channel "No Carb Life" (@zerocarb) is full of conversations featuring regular people describing their experiences with very low-carb, keto, to carnivore approaches to eating. It's a very authentic channel that serves up some very genuine testimonials and insights, and I appreciate that the host keeps it a cult-free zone that isn't about personalities or profits.
Yes, Dave, I'm well aware of you and your collection of interviews ! They are very much part of my saying "finding it impossible to disbelieve so many people's glowing reports", as it's perfectly obvious every one of 'em is a genuine convert.
Oh ! - it was you who told me about Paul Mason, btw - didn't know of him before.
Your interviews are going to challenge Anthony, which is A Good Thing: he isn't used to being challenged by simple faith and results. :D
And I've done it again. Sighh ... I fixed on the reference to No Carb Life rather than the original Portraits in Fitness. I am an absolute dickhead, for which I can only apologize. Please forgive ancient dickheadedness. :(
No worries. I was a guest on Dave Mac's channel a while back, but I am not the man Dave himself.
I disagree with almost everything in Anthony's post, but am not a fan of focusing on personalities and interests within "groups" or "movements," as they can easily be fragmented, turned against each other, and manipulated. So on some level I appreciate the post, but don't have the inclination to attempt to rebut it.
So my plan of living exclusively on a diet of the livers of my enemies is not going to miraculously cure my bipolar genderdysphoric hyperblastophenia? Thanks for crushing my hopes you pathetic evil substackian.
Sit by the river for long enough for the livers to flow past you master.
😂😂😂
So much truth. Back in "The Omnivore" days, I lost 60 pounds going very low carb. Cutting carbs was clearly the key to losing weight!
"Just about anything new is awesome and wonderful and I-think-I've-found-the-one at first."
Exactly. Then I thought about it and figured that it may have had something to do with the fact that when you cut out so many things to eat, there's hardly any shit left to eat. Anyway, I achieved my goal, got sick of eating meat and green beans, and went back to eating what got me fat. Forty pounds later, I couldn't stomach the low carb thing again, so I intermittent fasted. Another key to losing weight!
After listening to fitness/building muscle advice to eat like a horse and 30 pounds of fat later, I couldn't stomach doing either of those again, so I just ate less. Ten years of eating like the world isn't my restaurant and I've maintained. Maybe caloric volume has something to do with this?
"Why was a guy who was in desperate need of health and life advice aggressively promoting himself as an all-knowing source of health and life wisdom?"
This is absolutely par for the course in the popular self-help arena. A classic example are life coaches: few people are more in need of a life coach than a life coach. They peek over the prison walls of their disastrous lives, see a glimmer of hope, get overwhelmed with sudden feelings of sageness, then they believe in their school-of-hard-knocks, road-tested guru status. The same goes for multi-level marketing bots, whether it's a bucket-of-powder diet, beach ball-to-beach body in 30 days, or essential snake oils scam.
Gary Taubes and Peter Attia are still spoken of in reverential tones in spite of their NuSi nonsense. When I was on Twitter, there was a never-ending circle jerk of "anything but caloric volume" as the primary cause of obesity. Every time I saw a question from one of these people like "how did we all get so fat?", I'd respond with "VOLUME" as the first reason. But nope. Clearly, this nation of people who are continually washing down chipmunk cheeks of food and snacks with half-gallon jugs of liquid cake from Dunkin Donuts are obese because they eat [fill in the blank with various accessories to the dietary crime]. "Jason Fung has a degree, you don't."
Did you mean to put the word Schlongoli in my head there?
I may never look at an italian menu the same again.
Good article Anthony,
I'm a long time follower (2012)
When you do your review of the carnivore diet please include the following Doctors.
Dr. Shawn Baker at
http://www.youtube.com/@DrShawnBakerPodcast
Dr. Ken Berry MD at
http://www.youtube.com/@KenDBerryMD
Dr. Anthony Chaffee MD at
http://www.youtube.com/@anthonychaffeemd
Dr. Anthony is in Perth as well.
Thanks
Ah, the common denominator of motive...
Money Motivates the Most Marvelous Manifestations! (article): https://amaterasusolar.substack.com/p/money-motivates-the-most-marvelous
Great alliteration ! [grin]
Thanks!
My wife feels a lot better when she isn’t eating a lot of carbs. I skip breakfast and basically do IF. None of it is magic.
I saw the Liver King back in the day, probably from a YouRube ad. It took less than a millisecond to realize he was juicing, which is fine by me. As you say, pimping your supplements/diet as the key to getting big while you’re on heavy drugs so really land you in prison.
I don’t know if you’re familiar with or remember Rich Piana (I think that was his name). He was big, partially because of implants which he probably lied about. He was also very public about his large steroid cycles. They ended up killing him, he was probably in his 40’s. At least he was mostly telling the truth.
That old adage, if it’s too good to be true, really applies to everything.
Great piece!
Not a fad diet, but maybe worse, I reckon nearly every middle aged woman I know are on GLP-1 agonists (eg. Ozempic). I genuinely fear the long term repercussions of this.
To your point about eliminating things from your diet, I’ve benefited from removing these “foods” from my diet.
Pretty much anything white, corn, omega 6 oils and legumes.
Thank you for mentioning long term fasting at the end of your article. It works, but you cannot monetize it. Anyone can do it for free and even save a lot of money. And it just might save your life. Feasting and fasting was the ancestral way of living. Now, it's just stuffing your face.
It’s like those young cops in NZ who are rather too well built to be believed. They tend to get antsy when I say “I can smell the trenbolone acetate on your breath from here.” [and yeah, I can]
Tony there are rogues in the Health/Nutrition space, but I look forward to your professional analysis of the Carnivore diet rather than reading scandal about the rogues from the past.
But there are a number of very qualified, current You tube posters on the benefits of Carnivore diet.
I am now in my 3rd month of Carnivore and I'm intending to continue with it. To me Carnivore is basically no carbs and no sugar (which most agree is a positive) ---so where do you see the problem?
The problem comes if you eat toxic parts of the animal or if you want to replenish calories quickly, mostly for sport.
These are the main two issues. Remember it's not about plants vs animals but what is in each. Poisonous plants will kill you just as quick as poisonous animals. Eating above maintenance (or below) doesn't matter if it's plant or animal.
It is a false dialectic.
Well tell me what the toxic parts of the animal are---I will mention this to my butcher--shame on him for selling me toxic food.
I don't eat organ meat, but I don't believe it is toxic., just not to my liking.
And I don't believe plants are toxic. I just don't want to eat them.
And I am not a professional sportsperson, but I am a gym person not experiencing any problems as I am doing weights and stretching and not doing the cardio calorie burn.
You don't believe the liver (known to be full of toxins, they get stored there until they can be dealt with by the body) is toxic? You don't believe pig fat full of toxic vitamin A is toxic? You don't believe Japanese Blow fish is toxic?
And you don't believe plants are toxic? I assume you are joking. Wolf bane?
In fact most plants are toxic. There are very few parts of very few plants we can eat (enough of to get out daily calorie requirements) without getting very sick. Many other animals are far better at processing these toxins than us. If this wasn't the case people would simply be able to eat leaves from plants or grass. I do not have one edible plant in my garden out of more than 20 species.
Yes, guys like this give a bad name to diets that can help people. I work with a lot of diabetics (type 1) who find big life improvements from pushing down the carbs they eat but people like Liver King prevent them from ever hearing about it.
Great post Anthony. I was one of those people they got sucked into keto and low-carb. I also tried the carnivore thing for a while, but it was simply not sustainable for me, and I noticed zero health benefits from it. The low-carb diet did help with my diabetes… Until it didn't.
I returned back to an omnivorous (because I am a human being… and therefore biologically best suited to an omnivorous diet) and the results are pretty amazing. No processed foods, just entire foods. All fruits, all vegetables, all meats… Including organ meats. Dairy products. I eat them all. I make my own sourdough bread. I make my own yogurt. If I want a sweet treat such as ice cream… I make my own and have that too. Other than processed junk… There is pretty well nothing that is off my diet.
My blood sugars have stabilized to the point where my doctor has taken me off of all medications. He said, but in his 30 years of practice, he has never done that before… That is, taken a diabetic off of their medication. He has just added more. My weight is coming down and my blood sugars are normal. And I eat carbohydrates. Potatoes, sweet potatoes, rice... even some pasta. Fruit. Homemade treats that are made with honey and maple syrup… No more sugar, alcohol or artificial sweetener. I drink orange juice. I drink milk.
I am 56 years old and menopausal. The hot flashes and night sweats have stopped. I walk daily and train three days a week with heavy weights and compound movements. Zero alcohol, ever. Not on vacation, not even to toast the bride at a wedding. I will not allow alcohol into my body.
Please keep up the great posts.
I took one look at the Liver King and thought "this guy is geared AF". How did I know? He looked nothing like old-timey bodybuilders who did it all pre-gear, and just like all the geared to the moooon meatheads you see today.
That said, there has been some good work done on health and fitness, mainly the discussion of how bad seed oils are for you, and the benefits of natural organic vs. processed foods..
.
.
.
(I have a podcast, and I’m gonna shill it until I get 1000 subs: https://marchingthroughtheshadowlands.substack.com/ Sorry, but it ain't gonna shill itself...)