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Carnivore Diet Reddit
The Carnivore diet is also known as the meat-only or zero-carb diet. And it is a pseudoscientific fad diet popular on social media platforms. You can only eat meat on a diet and must dogmatically avoid all carbohydrates, fruits, and vegetables because they are evil. Medical experts have condemned the carnivore diet as dangerous and unscientific. Eating only meat deprives the body of necessary nutrients and causes vitamin deficiencies. The carnivore diet is in direct opposition to science by condemning the consumption of all vegetables. The diet is the opposite of veganism, but instead of vegetables, its followers have a hard-on for meat. Carnivore dieters are known to mock vegans on social media. Some critics see it as a troll diet used to piss people off. You eat only meat, fish, eggs, and some animal products; you exclude all other food groups — including vegetables, fruits, grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds.
Health and environmental concerns
Even though its adherents claim health benefits, there is no clinical evidence that the diet is safe or provides any health benefits. No randomized controlled trials might help rule out the placebo effect. Dieticians dismiss the carnivore diet as a fad, which has attracted criticism from physicians and nutritionists as potentially dangerous to health (see Meat § Health). Criticism also derives from concerns about greenhouse gas emissions associated with large-scale livestock farming required to produce meats commercially and the potential for such emissions to worsen climate change (see the environmental impact of meat production).
Carnivore Diet Side-Effects
Most people who plan on starting the carnivore diet think it’s simply turning the food pyramid on its head. Eat meat, and then less of all the other stuff, especially high-carb food. It’s similar to a keto diet. I was one of those people myself, and it was quite an awakening that I would eat meat and nothing else. It isn’t like any regular low-carb diet. It means a long-term commitment to weight loss or other health-related reasons.
The initial reaction you might have is the carnivore diet must be unhealthy and full of all sorts of long-term problems. After all, you’ll only be eating red meat and no more plant-based food. This is where we need to clarify a couple of things. Yes, there are adverse side effects during the phase where your body and metabolism adapt while on the carnivore diet to lose body weight. Many call this period the “trough of despair” or just the “trough.”You will encounter flu-like symptoms as your body starves of carbs in a long-term carnivore diet. Your blood glucose is drained, and any glycogen reserves, even a small amount, are tapped into. Once this happens, your body will go into a kind of panic mode, including a quick boost in blood sugar levels.
Symptoms & Risks of the carnivore diet
Here’s what to expect during a carnivore diet:
- Brain fog or trouble focusing
- Occasional headaches often due to dehydration
- Mood swings as your hormones adjust
- Disrupted bowel movements (yes, both more and less frequent as possible)
- Nausea can happen if you get your meal timing wrong
- Digestive problems as your gallbladder adjust
- Fatigue from a lack of easily accessible glucose
- Insomnia from restless legs and an increased need to pee
- Dehydration through glycogen reduction
- Food cravings for your favourite doughnut or even some broccoli (NOT)
Conclusion
Contrary to common expectations, adults consuming a carnivore diet experienced few adverse effects and instead reported health benefits and high satisfaction. Cardiovascular disease risk factors were variably affected. The generalizability of these findings and the long-term effects of this dietary pattern require further study. A social media survey was conducted on 30 March-24 June 2020 among adults self-identifying as consuming a carnivore diet for ≥6 mo. Survey questions interrogated motivation, dietary intake patterns, symptoms suggestive of nutritional deficiencies or other adverse effects, satisfaction, prior and current health conditions, anthropometrics, and laboratory data.
