Define edible

I tried it for a couple of months. I felt great on it, but it got really fucking boring

If you eat it and it doesn't kill you or make you sick within 24 hours

What if it "contains a neurotoxin that causes lathyrism, a neurodegenerative disease, if eaten as a primary protein source for a prolonged period."?

Lathyrus sativus - Wikipedia

(en.wikipedia.org)

If the problem manifests after years of consumption blame it on user error and not eating a balanced diet.

But why bother at all in this case? Funsies?

Profit or philosophy but mostly good old fashioned stubbornness

I've heard before that people feel good on a carnivore diet at first, but then it flips into the negative pretty quickly as your body runs out of vitamins.

Wikipedia lists even more drastic long-term problems: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivore_diet#Health_concerns

None of the Wikipedia claims are based on reproducible science, at best the justification is weak epidemiology with weak hazard rations and not controlling for carbohydrate consumption.

There is no nutrient deficiencies on a carnivore eating pattern, with zero carbohydrates, the nutrition from fatty red meat is complete

Agreed. And I'm going to expand on your comment a bit.

A lot of people like to argue that you're not getting enough vitamin C on a carnivore diet, but that's not true. There's some details that most people aren't aware of.

Glucose and vitamin C have very similar molecular structures. So similar that most mammals are capable of synthesizing any vitamin C they need from glucose, which can in turn be synthesized from protein. A side effect from this similarity is that vitamin C and glucose are absorbed via the same pathways, so a diet that's high in glucose will result in less vitamin C absorption due to crowding out those pathways.

Because of this, if you're not consuming a lot of glucose, you don't need to consume as much vitamin C because you'll absorb a higher percent of it. Not only that, on a carnivore diet you're avoiding some compounds like oxalic acid, which significantly reduces absorption of several vitamins and minerals, such as vitamin C, magnesium, potassium, etc. Oxalic acid is found in most leafy green vegetables.

Also, there's small amounts of vitamin C (alongside every other necessary vitamin/mineral) in meat, particularly beef. Not a lot, but if you're more efficient at absorbing it it ends up being enough.

Granted, I don't personally recommend the carnivore diet because 1: it's boring, 2: it's expensive, and 3: you need to do more research than what I've stated here to avoid problems. But regardless, it is doable.

But if you want most of the upsides without as much hassle, I'd recommend just going keto. You get 90% of the benefits, you get more variety in your food, and you can even make it vegetarian or vegan if you want.

It also raises levels of LDL cholesterol, which increases the risk of cardiovascular disease.

This is completely ignoring that there's multiple varieties of LDL cholesterol, some of which are benign. And basic blood draws don't differentiate them, you need more detailed blood tests.

They are also low in dietary fiber, possibly causing constipation.

Dietary fiber is not an essential nutrient. Not only that, when I went carnivore for 2 months, after the first week of acclimation I was more regular than I have ever been in my life.

A carnivore diet high in red meat increases the risks of colon cancer and gout.

The study referenced is an epidiological study based on surveys of people that were asked to recall what they've eaten for the past 30 years. This resulted in clearly erroneous data where average daily calory intake was wildly off from average human requirements.

And you're not supposed to draw conclusions from epidemiological studies with results lower than a 100% risk increase (aka doubling risk). The result of this study was 18%.

At best, this study should have been used to propose a more focussed double-blind study on the subject. But they didn't. The WHO should be ashamed for platforming this trash study as if it's 6-sigma physics results

The high protein intake of a carnivore diet can lead to impaired kidney function

The amount of protein that you'd need to eat to make this a problem is far beyond what a normal human could eat in a day. You'd die from rabbit starvation before it'd get that far. This study is like the one rat study claiming that asperthame causes cancer, but they were giving the rats 1000x the dose a normal human would consume if you corrected for body weight.

Great write-up, thank you for taking the time, I liked reading it

the carnivore diet because 1: it's boring, 2: it's expensive, and 3: you need to do more research than what I've stated here to avoid problems. But regardless, it is doable.

As somebody doing carnivore, I don't think it's boring.

When you remove all of the plants from your grocery shopping, I don't even think it's more expensive. It's about the same price. You're not buying all that other stuff.

As far as research goes, I would agree for getting started, it's a really good idea to follow somebody's program, especially around electrolytes for adaptation. But if you are eating red meat and no sugar, and electrolytes, I don't think there's any negative problems you need to avoid

basic blood draws don’t differentiate them, you need more detailed blood tests.

You can get pretty close with a standard lipid panel: the TG/HDL ratio < 2, is strongly correlated with insulin sensitivity and LDL being pattern A (the undamaged, good type).

And you’re not supposed to draw conclusions from epidemiological studies with results lower than a 100% risk increase (aka doubling risk). The result of this study was 18%.

Epidemiology cannot establish causation in any circumstance, but if the hazard ratio is > 4 (so 400% risk increase) then further studies/interventions are warranted. This is why epidemiology is more accurately called hypothesis generating. But yeah a 1.18 hazard ratio is such low noise it doesn't warrant further study, only people with agendas try to use such a low noisy signal for political ends.

The WHO should be ashamed for platforming this trash study as if it’s 6-sigma physics results

!!!!!