The Carnivore Story, Part 2
Or, Why You're not in High School anymore Dorothy, labels DO matter
Ok. So here’s the thing—this conversation is going to fork off into various different tributaries quickly (hey, don’t shoot the messenger) so I’m going to try make this organized. There’s probably going to have to be a part 3 to this… maybe part 4… anyway buckle up buttercups…here’s why labels matter.
*Disclaimer none of this is medical advice, see my Instagram highlights for further details.
I was chatting with someone recently and thought of a pretty simple analogy.
II.I - Diesel versus petrol
Imagine if your local gas station owner didn’t sell diesel. But then they came up to you one day and said, “Hey, whaddup drivers! So guess what, we sell diesel now! We’ve made some changes. Good luck buddy!” They leave. You look around the gas station. Nothing appears to have changed. You want to try their diesel because you finally have a diesel car, and you have heard a lot of great things about diesel. But how do you know that the gas they say is diesel, is diesel? The handles haven’t changed colour. They haven’t bothered to put up any signs. In fact, all they could manage to do was plaster a piece of duct tape over a sign and scrawled in sharpie “diesel sold here!”
So now you don’t know if your car is going to be properly fueled and on its merry way…or if it’s going to literally explode.
How do you know these guys are suddenly qualified to sell diesel?
II.II - What do cars have to do with health?
Ok, so obviously you can see something has gone horribly wrong in my little allegory here. We would have absolutely no issue being up in arms at the dangerous moves your local gas station has taken. They’re playing Russian roulette with their customers—some people will drive away fit as a fiddle, others will face a noxious doom, because here’s the secret: your local gas station is very confused. The owner thinks to himself, gas is gas, right? and diesel is also gas? it’s all gas—so it doesn’t matter! I guess I sell diesel now! …yeah ok guy.
Do you see what I’m getting at?
What Paul Saladino and his coven don’t want to admit is that what they’re doing is not carnivore. Eating fruit and raw honey and even avocados regularly is not carnivore. He’s tried a little to shift to this idea of “animal based,” which is a step in the right direction, but for cryin’ out loud, his cookbook literally has carnivore in its title…and he’s still called “carnivoremd,” because, you know, money.
(If I add my opinion here, I think that’s what’s rather messed up—he won’t change his name, for clout and money basically. So people are getting hurt because of his greed. There would be nothing wrong with animalbasedmd - if anything, it’s more unique and memorable. But I digress).
II.III - So what, it’s a free country bruh
Why does this matter? Well, because different people have different needs. If some people can eat copious amounts of carbs and do alright, good for them, but that isn’t going to work for everyone. To say it will, is just straight up factually incorrect and doesn’t make sense when you look at historical groups of people either. Weston A. Price showed very clearly that when indigenous groups were brought flour, sugar, and other modern foods, their health suffered.
Saying someone with blood sugar issues is going to do fine eating a ton of really sweet, low fibrous fruit—and shifting the blame entirely to seed oils—is just not a good idea. Even monkeys get diabetes from modern-day bananas - no seed oils necessary.
Storytime: Allow me to illustrate with an example. (I made it up, but I’ve observed similar things happening)
Let’s meet Mrs. “A.” Mrs. A is 42 years old, and she goes on the actual carnivore diet—meat, salt, water, maybe some fish and eggs. She even still drinks black coffee in moderation. She resolves her pre-diabetes, sleeps deeply, gains more energy and mental clarity, and her bloodwork/labwork comes back great. She doesn’t have cheat meals, and she’s been doing this for 11 months straight—plenty of time, on average, to iron out the kinks and transition phase (which, by the way, I’ll be discussing in a future article - everyone seems to have forgotten about carnivore’s “transition phase.” But I digress).
So, she tells her friend Mr. “B,” who is 39 years old, about the carnivore diet and, because she is unfortunately in a bit of a hurry, can’t spare the details and tells him to look it up online, and so eagerly he goes home and does. He stumbles upon the likes of Paul Saladino and his friends and thinks the carnivore diet also includes sweet potatoes, squash, gallons of raw honey, and a variety of very sugary fruit. Not knowing any better, he thinks this sounds great to him, and embarks on his entirely different sort of carnivore diet. At first, he does drop a few pounds and feel better of course, because he’s no longer eating seed oils and deep fried twinkies and potato chips and doughnuts and you get the idea.
But in a few months when he gets his glucose checked, it’s not under control the way he expected it to be. He, too, had been pre-diabetic and hoping to get it under control like Mrs. A had. He’s noticed some blood sugar crashes, he’s still struggling with adult acne, and his brain fog hasn’t improved the way Mrs. A’s has.
Now Mr. B’s friend, Mr. “C,” is extremely active. He works out—hard—5 times a week or more. He surfs every weekend, and he rides his bike to work. He has a standing desk and is rarely sedentary. He’s 24 years old, and he has no pre-existing blood sugar issues. He does fine—for now—on Paul’s “carnivore” diet. He can’t imagine, however, why his friend Mr. B might be having issues with it. After, all, his coworker—and Mr. B’s friend—Mrs. A does great on carnivore, too! (Let’s say Mr. C hasn’t really spoken deeply/in detail about the diet to anyone else). Mr. C is discouraged by Mr. B’s report. He quietly decides that, while he knows the carnivore diet works for himself, he won’t be recommending it to anyone else, just in case.
II.IV - Wait a minute.
Do you see how this is confusing and ultimately harmful? It’s really not that complicated.
If you eat sweet fruit on a daily basis, you are not eating a carnivore diet. People are getting confused. Look, eat whatever you want, it’s a free country—I’m serious!
But if it’s not (1) entirely comprised meat/other animal products (NO honey) + water/coffee, and (2) is also very low in carbs (i.e., you’re not chugging more than 20g of carbs worth of raw milk and yoghurt), please don’t call it a carnivore diet. It is not. Let’s be real for a second: it feels really “edgy” to say you’re a carnivore. It does! (and I say that with love—heck, I love being edgy lol! I was an emo kid in high school for cryin’ out loud lol) but if you’re not actually a carnivore, then be honest with yourself and the rest of us, and please, please don’t call it carnivore. Carnivore is not a cool trend or aesthetic. It is something people undertake because they have to, because their health depends on it, and depends on doing it correctly.
II.V Here’s some perspective: People don’t do this with other diets.
They don’t go around eating traditional bread and pasta and saying that’s keto. Vegans definitely don’t run around saying “you can have a lil bacon on Sundays” (many probably sneak it anyway, but that’s another story hah). Paleo people don’t run around saying that Krispy Kremes or Snickers are actually a paleo food.
Please, please stop saying you’re carnivore if you’re not carnivore. I have been watching the confusion be sown in the community. It’s rampant all over Saladino’s youtube comments - go look for yourself. People are hurting their health in the process. That’s why it matters!
TLDR: Eat what you want. You do you boo. But don’t call a square a spade. It’s confusing people and their health is getting damaged in the process.
Finally, an addendum:
I’ll go into further detail in a future post, but this is generally what I consider to be under the umbrella of #actuallycarnivore :
any animal product, with the caveat that yoghurt or raw milk are consumed in amounts that don’t cause you to burn carbs
herbs and spices (contain no significant amount of carbs)
any kind of tea or coffee
very small amounts of condiments (e.g., paleo katsup or mustard, sugar-free BBQ sauce, etc.)
supplements with little or no carbs in them
**Honey, while made by animals, is not an animal product. Someone once said that’s like saying cookies are an animal product because humans are animals and humans made them. Honey is plant material—fructose.
This list is compiled from my own lengthy observations, research, and testimonies from other carnivores who have succeeded on a low-to-no-carb carnivore diet. For further reading, I would check out justmeat.co (I have no affiliation, just recommend it).
Part III will focus on how this has become perpetuated, aside from Saladino.