Animal-Based vs. Keto Diet: Which One Delivers Better Results for Your Health?

The Carnivore Diet and the Keto Diet have surged in popularity, each with its own set of proponents and purported health benefits. The Carnivore Diet is an extreme form of a low-carb diet that exclusively involves consuming animal products. This includes meat, fish, eggs, and some dairy products. Conversely, the Keto Diet focuses on a high-fat, moderate-protein, and low-carbohydrate intake to induce ketosis. This article provides an in-depth comparison of these two diets, exploring their benefits, drawbacks, and suitability for different lifestyles to help you make an informed decision.

Understanding the Keto Diet

A "true" keto diet does not provide enough calories from sources of glucose and other forms of sugar and causes the body to burn fat to create energy. In a typical keto diet plan, approximately 70% to 75% of daily calories come from fat, 20% from protein, and no more than 10% from carbohydrates. When fat is broken down, ketones are released by fat cells into the bloodstream. The increase in blood ketones lowers the normal acid-base balance in blood to make it more acidic, a state known as ketosis.

Potential Benefits of the Keto Diet

Weight Loss: Because keto diets induce the body to burn fat, all keto diets can jump-start a weight-loss program.
Improved Heart Health: The Keto Diet may improve heart health by increasing good HDL cholesterol and reducing bad LDL cholesterol.
Enhanced Mental Clarity: Both diets can enhance mental clarity and cognitive function.
Reduced Inflammation: Reducing carbohydrates can lower inflammation in both diets.
Stable Blood Sugar Levels: Both diets can lead to significant weight loss by promoting satiety and reducing overall calorie intake.

Potential Drawbacks of the Keto Diet

Nutritional Deficiencies: Both diets risk nutritional deficiencies.
Social Challenges: Both diets can pose social challenges, with limited food choices at social gatherings and dining out.
Long-Term Health Effects: The long-term health effects of both diets are still under study.
Elevated LDL Cholesterol: The disadvantage of all keto diets is they tend to raise LDL cholesterol levels in both the short and long term.
Increased Risk of Health Issues: Other longer-term concerns about keto diets, especially the carnivore diet, include the increased risk of kidney stones, gout, and osteoporosis.

Understanding the Carnivore Diet

The carnivore diet meal plan only allows consumption of meat, poultry, eggs, seafood, fish, some dairy products, and water. You need to exclude all vegetables, fruits, grains, legumes, seeds, and nuts. A carnivore diet is the most ketogenic diet because it allows for almost no carbs. A carnivore diet is sometimes called the "zero carb" diet.

Potential Benefits of the Carnivore Diet

Stable Blood Sugar Levels: The Carnivore Diet eliminates all carbs, leading to stable blood sugar levels.
Weight Loss: Both diets can lead to significant weight loss by promoting satiety and reducing overall calorie intake.
Enhanced Mental Clarity: Both diets can enhance mental clarity and cognitive function.
Reduced Inflammation: Reducing carbohydrates can lower inflammation in both diets.

Potential Drawbacks of the Carnivore Diet

Nutritional Deficiencies: The Carnivore Diet lacks vitamins C and E, fiber, and phytonutrients found in plants. Both diets risk nutritional deficiencies.
Digestive Issues: The Carnivore Diet can cause constipation due to the lack of fiber. Both diets can pose risks if not properly managed, such as nutritional deficiencies and digestive issues.
Sustainability: The strictness of the Carnivore Diet makes it hard to sustain long-term.
Social Challenges: Both diets can pose social challenges, with limited food choices at social gatherings and dining out.
Long-Term Health Effects: The long-term health effects of both diets are still under study.
Elevated LDL Cholesterol: The disadvantage of all keto diets is they tend to raise LDL cholesterol levels in both the short and long term.
Increased Risk of Health Issues: Other longer-term concerns about keto diets, especially the carnivore diet, include the increased risk of kidney stones, gout, and osteoporosis.

Paleo Diet as an Alternative

The paleo approach centers on the unprocessed, truly natural foods humans consumed through hunting and gathering in the Paleolithic era, which ended about 10,000 years ago. The food choices can come from meat, fish, poultry, eggs, vegetables, fruits, and nuts. Any refined or artificial products (including healthy oils like olive oil), dairy, grains, legumes, and potatoes are excluded because they appeared after the agricultural revolution that followed the Paleolithic era. A paleo diet can be ketogenic if simple carbs are limited enough.

Which Diet is Right for You?

Choosing between the Carnivore Diet and the Keto Diet depends on your health goals, lifestyle, and preferences. Both diets offer unique benefits and potential drawbacks, so it's essential to weigh these factors carefully.

Read also: Your Guide to an Animal-Based Diet

Identify Your Health Goals: Identify your primary health goals, such as weight loss, improved blood sugar control, or enhanced mental clarity.
Consult Healthcare Professionals: Always consult healthcare professionals before starting any diet, especially if you have health conditions or take medications. Consult your healthcare provider if you have pre-existing conditions like diabetes, heart disease, or digestive issues.
Consider Your Lifestyle: Consider your lifestyle and food preferences.
Acknowledge Potential Risks: Both diets can pose risks if not properly managed, such as nutritional deficiencies and digestive issues.

Impact of Diet on Calorie Intake and Hormones: An NIH Study

According to a small but highly controlled study at the National Institutes of Health, people on a low-fat, plant-based diet ate fewer daily calories but had higher insulin and blood glucose levels, compared to when they ate a low-carbohydrate, animal-based diet.

Study Design and Results

Led by researchers at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), the study compared the effects of the two diets on calorie intake, hormone levels, body weight, and more. The researchers housed 20 adults without diabetes for four continuous weeks in the NIH Clinical Center’s Metabolic Clinical Research Unit. The participants, 11 men and nine women, received either a plant-based, low-fat diet or an animal-based, low-carbohydrate diet for two weeks, immediately followed by two weeks on the alternate diet. The low-fat diet was high in carbohydrates. The low-carbohydrate diet was high in fats. Both diets were minimally processed and had equivalent amounts of non-starchy vegetables. The main results showed that people on the low-fat diet ate 550 to 700 fewer calories per day than when they ate the low-carb diet. Despite the large differences in calorie intake, participants reported no differences in hunger, enjoyment of meals, or fullness between the two diets.

Diet Composition

The plant-based, low-fat diet contained 10.3% fat and 75.2% carbohydrate, while the animal-based, low-carb diet was 10% carbohydrate and 75.8% fat. Both diets contained about 14% protein and were matched for total calories presented to the subjects, although the low-carb diet had twice as many calories per gram of food than the low-fat diet. On the low-fat menu, dinner might consist of a baked sweet potato, chickpeas, broccoli and oranges, while a low-carb dinner might be beef stir fry with cauliflower rice.

Implications

“Despite eating food with an abundance of high glycemic carbohydrates that resulted in pronounced swings in blood glucose and insulin, people eating the plant-based, low-fat diet showed a significant reduction in calorie intake and loss of body fat, which challenges the idea that high-carb diets per se lead people to overeat. These findings suggest that the factors that result in overeating and weight gain are more complex than the amount of carbs or fat in one’s diet. The plant-based, low-fat diet contained 10.3% fat and 75.2% carbohydrate, while the animal-based, low-carb diet was 10% carbohydrate and 75.8% fat. Both diets contained about 14% protein and were matched for total calories presented to the subjects, although the low-carb diet had twice as many calories per gram of food than the low-fat diet. On the low-fat menu, dinner might consist of a baked sweet potato, chickpeas, broccoli and oranges, while a low-carb dinner might be beef stir fry with cauliflower rice. “Interestingly, our findings suggest benefits to both diets, at least in the short-term. While the low-fat, plant-based diet helps curb appetite, the animal-based, low-carb diet resulted in lower and more steady insulin and glucose levels,” Hall said.

Limitations

The researchers note that the study was not designed to make diet recommendations for weight loss, and results may have been different if participants were actively trying to lose weight. Further, all meals were prepared and provided for participants in an inpatient setting, which may make results difficult to repeat outside the lab, where factors such as food costs, food availability, and meal preparation constraints can make adherence to diets challenging.

Read also: Are Animal Crackers Healthy?

The Carbohydrate-Insulin Model

Hall KD, et al. The carbohydrate-insulin model of obesity posits that high-carbohydrate diets lead to excess insulin secretion, thereby promoting fat accumulation and increasing energy intake. Thus, low-carbohydrate diets are predicted to reduce ad libitum energy intake as compared to low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets. To test this hypothesis, 20 adults aged 29.9 ± 1.4 (mean ± s.e.m.) years with body mass index of 27.8 ± 1.3 kg m-2 were admitted as inpatients to the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center and randomized to consume ad libitum either a minimally processed, plant-based, low-fat diet (10.3% fat, 75.2% carbohydrate) with high glycemic load (85 g 1,000 kcal-1) or a minimally processed, animal-based, ketogenic, low-carbohydrate diet (75.8% fat, 10.0% carbohydrate) with low glycemic load (6 g 1,000 kcal-1) for 2 weeks followed immediately by the alternate diet for 2 weeks. One participant withdrew due to hypoglycemia during the low-carbohydrate diet. The primary outcomes compared mean daily ad libitum energy intake between each 2-week diet period as well as between the final week of each diet. We found that the low-fat diet led to 689 ± 73 kcal d-1 less energy intake than the low-carbohydrate diet over 2 weeks (P < 0.0001) and 544 ± 68 kcal d-1 less over the final week (P < 0.0001). Therefore, the predictions of the carbohydrate-insulin model were inconsistent with our observations.

tags: #animal #based #vs #keto