The carnivore diet, a highly restrictive eating plan, revolves around consuming primarily animal foods to meet your nutritional requirements. Imagine a diet filled with ribeye steaks, hamburgers without the bun, buttery grilled fish, pastured eggs, and raw dairy products. This approach eliminates all plant-based foods, focusing solely on animal sources.
What is the Carnivore Diet?
The carnivore diet is based on consuming predominately animal foods to meet your nutritional needs. The carnivore diet cuts out all carbohydrates and other food groups, including fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts and seeds, and legumes. The idea is that by cutting all carbs, your body will burn fat for energy and you’ll lose weight. Other claims of this diet are that it can fight inflammation, lower blood sugar in people with diabetes, and improve mental health.
The Allure of Animal-Based Nutrition
Red meat, often feared, emerges as a highly bioavailable source of nutrients. It contains the protein, nutrients, and fat needed for optimal function, in the right proportions. Animal foods offer nutrients that are often easier to absorb compared to vegetables, enhancing bioavailability.
Acceptable Foods on the Carnivore Diet
The carnivore diet centers around animal products, offering a variety of choices:
Meat
The cornerstone of the carnivore diet is meat in all its forms. Ribeye steaks, bun-less hamburgers, elk burgers, and fatty salmon are all excellent choices. It's important to source meat from local farmers who sell grass-fed and pasture-raised meats, or from health-based grocery stores offering 100% grass-fed and pastured options. You can eat ALL of the meat you’d like.
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Raw Dairy
Raw dairy products are never heated, retaining their raw goodness and nutritional benefits that pasteurization would destroy. These products are tested for safety, ensuring they remain unprocessed, whole, nutrient-dense, and probiotic. They are never pasteurized, homogenized, fortified, or otherwise altered. Raw dairy products offer unique health components not found in milk alternatives, without digestion issues or milk sensitivities.
When it comes to dairy, choosing products that are full-fat instead of low-fat or fat-free is preferred. Raw butter, Raw cheese and Raw cream FROM GRASS-GRAZING COWS are not only more nutritious, but people who consume full-fat dairy products have a reduced likelihood of being overweight or obese. These foods contain vitamins A, D, E and K, and essential fatty acids like omega-3s and CLAs. These nutrients are anti-inflammatory, balance insulin levels, increase metabolism, support digestive health and give detoxification pathways a jump start so that you can burn fat more efficiently.
Organ Meats
Organ meats, like liver, kidney, hearts, and brain, have a higher concentration of nutrients and minerals than muscle meat. While meat alone can sustain a human being, it is also important to realize that meat includes the organs and tissues of the animal. The most nutrient-dense parts of the animals are the organs. Liver is a favorite organ meat, with a high concentration of vitamin A (retinol), and small amounts of Vitamin C.
Whole Eggs
Eggs are a vital part of a healthy carnivore diet, providing nature's multivitamins. Organic, pasture-raised eggs are preferable and can be prepared in various ways: boiled, scrambled, fried, poached, or even consumed raw in smoothies or coffee.
Animal Fats
Animal fats like butter, lard, and tallow are the best for cooking due to their high nutrient content and resistance to oxidation at high temperatures. Animal fats are mostly saturated fat, which means they stand up better to high heat and last longer than plant-based fats. Reduced oxidation in animal fats means they are less susceptible to the toxins and carcinogens generated by using vegetable oils. Cooking with vegetable oils releases high concentrations of toxic chemicals called aldehydes, which have been linked to diseases, including arthritis, heart disease, and dementia.
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Do's and Don'ts of the Carnivore Diet
To adhere to the carnivore diet effectively, consider these guidelines:
Do's
- Eat sustainably-raised meat: Opt for 100% grass-fed and finished meat.
- Consume organ meats: Include nutrient-rich organs like liver, kidney, and heart.
- Cook with animal fats: Use butter, beef tallow, or other animal fats for cooking.
- Consume raw dairy: Incorporate raw cheese, raw butter, raw cream, raw milk, and raw kefir.
- Use high-quality salt: Season your meat with a good salt.
Don'ts
- Eat vegetables: Strictly avoid all vegetables.
- Cook in vegetable or seed oils: Refrain from using vegetable oils due to the release of toxic chemicals during cooking.
- Use highly processed herbs and spices: Avoid highly processed seasonings.
Recipes and Meal Ideas
Following a carnivore diet doesn't have to be monotonous. Here's a sample meal plan:
Breakfast: Scrambled Eggs, Bacon, and Alfredo Sauce
Start with scrambled eggs, bacon, and homemade alfredo sauce. Add a generous amount of heavy raw cream to your coffee (optional).
Homemade Alfredo Sauce Recipe:
- 1/2 cup of RAW FARM Cultured Raw Butter
- 4oz of cream cheese, softened
- 2 cups of RAW FARM Heavy Raw Cream
- 1 1/2 cups of RAW FARM Truly Raw Cheddar Cheese
Instructions: Melt raw butter in a saucepan, add cream cheese and heavy raw cream, and simmer while stirring in the cream cheese. Add cheese, stir to combine, and remove from heat.
Lunch: Raw Kefir
A quart of Plain Raw Kefir makes for a light and nutritious lunch. Raw Kefir contains special prebiotics to feed and protect gut bacteria. Raw FARM Whole Raw Kefir is made by culturing whole raw milk with specialized bacteria colonies and is fermented for 36-48 hours.
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Snack: Raw Liver with Raw Dairy
Enjoy raw liver with raw dairy.
Dinner: Carnivore Taco Bowl
Inspired by Chipotle, this bowl includes grilled meat (chicken, carne asada, or taco-seasoned ground beef), raw sour cream, queso, and RAW FARM Simply Shredded Raw Cheddar Cheese. Guacamole is optional.
Instructions: Marinate meat in raw kefir and seasonings, grill, and combine with queso, raw sour cream, and shredded raw cheese in a bowl.
The Role of Raw Dairy in the Carnivore Diet
Raw dairy products offer versatility and can be paired with various meals and snacks. Top steak with raw butter, burgers with raw cheddar cheese, or berries with raw whipping cream. Use raw kefir as a marinade, make raw milk ice cream, or create homemade raw sour cream and whipping cream.
Finding Snacks for the Carnivore Diet
Finding snacks for carnivore diet eating is easy if you know what to look for. The trick is to rely on fresh meat and grass-fed and finished meat products instead of canned, overly processed, or other low-quality beef products. When searching for the best snacks to eat on carnivore diet plans, focus on simple and minimally processed options.
Here are some snack ideas for the carnivore diet:
- Pork rinds (fried pork skins)
- Tuna
- Eggs
- Grass-fed meat sticks
- Nutritious beef jerky
- Deli meat
- Bone broth
- Biltong
- Hard, aged cheeses
- Cured meats
- Salmon crisps
- Beef liver
- Sardines
- Steak bites
Potential Benefits
The carnivore diet claims to promote weight loss and improve heart health, autoimmune issues, blood sugar control, and mood. People in the study reported improvements like: Lower body mass index (BMI) More energy Better sleep More strength and endurance Improved memory and focus Most people with diabetes in the study were able to lower the dose of their diabetes medicine or go off it entirely. Overall, they said they were happy with this way of eating.
Potential Risks
Cutting out entire food groups could leave you short on the nutrients you need to stay healthy. Not getting enough fiber from your diet could cause constipation. A high-fat, high-protein diet may cause loose poop because it changes the balance of good and bad bacteria in the gut. People who eat this way also complain of headaches, nausea, and a lack of energy. Animal-based diets are high in saturated fat, which can raise low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol. That’s the unhealthy kind of cholesterol that increases your risk of heart disease and stroke. And processed meats, which the diet allows, are high in salt, which can raise blood pressure.
Who Should Avoid the Carnivore Diet?
This diet isn’t safe during pregnancy or while breastfeeding because it will leave you short on the nutrients that both you and your growing baby need. If you have kidney disease, the high protein content may be too much for your kidneys to process, Zelman says. Also avoid this diet if you have diabetes, heart disease, or high blood pressure because of the high saturated fat and sodium content. Fad diets are never a good idea for people who have had eating disorders.