Transcription
Have you heard of the carnivore diet yet? It's becoming quite popular because of the amazing transformations in both health and weight loss that people experience when they give it a try. In this longer video, I'm going to try to give you a comprehensive list of everything that you should consider and plan for when starting a carnivore diet.
I'm Dr. Ken Berry, a family physician with 20 years of clinical experience and over a year and a half of experience with the carnivore diet. This video is going to help you understand, hopefully, every facet of a carnivore diet and what you should do to start it and continue it properly. You might not want to sit and watch this entire video right now. You can sit down with your phone or tablet and listen to it like a podcast, or you can save it to your social media and use that as a bookmark to come back later when you have time.
Now, let's jump right into this comprehensive list, and if I've left anything out, please put in the comments what else you'd like for me to cover about the carnivore diet.
Number one is commit to a time period to do this, and there's several reasons why. I started the carnivore diet as a 30-day challenge on my Facebook page, and at the end of that month, I felt so much better, even over and above carnivore—I mean, even over and above keto—that I decided to do it for an additional month or two. And I just kept tacking on months until we're probably at 18, 19 months now. But some people notice some of the benefits of a carnivore diet almost immediately, within days; other benefits take weeks, if not months, to materialize. And so I would encourage you to do at least a 30-day carnivore challenge, if not a 60- or 90-day, depending on what health or weight issues you have.
Next is, when you do eat a carnivore meal, is to eat until you're comfortably stuffed. And for the first few days or weeks on carnivore, I want you to push this a little bit. I want you to actually try to eat more than you think that you should eat. Uh, there is no calorie counting, there is no portion control on a carnivore diet; there's really no macro counting on a carnivore diet. You are to eat as our ancestors did: when you're hungry, you sit down and eat, and you eat until you're comfortably stuffed, then you stop eating. So do not be—don't be saying, "Oh, I'll have a four-ounce portion of this." Don't do any of that; eat until you're comfortably stuffed. And in the first week or two, try to push that a little bit so that you're maybe even eating a little more, because I think many of us, our entire life, we've been worried about portion size and calorie counts to where it's almost become an unconscious thing where we try to limit how much we eat. On a carnivore diet, you don't have to do that; you get to eat until you're comfortably stuffed.
Next is, I want you to eat anywhere from one time a day up to three times a day. Now, if you'll—if you'll follow the guideline I just gave you about eating to your stuff, there won't be any snacking in between, and indeed there shouldn't be any snacking. If you're used to three meals a day with snacks right now, then just say, "Okay, I'm gonna eat three carnivore meals a day, and I'm gonna eat until I'm really stuffed, and there's gonna be no snacking in between." Now, many carnivores find that as the weeks go on, they forget a meal, and so they'll go—they'll convert to a two-meals-a-day strategy, and that's totally fine if that's what happens to you. If you continue three meals a day, that's fine as well. Some carnivores will wind up just eating one very large meal a day because they're not hungry for the rest of the day. If that happens to you, that's fine, but that's definitely not a requirement.
The next tip is to focus on fatty meat. Whether this is fatty seafood or fatty cuts of land meat, you always want to opt for a fattier cut. This—I try to keep a one-to-one ratio between fat and protein in my carnivore diet—uh, one to one with regards to the weight of what I'm eating, and I don't measure; I just guesstimate, and I think that's fine for—for you to do that as well. If—if you feel like your meal—your meal needs more fat, then add more fat; if you feel like it's too fatty, then add less fat next time. This is one of many things you get to play around with and experiment with on a carnivore diet.
Now, the next—I think this is important, especially if you've been eating a high-carbohydrate, junk diet for years and years—is to transition slowly to carnivore. I don't think this should be a, "Tomorrow, I'm going 100% carnivore." I don't think that's necessary, and for many of you, I don't think that's probably ideal. You need to transition slowly, over one to three weeks, maybe even a little longer, and I'll—I'll tell you more about why I think this is in a minute. But uh, there's bound to be some carbohydrate withdrawal symptoms if you're eating a high-carbohydrate—that now—a diet now, and I don't want those to hit you too hard and all at once, because that can make it very hard to stick with a carnivore diet.
The next tip is to give your stomach, your gallbladder, and your liver time to adapt to this. If you've been eating a high-carbohydrate diet for years, in a—in a very low-fat diet for years, then your stomach has gotten lazy. Your stomach is supposed to have a very high acidity to your stomach acid; it should be 1.3 to 2.0 on the pH scale, which is very, very acidic. But if you've been eating just grains and sugar and crap, then your stomach may have gotten used to just keeping a pH of three or four or five, and that's not going to be able to digest meat properly. So give your stomach time to ramp up its acid production, and if you're—if you're currently taking an acid blocker, you'll probably no longer need that on carnivore, and you'll need time for your stomach to—to start making that acid again. Your gallbladder—its function is to store and concentrate bile. If you've been eating a low-fat diet for years, then this—the smooth muscle in your gallbladder has gotten very weak, and its storage and concentration abilities have probably already weakened a little bit as well. You need to give your gallbladder time to strengthen back up its smooth muscle, because when you eat a high-fat meal, your gallbladder has to contract very forcefully. Some people have pain in the gallbladder for a few days or a few weeks when they start to ramp up the fat on a good, healthy carnivore diet. This doesn't mean you should stop it; it just means you need to give your gallbladder time to kind of blow out the sludge, strengthen up its smooth muscle, and ramp back up its ability to concentrate bile. And then, if you don't have a gallbladder, you need to give your liver time to develop the storage capacity, which you can do in its bile ducts; they'll actually dilate, and you can store bile in these bile ducts in your liver, but that takes a few weeks to happen. So if you're—if you've been eating a high-carb diet, it's going to take a few weeks for you to develop that ability. You may have some diarrhea for a few weeks on carnivore until your liver is able to dilate those ducts and start to store and concentrate bile like the gallbladder you used to have did.
Next is to cook in animal fats. So throw away all the vegetable oils, all the shortening, all of that junk; that stuff is very inflammatory and bad for you. I want you to cook in beef tallow, in bacon grease, in butter, or ghee. Uh, you need to use an animal fat to cook in; duck fat is also wonderful. These are—that's going to increase your fat-to-protein ratio, and it's also going to be a great source of vitamins and minerals that you otherwise might not get in your diet.
Next is to use plenty of real salt in your diet. Salt is not bad for you; it's good for you. I use Redmond's Real Salt because it's a—it's a very trustworthy salt that's protected from any kind of ocean pollution or any other kind of pollution. I'll put a link down in the show notes if you want to check that out. But do not be afraid of salt; salt to taste. If your meat is not salty enough, add more salt. And this is very, very important to help fight the carbohydrate withdrawal symptoms, but also to give your body enough sodium and chloride, both of which are essential elements that your body needs on a daily basis in order to function optimally. Do not be afraid of salt.
Another tip is, I would clean out the pantry and the fridge, and I would tell my friends and family that I'm about to do a 90-day carnivore diet challenge to help improve my health. You may not even want to tell them you're doing it for weight loss; you may want to say, "I—I feel like I can be healthier on this diet," so that they'll be more apt to be on board with you. But if you've got carbs in the pantry or in the fridge, or your family and friends aren't aware of this, they're going to be trying to shove carbs in your face. But if you—if you take these precautions, it makes it much easier to complete your 90-day challenge without messing up.
Another tip is to focus on electrolytes and minerals. Having a good source of electrolytes and minerals is going to help you with the carbohydrate withdrawal symptoms that you'll probably experience, and it's also going to help you fight the cravings for junk food, because very often cravings are a sign of a mineral deficiency. Some people use two different products for this; they'll use an electrolyte drop, like Keto Chow's electrolyte drops, and they'll use a source of minerals. I worked with Keto Chow to formulate their daily minerals. Now, this contains all the electrolytes you need plus all the minerals you need, and you can add a few drops of this to a steak. I put a few drops in each glass of liquid I drink, and that way I know I'm getting all my electrolytes and all my minerals on a daily basis. Carnivores have to think more about electrolytes because back when you were eating a high-carbohydrate diet, you were holding anywhere from five to 25 pounds of unnecessary, unhealthy fluid in your body, and that fluid stored some electrolytes just because that's the way fluids in your body work. When you started a low-carb or a ketogenic or a carnivore diet, you diuresed away that extra unhealthy fluid, and you can ask anyone who started a ketogenic diet or a carnivore diet—in the first week or two, they would lose anywhere from five to 20 pounds. That's not fat; that's just the unhealthy fluid that they're able to get rid of because they've decreased their blood sugar and their insulin levels and their degree of chronic inappropriate inflammation, so they can get rid of all that fluid and urinated away with that fluid. Because of the way the human kidney works, a lot of electrolytes have to go with that fluid, and that's why on a carnivore diet you—you have to pay attention to your electrolytes, and I think it's very important to pay attention to the minerals as well.
The next tip is to eat the highest quality meat that you can afford. If you can afford grass-fed, grass-finished, panda-massaged meat from the Himalayan mountains that are raised by monks, that's great; buy that. That's good; that's going to be a little bit better than cheaper quality meat. But if all you can afford is hot dogs and bologna and potted meat and Spam, you can still do a great carnivore diet on that as well. Always buy the best quality that you can currently afford, and always be looking for higher quality. But there's no reason, if—if your funds are limited, that you cannot also benefit yourself from a very healthy carnivore diet.
The next tip is, don't forget about eggs, don't forget about liver, don't forget about seafood, don't forget about shellfish. These are all carnivores—if anything—if any uh, food comes from an animal that's carnivore, okay. And some people add insects; they eat crickets in their carnivore diet, and I think that's perfectly ancestrally appropriate. I personally don't do that, at least yet, I don't. But do not forget these great sources of fat and protein: eggs and liver. Liver is a superfood multivitamin. If you can find some kind of liver that you love and you eat that two or three times a week, that's going to be an excellent source of vitamins and minerals that otherwise you may just not have access to. Many people worry about vitamin C deficiency, scurvy, and other vitamin deficiencies on a carnivore diet, but I know people who have been doing a carnivore diet for over a decade, and they've not eaten a shred of plant food in that time, and they don't take supplements, and they have not developed scurvy or any other vitamin deficiency. There are several theories as to why this doesn't happen in carnivores—how they're able to be so healthy when they're not eating oranges or kiwi fruit for vitamin C. We don't know exactly why that is yet, but we just know it is so because there are thousands upon thousands of people who haven't eaten any plants—any source of that kind of vitamin C—in over a decade, and they're doing fine. There is some vitamin C in liver—uh, and other vitamins that are present in fresh meat, but not quite in as high quantity as it is in liver. That's why I really want you to find cod liver or chicken liver or beef liver—some kind of liver that you enjoy and make that part of your carnivore diet from day one. I think that's very, very important.
The next tip is what to drink. I want you to drink water as much as you possibly can. I don't mean force water when you're not thirsty; I mean try to make that the majority of what you drink. It can be still water, or it can be sparkling water; I think that's fine. Many carnivores drink black coffee or unsweetened tea as part of their carnivore diet, and they do great. I don't think those things are off-limits, although some carnivores might tell you otherwise.
The next tip is to get to know your local butcher or your local meat department manager, and there's many, many reasons for doing this. They can help you discover cuts of meat that you never knew existed. They can also very often—me to ship to your local butcher or meat department in bulk form, and then they cut it up. And in many cases, they'll trim off fat and throw it away, but if you're—if you're on a first-name basis with your butcher or meat department manager, you can say, "Hey, don't trim that fat; leave that fat on there; I want that." Or, "If you trim the fat off for other people, save that fat for me; I can cook with it, or I can just fry it up and eat it." That's an excellent strategy. Also, there are—that—that this is a way that you can eat more nose-to-tail, which I'm highly in favor of. Um, often they'll throw cuts of meat away. Only recently did I discover oxtail, or cow tail, and it's—if cooked properly—it's absolutely divine carnivore feast that's full of collagen and all kinds of joint-building—uh, and repairing things in—in the oxtail or the cow tail. So buddy up with your butcher or your meat department manager; that's very, very important, I think.
The next tip is to seek out local sources for your carnivore diet. I promise you, if you'll just look, you will find someone who has chickens in their backyard, or you'll find a local rancher who has sheep or goats or cows or some other animal that they're happy to sell you that meat, and it won't be as expensive as you think it might be. Also, local sources—local ranchers—are an excellent source for organ meats that you just may not be able to buy at your local supermarket.
The next tip has been very important for me, and I—I hear from the carnivore community that it's very, very important for them as well—is to try to focus on ruminant animals as the majority of your meat intake. So this would be cows, sheep, goats, venison—uh, any animal that has a—is a ruminant—that has a multiple-chamber stomach. Magic happens inside that ruminant animal when they eat plants and turn that into tasty meat, and it seems that many carnivores just do better on a ruminant-heavy diet. This is not to say that pork is bad or poultry is bad or seafood's bad, but most carnivores seem to—to experience their optimal physical shape and form and mental ability when they're focusing on ruminant meat mostly.
The next tip is to eat as nose-to-tail as possible. I think this is very, very important because of the vitamins and minerals I talked about earlier. I think it mirrors the way our ancestors ate animals; they never left the liver behind; they probably never left any organ behind; they ate all that. They cracked open the bones and got the marrow; they used a big rock to crack open the—the cranium and get the brain; they ate all that because those are all excellent sources of nutrition, and we want to be the best shepherds we can for the animals and for our planet, and eating nose-to-tail—that—that puts less waste out there, right? You're using that animal more completely, and I think that's a—a great way to honor that animal—that no part of it went to waste, and that you also gleaned the very meaningful nutrition in that organ meat as well.
The next tip is, don't fret if you slip up. If you have friends come over and they bring a casserole and you're like—and you eat that, don't worry about that one meal. What you don't want that meal to do is to turn into you falling off the wagon for a week or two or three. So if you do slip up at a meal or you—you eat something—you're like, "Oh, crap, I thought that was zero-carb, and they added some sugar and I didn't know it"—that—don't—don't beat yourself up about that; don't have negative thoughts about that; just immediately refocus and re-center: "Why am I doing this carnivore diet? What are my goals?" And then get right back on the carnivore wagon, and do not let that dissuade you from doing that.
Next tip would be to consider a carnivore diet versus a ketovore diet. So a ketovore diet is when you eat a very, very meat-heavy ketogenic diet, but you still have some plants in there—not many. Some people do better on a ketovore diet; some people do better on just a meat-only carnivore diet. Experiment and play around with that. Another experiment that I think you should play with is spices and rubs and condiments: onion, garlic. Some carnivores have to eliminate all that stuff and only use salt or mineral drops for their condiment; other carnivores seem to do great by—they can use spices; they can use zero-carb, sugar-free rubs; they can put a little bit of—uh, chop—minced-up garlic or onion with their meat, and it doesn't seem to affect them or cause inflammation at all. But you may not be one of those carnivores, so you have to experiment with that yourself.
Another thing to experiment with on a carnivore diet is your protein-to-fat ratio. I personally do better when I get the fat ratio as high as I possibly can, and I'll do this by cooking in animal fat, by adding butter to—to the meat—uh, and I often—I'll give the little center cut that's just pure lean meat—I'll slice that up and give it to our dogs who are also carnivore because I like the fattier cuts, and I feel like that—mentally and physically—I do better when I focus on those fatty cuts.
Another experiment that you can do on your carnivore diet is dairy. Some people on a carnivore diet do great with heavy cream in their coffee, and they use butter and ghee; they—some carnivores even do great with full-fat dairy in the form of kefir or yogurt, sour cream, cream cheese. But I would caution you to only use full-fat, and then, if you're getting some benefits from your carnivore diet but it's not as ground-shattering as you thought it was going to be, you might want to try a month dairy-free, or only dairy-free with only butter and ghee as your only—only dairy sources, because they are effectively the pure fat from the dairy; they don't have any of the proteins of dairy, which some carnivores find to be inflammatory.
Another thing I really would counsel you to do when you start your carnivore diet is to save every bone from every meal, and I don't care if it's ruminant bones or if it's pork, chicken, even fish bones. Get a gallon-size Ziploc bag and keep that in your freezer; all bones go into the bone bag in the freezer. And then once or twice a week, when your bag gets full, use all those bones, plus or minus some spices, plus or minus some onion and garlic via our previous experiment, and make delicious bone broth. Not only is it amazingly delicious, but you'll be able to unlock more minerals and vitamins that are locked up in the marrow and inside the bone itself that you would otherwise waste. Again, we're—we're honoring the nose-to-tail honoring of the animal, and we're getting the maximum nutrition out of that animal by eating more nose-to-tail.
Now, that's—that's the—all these came from comments and questions that I've gotten from viewers. So anytime you have a comment or a question, always put in the comments below, because I—I'm always reading those; I may not respond, but I am reading those, and I'm always looking for questions that I can answer for people to help them have better health.