The modern dietary landscape is dominated by approaches that prioritize calorie counting, macronutrient tracking, and dietary restriction, frequently designed to counterbalance the adverse effects of ultra-processed and carbohydrate-heavy diets on human physiology.
Excellent article. We need red meat for our brains to function and for general metabolism. Speaking from experience, if you want to lose weight, there is no better way than the Hay Diet. It was developed by a Howard William Hay back in 1922 and the basis of it is; "you don't mix protein and carbohydrate". He wrote a book on the subject, detailing possible recipes and what to drink depending on whether protein or carbohydrate.
For example, if you have fish n chips you can have the fish but no batter or chips and the rest of your meal is made up of greens, or alternatively you can have the batter and the chips but no fish. I was on this method of eating for 5 years and in the first few months of it I lost 2 stone, I looked like something out of Belsen.
Personally, I eat what I want to eat not what the government or "specialists" advise me to eat. That's why the governments are trying to cull cattle and reduce our protein intake. They want us all blithering idiots that hey can control....well not me!
Well we're not vaxed either. At the onset of the plandemic I did some research and as soon as I saw nRNA (modified ribonucleic acid), warning bells sounded. You don't need to be a scientist to realise they were messing with the DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) all you need is O'Level Biology. We tried to warn our friends about what the governments and "scientists" were trying to do but to no avail, we lost quite a few. In fact some, when we told them we hadn't taken the "vaccine" told us not to visit. With time, and all the revelations recently, they've changed their tune, saying they wish they hadn't taken them. But that's after many have suffered injuries due to the jag, it really makes us sad to see our friends in such poor health.....if only they'd listened. The moral is we wouldn't trust governments to tell us the time of day!
They have great plans for more of the same in the pipeline💉💉💉 and here in your Europe they want to make it a condition of being able to travel, (this is on record) the EU is currently setting up the infrastructure, Certificate Of Vaccination ID = COVID. This is not by any means finished yet👍🤝
Interesting to note that China didn't use any mRNA product on its own citizens🤔
First of all, I found you on LI and thanks to Joel for that. Also, thanks to Joel for cross-posting your excellent article. Otherwise, I would have never known about your work. To the matter you discuss, it continues to amaze me the number of (ostensibly) rational people who cling to veganism as a reasonable approach. The people who cling to calorie counting are only slightly less annoying, to be honest. Looking forward to reading more of your insight!
Thank you for the kind words and support - it's hugely appreciated.
I have no argument against anyone who chooses to be vegan for themselves and for ethical reasons - it's certainly not the direction I would take, but each to their own...
However...
When the acolytes amongst the ranks of their cult come calling to preach that we must all "convert" because of "x, y or z" and/or the same feel the need to try sully my content with their misinformation & disinformation - I relish the opportunity to debate them and expose their ideological nonsense 🙌
One of the best essays I've read on Substack in a while. Thank You! I tested, and wrote a book about Ketosis—not to be confused with Ketogenic—and a hyper carnivorous diet consumed within 6 hours every day, for example eating between noon and 6pm, often can produce Ketosis. My diet is about 80% or slightly more fat/protein and a little less than 20% carbs, mostly green or purple. I've lived longer than 95% of the population with the disorder I have without a single disruption in my life and have never experienced pain or anything I can't do. Diagnosed end of Nov, 2022 means I've had this disorder for about 5 years and the 5 year survival rate is 6% and I have several years, if not more, still to go. A hyper-carnivore diet is what we were always meant to eat. I imagine you've read about the 2 nomadic tribes in Southern Africa? The elderly never get sick until 2 weeks before they die. They live to be 80, 85 and older and they're healthy, really healthy and then they get sick for a couple of weeks and pass away. 88% of Americans have Metabolic Disorder, the precursor to every disease we know. Blue drinks from Coca-Cola® and Dorito's®.
Yep, since our shift away from a hunter - gatherer approach towards agriculture at the end of the Pleistocene (some ~12k years ago) we have indeed shifted to a way more heavy reliance on plants & fungi... But, let's not conflate that with their lifespan please because modern medicine has actually done a tremendous job at combatting both infectious disease and trauma which were by far the biggest killers of Upper Pleistocene Modern Humans (UPMHs) - in fact, the average life expectancy for them is a bit misleading because of how prevalent infant mortality was... If you did into the data, those who made it past 5 years of age tended to live at least as long as we do now...
There is of course a ton of nuance involved, but I disagree with your last point because this simply doesn't track in nature...
- find me a single example out in the wild of members of the same species having differing nutritional requirements and therefore differing optimal diets...?
- There are none and humans are no different in that regard, save for disease or disability, we all have the same essential nutrient requirements, the same digestive system make-up & function...
The things which alter this are:
- personal preference (we are fickle & fussy creatures).
- epigenetics, meaning changes in the ability to tolerate certain toxins / compounds (allergies & intolerances).
Our base, optimal diet is a whole foods, animal-based & low-carb one - which is actually a fairly wide range within which each individual can find their groove 😉
Yeah, because if you are eating species appropriate foods and consuming intuitively (i.e. eating only when hungry, until satiated then stopping, and not eating again until actually hungry again), neither are an issue or risk...
But, giving you the benefit of the doubt - present your case and the the supporting literature (for the love of goodness present hard science - not epidemiology) and I am open to correction if there's genuinely something I have misunderstood or just missed?
I'm terribly sorry, but I would be very upset if you removed delicious veggies and fruit from my diet, and I will continue to fight for my right to Croissant .
Meat and fish are lovely but so are nuts and plants.
As long as you recognize that you are making your choices based on pleasure (taste & texture) over nutritional value (prioritizing essential nutrients in the most bioavailable forms) and you are thriving, then carry on doing what you are doing... 👍
However, if you are not thriving and have some health concerns or excess weight to shed, them you may wish to consider whether your food choices are helping or hindering 👍
I'm a lifelong thin person who has been vegetarian (with some seafood) for a bit over 40 years, has always eaten cheese and eggs. I've never counted calories. Anyway, the diet described does not sound appealing to me - not intuitive at all.
Hey Elsa - absolutely possible to be healthy on a vegetarian diet which includes occasional seafood and I will do an essay on why that is soon... 😉
It's a concept I have come to call "gaming the system" and it has everything to do with human ingenuity and technological advancements, not so much to do with human physiology (other than the fact we found ways to work around inherent restrictions) 👍
One of the things that intuitive eating seems to forget is that food wasn't anywhere near as plentiful and convenient; you don't have to hunt, with all of the limitations that comes with that. You don't even have to prepare your food, and even if you do, it's easy to just put a pan on the stove and pull your "kill" out of the fridge. Hormones are meaningful of course, but these conveniences are a question mark when it comes to how effective these hormones will ultimately be for the general public.
Calorie counting and macronutrient tracking are not necessary, though if it works for people, there's nothing wrong with it unless, in probably rare cases, they get obsessive about it.
You make a point to compare the hypercarnivore diet to the standard modern diet of ultraprocessed, hyperpalatable foods, as though there's no such thing as a whole food diet.
Personally, though intuitive eating is hardly new, I see this as yet another diet craze to appeal to people who are looking for an answer to their dietary woes, (like the perennial obese, paleo low carber Jimmy Moore who apparently doesn't have these effective dietary hormones), who'll become dietary zealots who'll be sure to tell the rest of us that we're all doing it wrong. Not wanting to discount you entirely, I did have a brief look through your stack and I found the false dichotomy of the ancient man and the modern man to be absurd.
Good luck though. I have no doubt that it will be a help to people. There's plenty of room for various diet approaches.
However, I have been puzzled by the same questions you bring up - they are valid and that is why I prefer to avoid the dumpster fire that is "human nutritional sciences" (i.e. the epidemiology or observational science) and push into the hard sciences (experiment based disciplines) of biochemistry, physiology and gastroenterology, and I also include anthropology for the historical lense.
These align with the points I have made and the references are there for perusal, digestion (pun fully intended 😉) and debate.
My view is simply that if I understand what my physiology needs & why, and I align my lifestyle with this as best I can, I real the best possible health outcomes over time...
I want my health span to be as high as possible, for as long as possible across my lifespan 👍
Thank you! I have not thought deeply about diet, except that I eat organic, enjoy meat and avoid processed food and seed oil. However, I wonder what you make of Dr. Mercola's recent backtrack, now saying that carbs are important? I'd love your opinion.
We are Hypercarnivores, so we have the digestive flexibility to include some plants & fungi and by default carbs, but the continued function of gluconeogenesis and the fact that excursions in blood sugar above the healthy ceiling result in the body immediately working to get the excess glucose dealt with because it does cellular damage, tells me that exogenous carbs are not meant to constitute a significant part of our intake.
When humans started cultivating the land they started eating more fruits and vegetables. I also may point out that their lifespan was a fraction of ours.
Additionally, 100% Grass-fed beef differs greatly than the typical diseased, hig fat vaxed beef that is ubiquitously available to the general population.
Even our eggs are higher in PUFAS then years ago because of the diet the chickens are fed.
Finally, I believe that the "right' diet may depend more on the individual than an overall set of general dietary rules.
Currently science does not have enough information to customize diets on an individual level.
With the above said the one diet that has always stood out amongst all the other theories has been the Mediterranean diet.
Excellent article. We need red meat for our brains to function and for general metabolism. Speaking from experience, if you want to lose weight, there is no better way than the Hay Diet. It was developed by a Howard William Hay back in 1922 and the basis of it is; "you don't mix protein and carbohydrate". He wrote a book on the subject, detailing possible recipes and what to drink depending on whether protein or carbohydrate.
For example, if you have fish n chips you can have the fish but no batter or chips and the rest of your meal is made up of greens, or alternatively you can have the batter and the chips but no fish. I was on this method of eating for 5 years and in the first few months of it I lost 2 stone, I looked like something out of Belsen.
Personally, I eat what I want to eat not what the government or "specialists" advise me to eat. That's why the governments are trying to cull cattle and reduce our protein intake. They want us all blithering idiots that hey can control....well not me!
They want us I'll and vaxed 👍
Well we're not vaxed either. At the onset of the plandemic I did some research and as soon as I saw nRNA (modified ribonucleic acid), warning bells sounded. You don't need to be a scientist to realise they were messing with the DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) all you need is O'Level Biology. We tried to warn our friends about what the governments and "scientists" were trying to do but to no avail, we lost quite a few. In fact some, when we told them we hadn't taken the "vaccine" told us not to visit. With time, and all the revelations recently, they've changed their tune, saying they wish they hadn't taken them. But that's after many have suffered injuries due to the jag, it really makes us sad to see our friends in such poor health.....if only they'd listened. The moral is we wouldn't trust governments to tell us the time of day!
They have great plans for more of the same in the pipeline💉💉💉 and here in your Europe they want to make it a condition of being able to travel, (this is on record) the EU is currently setting up the infrastructure, Certificate Of Vaccination ID = COVID. This is not by any means finished yet👍🤝
Interesting to note that China didn't use any mRNA product on its own citizens🤔
They do ... https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/vaccines-are-population-control
First of all, I found you on LI and thanks to Joel for that. Also, thanks to Joel for cross-posting your excellent article. Otherwise, I would have never known about your work. To the matter you discuss, it continues to amaze me the number of (ostensibly) rational people who cling to veganism as a reasonable approach. The people who cling to calorie counting are only slightly less annoying, to be honest. Looking forward to reading more of your insight!
Thank you for the kind words and support - it's hugely appreciated.
I have no argument against anyone who chooses to be vegan for themselves and for ethical reasons - it's certainly not the direction I would take, but each to their own...
However...
When the acolytes amongst the ranks of their cult come calling to preach that we must all "convert" because of "x, y or z" and/or the same feel the need to try sully my content with their misinformation & disinformation - I relish the opportunity to debate them and expose their ideological nonsense 🙌
I'm in the "do you, Boo" camp as well. While it distresses me when I see the cultism pushed upon others, as you say, "to each their own."
This is what I do ... and I do eat meat at least once/day... as well as eggs https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/a-near-fool-proof-cure-for-cancer
I can eat as much as I want ... without gaining weight
One of the best essays I've read on Substack in a while. Thank You! I tested, and wrote a book about Ketosis—not to be confused with Ketogenic—and a hyper carnivorous diet consumed within 6 hours every day, for example eating between noon and 6pm, often can produce Ketosis. My diet is about 80% or slightly more fat/protein and a little less than 20% carbs, mostly green or purple. I've lived longer than 95% of the population with the disorder I have without a single disruption in my life and have never experienced pain or anything I can't do. Diagnosed end of Nov, 2022 means I've had this disorder for about 5 years and the 5 year survival rate is 6% and I have several years, if not more, still to go. A hyper-carnivore diet is what we were always meant to eat. I imagine you've read about the 2 nomadic tribes in Southern Africa? The elderly never get sick until 2 weeks before they die. They live to be 80, 85 and older and they're healthy, really healthy and then they get sick for a couple of weeks and pass away. 88% of Americans have Metabolic Disorder, the precursor to every disease we know. Blue drinks from Coca-Cola® and Dorito's®.
Thank you, that's kind of you to say 👍
Very pleased you are not just surviving but thriving - long may that continue 👏
Yep, since our shift away from a hunter - gatherer approach towards agriculture at the end of the Pleistocene (some ~12k years ago) we have indeed shifted to a way more heavy reliance on plants & fungi... But, let's not conflate that with their lifespan please because modern medicine has actually done a tremendous job at combatting both infectious disease and trauma which were by far the biggest killers of Upper Pleistocene Modern Humans (UPMHs) - in fact, the average life expectancy for them is a bit misleading because of how prevalent infant mortality was... If you did into the data, those who made it past 5 years of age tended to live at least as long as we do now...
There is of course a ton of nuance involved, but I disagree with your last point because this simply doesn't track in nature...
- find me a single example out in the wild of members of the same species having differing nutritional requirements and therefore differing optimal diets...?
- There are none and humans are no different in that regard, save for disease or disability, we all have the same essential nutrient requirements, the same digestive system make-up & function...
The things which alter this are:
- personal preference (we are fickle & fussy creatures).
- epigenetics, meaning changes in the ability to tolerate certain toxins / compounds (allergies & intolerances).
Our base, optimal diet is a whole foods, animal-based & low-carb one - which is actually a fairly wide range within which each individual can find their groove 😉
No mentiion of the dangers of prions (BSE) and impacts on gallbladder overload.
Yeah, because if you are eating species appropriate foods and consuming intuitively (i.e. eating only when hungry, until satiated then stopping, and not eating again until actually hungry again), neither are an issue or risk...
But, giving you the benefit of the doubt - present your case and the the supporting literature (for the love of goodness present hard science - not epidemiology) and I am open to correction if there's genuinely something I have misunderstood or just missed?
I'm terribly sorry, but I would be very upset if you removed delicious veggies and fruit from my diet, and I will continue to fight for my right to Croissant .
Meat and fish are lovely but so are nuts and plants.
As long as you recognize that you are making your choices based on pleasure (taste & texture) over nutritional value (prioritizing essential nutrients in the most bioavailable forms) and you are thriving, then carry on doing what you are doing... 👍
However, if you are not thriving and have some health concerns or excess weight to shed, them you may wish to consider whether your food choices are helping or hindering 👍
I'm a lifelong thin person who has been vegetarian (with some seafood) for a bit over 40 years, has always eaten cheese and eggs. I've never counted calories. Anyway, the diet described does not sound appealing to me - not intuitive at all.
Hey Elsa - absolutely possible to be healthy on a vegetarian diet which includes occasional seafood and I will do an essay on why that is soon... 😉
It's a concept I have come to call "gaming the system" and it has everything to do with human ingenuity and technological advancements, not so much to do with human physiology (other than the fact we found ways to work around inherent restrictions) 👍
One of the things that intuitive eating seems to forget is that food wasn't anywhere near as plentiful and convenient; you don't have to hunt, with all of the limitations that comes with that. You don't even have to prepare your food, and even if you do, it's easy to just put a pan on the stove and pull your "kill" out of the fridge. Hormones are meaningful of course, but these conveniences are a question mark when it comes to how effective these hormones will ultimately be for the general public.
Calorie counting and macronutrient tracking are not necessary, though if it works for people, there's nothing wrong with it unless, in probably rare cases, they get obsessive about it.
You make a point to compare the hypercarnivore diet to the standard modern diet of ultraprocessed, hyperpalatable foods, as though there's no such thing as a whole food diet.
Personally, though intuitive eating is hardly new, I see this as yet another diet craze to appeal to people who are looking for an answer to their dietary woes, (like the perennial obese, paleo low carber Jimmy Moore who apparently doesn't have these effective dietary hormones), who'll become dietary zealots who'll be sure to tell the rest of us that we're all doing it wrong. Not wanting to discount you entirely, I did have a brief look through your stack and I found the false dichotomy of the ancient man and the modern man to be absurd.
Good luck though. I have no doubt that it will be a help to people. There's plenty of room for various diet approaches.
Yep, there is a ton of nuance indeed.
However, I have been puzzled by the same questions you bring up - they are valid and that is why I prefer to avoid the dumpster fire that is "human nutritional sciences" (i.e. the epidemiology or observational science) and push into the hard sciences (experiment based disciplines) of biochemistry, physiology and gastroenterology, and I also include anthropology for the historical lense.
These align with the points I have made and the references are there for perusal, digestion (pun fully intended 😉) and debate.
My view is simply that if I understand what my physiology needs & why, and I align my lifestyle with this as best I can, I real the best possible health outcomes over time...
I want my health span to be as high as possible, for as long as possible across my lifespan 👍
Have you looked at Marty Kendal’s work on data driven fasting and optimising nutrition? Sounds similar to what you are talking about.
https://optimisingnutrition.com/
Not familiar with Marty Kendal's work but will look into it, thanks 👍
Thank you! I have not thought deeply about diet, except that I eat organic, enjoy meat and avoid processed food and seed oil. However, I wonder what you make of Dr. Mercola's recent backtrack, now saying that carbs are important? I'd love your opinion.
We are Hypercarnivores, so we have the digestive flexibility to include some plants & fungi and by default carbs, but the continued function of gluconeogenesis and the fact that excursions in blood sugar above the healthy ceiling result in the body immediately working to get the excess glucose dealt with because it does cellular damage, tells me that exogenous carbs are not meant to constitute a significant part of our intake.
Thank you so much for your reply!
When humans started cultivating the land they started eating more fruits and vegetables. I also may point out that their lifespan was a fraction of ours.
Additionally, 100% Grass-fed beef differs greatly than the typical diseased, hig fat vaxed beef that is ubiquitously available to the general population.
Even our eggs are higher in PUFAS then years ago because of the diet the chickens are fed.
Finally, I believe that the "right' diet may depend more on the individual than an overall set of general dietary rules.
Currently science does not have enough information to customize diets on an individual level.
With the above said the one diet that has always stood out amongst all the other theories has been the Mediterranean diet.
Interesting to note that organic chicken livers are a completely different colour to non organic in my local store🤔👍