Zero carb/no plant food

LittleGreyCat

Well-Known Member
Messages
4,232
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Dislikes
Diet drinks - the artificial sweeteners taste vile.
Having to forswear foods I have loved all my life.
Trying to find low carb meals when eating out.
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Also, unless you are an Inuit you are not adapted to survive without a dietary source of Vitamin C. Scurvy is not fun!

With respect I think this is misleading, because there is at least one fine example of a European living for a full year with the Inuit eating the same diet as them and surviving and thriving.

I suspect that the Inuit also have/had some access to Vitamin C through berries traded from further South. As far as I know not all Inuit lived their lives 100% ice bound.

The sometimes reliable Wikipedia says:
"Vitamins and minerals which are typically derived from plant sources are nonetheless present in most Inuit diets. Vitamins A and D are present in the oils and livers of cold-water fishes and mammals. Vitamin C is obtained through sources such as caribou liver, kelp, whale skin, and seal brain; because these foods are typically eaten raw or frozen, the vitamin C they contain, which would be destroyed by cooking, is instead preserved."
 

Hotpepper20000

Well-Known Member
Messages
2,065
I think Volek & Phinney cover this. An all protein diet is bad and is also not natural to races/tribes with little or no plant material. Fat is an essential part of the diet. I think after a certain point the protein you don't need for muscle replacement gets broken down into bad stuff.

No references, but I have read in several places that you can starve to death eating rabbit (North USA and Canada back in the wild days) because it it almost all lean meat and doesn't supply all the nutrients you need.
IP
I think Volek & Phinney cover this. An all protein diet is bad and is also not natural to races/tribes with little or no plant material. Fat is an essential part of the diet. I think after a certain point the protein you don't need for muscle replacement gets broken down into bad stuff.

No references, but I have read in several places that you can starve to death eating rabbit (North USA and Canada back in the wild days) because it it almost all lean meat and doesn't supply all the nutrients you need.
Thanks
 

Mbaker

Well-Known Member
Messages
4,339
Type of diabetes
Type 2 (in remission!)
Treatment type
Diet only
Dislikes
Available fast foods in Supermarkets
Once you take into account long-term loss of soil etc from turning the soil over to plan crops, along with the benefits of "mob grazing", it becomes possible we could grow the 10gk of grass on the same land as we grow 1kg of wheat. It is not as clear-cut as it looks at first......
It takes 9 square feet of wheat to produce 4 cups of flour; the 2 issues I see with this is the obvious concentration levels, which leads to my second point explaining why products made from this level of concentration spike insulin and blood glucose.
 

NoCrbs4Me

Well-Known Member
Messages
3,700
Type of diabetes
I reversed my Type 2
Treatment type
Other
Dislikes
Vegetables
Meat production globally is inefficient. As a rough rule of thumb it takes 10kg of plant material to produce 1kg of animal flesh. This is a huge loss of available energy and makes meat a luxury product if global energy economics are taken into consideration. Having said that there are some places that will not grow plant crops that can be fed to humans e.g. high altitude where sheep can find grazing and desert regions where goats can find forage plants that humans cannot consume. These farming examples support a limited number of humans only. You may only want to eat meat but this could not work for the current population of the world.
Also, unless you are an Inuit you are not adapted to survive without a dietary source of Vitamin C. Scurvy is not fun!
After 2 1/2 years of eating only meat, I have no signs of scurvy or any other nutritional deficiency. The reason is simple: fresh meat is anti-ascorbic. This used to be well known. When Napolean's soldiers were suffering from scurvy in Egypt, he ordered donkeys to be slaughtered and fed to the men to cure them. And of course Inuit didn't have scurvy even though they did not eat broccoli and oranges.

The plant material that the cattle around where I live eat is grass. Most of the land is not good for growing much else besides grass. About 98% of what I eat is local - not many other people around here can say that.

Where I live about 80% of the produce is grown thousands of miles away (using close to slave labour, lots of chemicals, and irrigated with groundwater at a faster rate than it's recharged) and shipped in. More than half of what's grown doesn't make it to plates. Eating fruit and veg is very inefficient, in my opinion.
 

NoCrbs4Me

Well-Known Member
Messages
3,700
Type of diabetes
I reversed my Type 2
Treatment type
Other
Dislikes
Vegetables
Producing 1kg of animal tissue includes the production of bone, hair, teeth, connective tissue and all the other parts of an animal that we find difficult to digest unless very highly processed. So the amount of available muscle tissue is less than 1kg. Growing grain, maize etc to feed to livestock is very wasteful in terms of the energy of those plant crops as those or similar plant crops could be fed directly to humans. This is not the same discussion as regreening of marginal or desertified lands in which animals are being farmed by extensive methods to return fertility to soils and to boost crop production.
This thread started with someone advocating an all meat diet. It would be impossible in terms of the global energy budget to feed all the people on earth a diet based solely on meat and in first world countries we are very fortunate to be able to consider this as an option.
Meat is certainly more energy-dense per kg than plant material but is a great deal of energy is lost in the production process whether in natural ecosystems or in meat production on farms.
Actually, the first post in this thread expressed skepticism that an all-meat diet was healthy.

Whether it would be possible for every person on the planet to switch to an all meat diet is an interesting question, but it's separate from whether or not an all-meat diet is healthy. Many people give up eating grains to improve their health, but I've never seen anyone argue that they shouldn't because it wouldn't be sustainable for every person on the planet to give up grains.
 
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NoCrbs4Me

Well-Known Member
Messages
3,700
Type of diabetes
I reversed my Type 2
Treatment type
Other
Dislikes
Vegetables
With respect I think this is misleading, because there is at least one fine example of a European living for a full year with the Inuit eating the same diet as them and surviving and thriving.

I suspect that the Inuit also have/had some access to Vitamin C through berries traded from further South. As far as I know not all Inuit lived their lives 100% ice bound.

The sometimes reliable Wikipedia says:
"Vitamins and minerals which are typically derived from plant sources are nonetheless present in most Inuit diets. Vitamins A and D are present in the oils and livers of cold-water fishes and mammals. Vitamin C is obtained through sources such as caribou liver, kelp, whale skin, and seal brain; because these foods are typically eaten raw or frozen, the vitamin C they contain, which would be destroyed by cooking, is instead preserved."
I think that blurb about vitamin C is a bit off the mark. I don't eat much seafood, no liver for more than 1 1/2 years, no brains (yuck), no raw meat, no kelp, no whale skin, and don't take vitamin c supplements. Most of the meat I eat has been aged 40 to 60 days or longer. I doubt my intake of vitamin c is any where near enough to prevent scurvy according to current science, yet I don't have scurvy.
 

ringi

Well-Known Member
Messages
3,365
Type of diabetes
Type 2
I don't agree or disagree with you. Just needing some scientific proof for your statement. I don't know enough to know if this is true or not and just was wondering where you have this information from.

Its in the "The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living" book, the issue is when people have no veg, and cut all the fat off the meat.
 

lucylocket61

Expert
Messages
6,435
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Producing 1kg of animal tissue includes the production of bone, hair, teeth, connective tissue and all the other parts of an animal that we find difficult to digest unless very highly processed. So the amount of available muscle tissue is less than 1kg. Growing grain, maize etc to feed to livestock is very wasteful in terms of the energy of those plant crops as those or similar plant crops could be fed directly to humans. This is not the same discussion as regreening of marginal or desertified lands in which animals are being farmed by extensive methods to return fertility to soils and to boost crop production.
This thread started with someone advocating an all meat diet. It would be impossible in terms of the global energy budget to feed all the people on earth a diet based solely on meat and in first world countries we are very fortunate to be able to consider this as an option.
Meat is certainly more energy-dense per kg than plant material but is a great deal of energy is lost in the production process whether in natural ecosystems or in meat production on farms.

I would like some links to evidence for this please. And for information on comparable energy and nutrition output from grains versus meat.
 

ghost_whistler

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Messages
612
I would like some links to evidence for this please. And for information on comparable energy and nutrition output from grains versus meat.
Roiughly speaking, from googling the nutrition content of meat, you'd need to eat 4kg a day to get enough electrolytes (if nothing else) from meat.

I just don't see how this is viable but people say they thrive on it.
 

lucylocket61

Expert
Messages
6,435
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Roiughly speaking, from googling the nutrition content of meat, you'd need to eat 4kg a day to get enough electrolytes (if nothing else) from meat.

I just don't see how this is viable but people say they thrive on it.
from also googling, I cant find anything to back that up. Can i have a link please?
 

Pinkorchid

Well-Known Member
Messages
2,927
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
I think “meat only” is the way to go, both for my health and for the environment. No supplements needed.
I think you are quite unique but it suits you so that's good For any of us diet is whatever suits us personally but I do not think many would have the will power only to eat meat and little else
 

lucylocket61

Expert
Messages
6,435
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
I think that blurb about vitamin C is a bit off the mark. I don't eat much seafood, no liver for more than 1 1/2 years, no brains (yuck), no raw meat, no kelp, no whale skin, and don't take vitamin c supplements. Most of the meat I eat has been aged 40 to 60 days or longer. I doubt my intake of vitamin c is any where near enough to prevent scurvy according to current science, yet I don't have scurvy.
how long have you been a zero carb eater?
 

bulkbiker

BANNED
Messages
19,576
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
I think you are quite unique
Not wishing to put down @NoCrbs4Me but there are thousands and probably more people eating this way.
It's a growing body of people, a number of whom are even ex-vegans, who find a zero carb (no plant) way of eating extremely beneficial.