Peter Dobromylskyj's comment about vegetables and similar on carnivore


(Bob M) #1

Here is a podcast with Peter Dobromylskyj:

Right towards the end of this, he talks about how you get “stuck” in carnivore. He theorizes that your body becomes worse at dealing with plants the longer you are on carnivore.

I had always thought of carnivore – at least in part – as a “cleansing” diet, but one that can cure certain maladies and maybe repair whatever is wrong that causes you not to be able to eat certain foods. For instance, you find some vegetables not edible, but go on carnivore, and now you eat them and it’s OK (say, in small amounts).

But he’s saying it’s the opposite: you CANNOT go back to eating vegetables over time, as your body is even less likely to handle them.

Your thoughts on this?


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #2

It’s true of certain allergies. The longer you stay away from the allergen, the more effect it has when you encounter it.

Also, in evolutionary terms, if things get so desperate that we are forced to eat plants, there will be so much else going on that the effects of the plants will be the least of our concerns.


(Bob M) #3

That was one example he gave, a peanut allergy. Give someone small amounts of peanuts daily, they can then eat a larger amount. Stop giving them daily amounts, and it’s much worse when they do eat peanuts.


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #4

Of course, some people who’ve been eating peanuts all along can get allergic enough to go into anaphylactic shock, so hormesis only takes us so far.


(Todd Allen) #5

I expect the issue is the body stops wasting resources producing unneeded enzymes to process plant toxins and it takes some time to ramp them back up again. And perhaps to do this there is need for one or more micronutrients that are challenging to get on a carnivore diet such as manganese or vitamins C, E and folate. Someone will likely figure out a process that works well to reverse this issue such as taking certain supplements followed by starting with small amounts of minimally toxic plant foods probably fruits and slowly adding in more challenging ones.


(Doug) #6

Some things we develop a tolerance to, some others we get ‘sensitized’ to and symptoms get worse over time… weird.


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #7

Seems to me that if one finds a diet that avoids toxic foods, returning to eating those foods would not be a good idea.

“Oh, I haven’t needed my Epi-Pen since I stopped eating peanuts. Pass the peanuts, please!” :grin:


(Todd Allen) #8

We have perennial fruit from which I couldn’t eat for a while due to poor glycemia. As I regained my metabolic health I was again able to eat the raspberries, blueberries and strawberries. Now I can sometimes take a bite of our apricots, peaches, pears and apples before giving them to the chickens. In excess they are still toxic for me but they are free, excellent quality and very enjoyable so I’m glad I don’t have to completely abstain.


#9

They make excellent forage for the animals and animal products we eat at the next level up in the tropic strata.

@ctviggen Bob. Yes, he called it the carnivore trap. Peter described that the plant foods he had been eating he had lost tolerance to. If plant foods were intrinsically healthy for his human consumption, he wouldn’t need the adaptation his gut, biome and body made. He logically suggests our tolerances to dietary plants have been built up and trained over our life times. Until we go carnivore. He wasn’t worried. It’s a really good podcast episode.

I reckon the Saladino one with Tucker Goodridge is a good complement to it.


(Bob M) #10

I guess my issue is that I keep eating some plants and some fermented plants, and even some hot sauce, so I don’t get stuck in the carnivore trap. We went on vacation for the first time in two years (due to the pandemic), and I had an incredibly difficult time eating keto out. But, I was able to eat more salads (eg, in place of fries for a burger) and survive, though often I had to go to the house we rented and eat a second meal of meat. Eating carnivore would make it that much harder.

And, like @brownfat, I have found that I can add in small amounts of even fruit and not have it affect me. For instance, we went strawberry picking, and I ate some of these. I’ll have some salsa, some onions, tomato, etc. Last night, for instance, my wife and I went out on a “date” to Home Depot and 5 Guys (a burger place). I had a triple burger with cheese wrapped in lettuce with pickles, tomato, onions, and jalapenos. I could have just the meat and cheese, but that makes everything harder.

At this point, I’m purposely trying to keep eating vegetables, at times, so I don’t get stuck in the carnivore trap.

On the other hand, like Peter was saying, there are certain things that affect me poorly. One of those is chocolate. If I have it too late in the evening and too high a percentage, I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and can’t go back to sleep. I also have one hip that can get inflamed (hurts) if I have chocolate too often.

So, it’s a delicate balance between eating some plant matter, and eating too much.

@FrankoBear Thanks for the remark about the Saladino discussion. Unfortunately, I really don’t like him. He’s too rigid and yet too lenient. He had an interview with Amber O’Hearn, where he said you could only eat egg yolks, only raw, and not the whites. Then we’re only supposed to eat raw liver and only grass fed beef. And when covid started, I listened to one interview of his where there was no scientific basis for what he was saying, and he had a fundamental misunderstanding of the virus.

Then, all the sudden, he’s eating raw honey. Now, I have no problem with that (though it goes completely against his “animals only” mantra), but he said over and over again that his eating honey means that carbs don’t cause insulin resistance. Just because you can eat honey sometimes says nothing about carbs causing (or not causing) insulin resistance.

After those podcasts, I couldn’t listen to him anymore.

I do like Tucker Goodrich, but I think sometimes he’s too far down the rabbit hole of PUFAs. He believes PUFAs are THE cause of obesity. I’ve reached the conclusion that’s not true. Or at least it’s way more complex than “PUFAs and only PUFAs = obesity”. Do I think PUFAs contribute? Absolutely. If we got rid of all PUFAs, could people still get fat? Absolutely.


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #11

I thought Tucker Goodrich was a bit off the deep end, too, but Chris Knobbe says the same things. The difference is that Chris Knobbe sounds more linked to the data. It’s not that Goodrich is wrong, but as you say, he may be a bit too far down the rabbit hole.

It’s entirely possible that refined sugar has a synergistic effect with the seed oils. The diabetes epidemic in the U.S. began about twenty years after cheap refined sugar hit the market in the U.S., even though cottonseed oil had come on the market about fifty years earlier. It’s possible that refined sugar helped speed up the process, even if it wasn’t the sole cause.

This brings to mind something that Mike Eades says in his lecture about hunter-gatherers versus agriculturalists; to wit, there have always been a few obese people around (that picture of Mary Dan with Bill Clinton when they were kids is unforgettable), but that obesity didn’t really take off and become the norm until after the nutrition guidelines became standard.

While the notion that the wrong fats can cause insulin resistance, inflammation, and other metabolic problems makes sense, it’s worth noting that gout and Type II diabetes were diseases of the rich during the centuries before cheap refined sugar became available. And Gary Taubes’s recounting of the health of the Pima Indians (and other Plains tribes) shows that refined grains are also part of the problem, as well as sugar and seed oils.


(Morgan Blundell) #12

Raubenheimer and Simpson, in their book The 5 Appetites state the same concept. If you limit your dietary variety too much, your body adjusts by becoming less agile to dietary changes and may respond negatively when those foods are introduced.


(Edith) #13

What I would like to know is if vegetarians and vegans have trouble reintroducing meat after years of not eating it?

If not, that could be a case for saying we don’t ever lose the ability to process what our bodies consider to be vital, only what our bodies consider to be non vital.

I reintroduced fruit after my carnivore trial. I didn’t notice any violent reactions to them. But as I started adding in more things, some veggies, a few potatoes once in while the aches and pains started to return. Is that really the carnivore trap, if removing those things made me feel better in the first place, or just realizing my body just doesn’t like or want them any more?

Another interesting Peak Human podcast with an evolutionary biologist mentioned that the older we get, the more our bodies need to return to our evolutionarily species appropriate diet. As we age our bodies become less capable of processing the foods we were never meant to eat. Maybe that all ties in with the “carnivore trap?”


#14

Many ‘find and search, are then led thru their health journey’ to Carnivore plan and require it for optimal health-----of course it becoming more known on the internet has every cowboy jumping on board for a short play into this and then they just abandon it.

Thing is it isn’t a trap at all. It is exactly what VE mentioned. It shows truths of what levels some plant foods do to your personal body. It makes it known, now what one decides to ‘do about it’ is their own choice, stay on plan and be healthier or go back and get ‘the effects’ of the crap your body doesn’t? And while we can feel fast physical effects, just think all those little things we never see what is happening in the body…everyone knows sugar rots your veins and more thru long term blood sugar issues for many, why diabetes is called a silent killer…you don’t get your toes amputated in the first 10-15 yrs of taking your insulin and more and fighting issues…but after that your circulatory system is rotten, your eyes have issues, your health declines fast when that point of no return kicks in and alot of us have seen it in our own families out there…so eat the stuff your body doesn’t find desirable…hey why not? Personal choices for sure :slight_smile:

It is an elimination menu to SHOW people yet it also gets bad wrap up reports and twisted information put out on it that doesn’t give this elimination plan a fair pass on what this plan is all about.

I know for me, a longer term carnivore—I know I can eat certain things and be ‘ok’ but I choose not to cause eventually they start to take me down, they start to screw up my guts, they show me ‘just a bit slower’ the body doesn’t want them and why would I go back?

key being MANY can not hold this plan. Simple as that. It is a tougher plan by far to handle daily but key being, IF ONE needs/requires this plan to feel their best then one holds it long term and thrives. I want to thrive, I don’t want to backslide into the physical ICK I came from into this plan.

What do all Drs tell very old people? Eat protein! You must keep up the protein levels or you wither…protein and fat is the key to life point blank. But while all this we know, can a person hold the carnivore plan? It isn’t ever a trap when it is what a person requires :slight_smile: It might be a trap for those who ‘want back’ and more sugar in their lives and more other foods that didn’t set well with them in the first place, yet they want it back ---- Choose your personal poison :wink:

ok, just some carnivore chat LOL just how I see things cycling around the carnivore plan out there and the chat about this plan…carnivore trap,nah, but some can’t go back easily to some plants, well DUH DUH for some of us and this is what the plan is actually supposed to tell people about themselves…LOL

My moral of this post :sunny:

Don’t trash or brand this a trap when the plan for doing exactly what it is supposed to do. It works for all, yet it doesn’t fit what people want to see about their personal truths…ugh

And Graham, tell Graham to SEE!


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #15

Yeah, the word “trap” is not a neutral term. Take someone like Amber O’Hearn, who says that her bipolar disorder is not a problem as long as she eats carnivore: is that a trap, or is it freedom?

A recovering alcoholic often feels trapped, early in sobriety. The notion of not being able to drink feels quite restrictive. Yet those alcoholics who end up with long-term sobriety will tell you that abstaining from alcohol is not a trap—for them, at least—because they are free to do whatever they want with their lives as long as they abstain. It is using alcohol that takes away their freedom, and that one “no” (to alcohol) leads to a lot of other “yesses.”

It seems to me that eating carnivore is a similar deal for a lot of people. I guess if you’re only doing carnivore as a short-term fix and plan to go back to eating carbs, the carnivore “trap” could be real, but the carnivores I know are eating that way because it gives them their maximum health, so they have no intention of ever adding plant foods back into their diet.


#16

appreciate always some ‘real in depth thoughts’ from you Paul and just past the ‘term thrown out’ cause how many have ‘’‘done Keto’’’ and found it unacceptable and a ‘worse known plan’ all cause in the bitter end, they never changed or held the plan to what it is…but of course so many of us in our eating plans have to deal with idiot fallout as the Keto group understands :slight_smile: Carnivore trap is idiot fallout as usual that hits when one won’t do the plan, longer term as per individual they require and do everything short term and ‘then call it as a fact’ ugh


(Linda ) #17

The things I started removing out of my diet are things that started to give me stomach pains when I was still eating them like asparagus , cream, even spinach …not because I went carnivore and tried adding them back but while on keto…
Funny thing is I can eat mushrooms in a cream sauce so long as the cream has boiled Then no issue…
But if I was to eat cream in my coffee nope stomach ache and bloating…now I love cream but my body says nope can’t do it if it’s not boiled …so its not a trap it’s just something I can’t do.

I had a rash on my shin I was given creams and steroid creams for that, but never actually got rid of it nor did keto only helped control itching of the excezma…going carnivore it dissapeared and have had one flare up since going carnivore but removing pork rind seemed to help get rid of it again…
So how many of these things do we just put up with getting creams that really don’t fix the issue…
But because carnivore seems extreme ppl have to fault it…well nothing is prob going to be perfect if your looking for miracle cures…but I don’t find it hard to stick to …im not the strictest carnivore I drink coffee ill use spices… but my non perfect is good enough for me til it Isn’t lol…


#18

To me, it feels more like Pandora’s box than a trap.

If you don’t stop eating vegetables for a period of time, you’ll never discover how good you might feel on carnivore. Conversely, if you discover that you feel great on carnivore, you might not want to go back to eating vegetables - even if you only originally embarked on a short trial - and I can see how that might be difficult in some social situations.

If you never open the (carnivore) box, you’re not faced with that choice.


#19

I had exactly zero problem (but I think I have read that it wasn’t true for everyone who did it?). But I didn’t went to eating it every day… I never ate it every day before I went vegetarian either, just a few times a week. I was a vegetarian for 8 years and ate meat a few times a year for almost 20 years afterwards.
Going vegetarian was smooth and easy and nice too. Just like going paleo for a month (it was very carby so I changed my ways, dropped the paleo and at least half of my carbs. but I still stayed close to paleo for years then went farther, only my almost egg and meat only times brought me close again).
Adding back meat a few times a year was okay too.
And THEN getting out most plants and adding meat every day was perfectly smooth as well.

But I think my body is just that resilient :smiley: When I did my carnivore trials and then suddenly ate a ton of sugar (it’s not something I normally do but I got a parcel with Australian candy), I felt fine. Normally a bunch of carbs when I am in ketosis isn’t that great but I can handle it well if it’s not a steady flood day to day. I still feel it’s not the ideal food for my body but it’s not uncomfortable. Just sugar alone, that is where I am a tad sensitive and it can happen with tiny amounts. No problem, I eat some fatty meat after my more sugary fruits and that’s it :wink:

I had dairy free years too (very occasionally I consumed them), together with my SO. He lost the ability to handle lactose well, it’s pretty logical and normal (but he says he never was very good with it). I don’t. I tried to drink a liter milk in a few hours, it was easy and nothing happened. The stubbornness of my body is immense :smiley: It’s much sugar or playing with magnesium supplements when it loses its balance or patience and screams bloody murder and it’s not hedonistic so I really try to avoid making the same mistake again…

Concerning the “trap”… I totally don’t worry. It’s one thing that I often eat tiny plant matter and have carbier days now and then but I don’t have serious health reasons to stick to carnivore(-ish) all the time so when I actually do it for several months, I hardly will miss what I don’t eat… When I went low-carb, I burned the bridges (except for very short visits) and it’s perfectly fine for me, easier to stick to low-carb if the way back doesn’t exist :smiley:
My woe is evolving, I don’t do something for some months and go back to my old ways, it sounds weird to me, my body and mind doesn’t work like that at all. I try out things and keep them if they are working… I never force anything and if I feel right, why I wouldn’t want to go back? It’s surely different for desperate persons who have serious health problems and try out hard, not sustainable things for longer term hoping it would help…
I don’t only take it easy and quit for a while if I experience real hardships (among other reasons…) but I definitely got benefits from being quite close to carnivore compared to keto and I want them and want more (energy, that would be nice! but I suspect it helps with that too but that single benefit takes time, I don’t just come back and get it right away or in the worst case, some days later as it happens with the other big benefits I noticed). So I am quite clingy and try to get what I want and it automatically includes the belief that I chose this and it’s my default woe, not some temporal thing. It’s always the case when I lower my carbs and my body is ready for it: it latches to the idea of the new level and going back for longer term just stops being an option.

And I am perfectly sure that even if I lost my ability to handle carbs as well as in my past (it surely wasn’t perfect, I am not someone who is thriving on high-carb. my SO is so I see the differences very well), I could it get back if that would be a necessity (some apocalypse or other special case where eating very low-carb wouldn’t be an option). It would take some time for my gut flora to change back but it would, of course.
I just don’t think I absolutely totally must have carby Christmas dinners and birthdays or something. I ate a ton of carbs in my life, it was enough (except the tiny remaining ones. and another parcel from Australia but I will heavily depends on my SO who gladly eats any sweets - occasionally as he avoids added sugar under normal circumstances). So if I notice something is problematic for my body, I just won’t eat it, big deal. It’s super easy for me not eating something that causes problems. Even my pride doesn’t suffer from it, it’s normal my body is choosy now that it experienced a better woe. Smart body. It clearly could handle almost any food but it doesn’t want to and subtly nudges me. It’s effective and very right. It’s my body, it knows best what is good for it and helps me to make decisions about my food. Very helpful.