The Carnivore Diet

[Beau]

I have a question about raw muscle meat: what about the risk of getting a parasitic infection? (meat parasites)

Also, what about the fact that our intestines have shrunk a great deal ever since man harnessed fire? That allowed humans to grow a much bigger brain and all that that has done for us. The smaller intestines surely are not meant for digesting raw meat.

 

[Kay Kim]

When I was younger, I saw how my father and his friends eat raw meat, that is every time they added crushed garlic and salt or soy sauce to marinated meat. Maybe the garlic killers parasites.

 

[Yas]

When I was younger, I saw how my father and his friends eat raw meat, that is every time they added crushed garlic and salt or soy sauce to marinated meat. Maybe the garlic killers parasites.

From what I've heard, marinating meat in lemon, salt, garlic, etc., lightly "cooks" the meat already. So it's more than just killing bacteria (I think it wouldn't actually kill all the bacteria). This is the process used to make "raw" fish dishes in some countries.

Here's a little quote from an article I've just found:

The acid in lemon juice causes a similar phenomenon to cooking meat, but because it doesn't raise the temperature of the meat, it's not considered to be a safe way to prepare beef. Lemon juice, however, does serve a purpose when it comes to cooking beef. When you soak a piece of meat in an acidic liquid, such as lemon juice, it breaks down the connective tissues in the beef so the finished product is more tender and less tough to chew, according to Jean Pare, author of "Beef Today!"

And here's a forum answer which mentions the chemical process involved:

However, from a chemical point of view, what happens when you are cooking meat is that you are using heat, amongst other things, to denature the proteins of the meat. Denaturation can also be achieved by other means, such as marinating the meat in an acid, such as citric acid (contain in lemon juice) or acetic acid (contained in vinegar).

You can also use other agents to induce denaturation, but they are not always fit for eating.

However, it is important to understand that from a purely cooking perspective the two things are not the same: "cooking" with lemon (I guess it is fine to use the verb to cook as long as you put it in quotes), gives a completely different result than cooking with heat. This is because other chemical reactions happen during application of heat and because, obviously, you do not end up with an hot product!

So, I guess this method was and is used with certain foods and it's like partially cooking. I personally wouldn't advocate for eating raw meat since it doesn't seem to be safe (bacteria and all that) and because of what Beau said above... we evolved eating cooked meat. I wouldn't think that something we've been eating for so many thousands of years could be "the most toxic thing we're eating", but I'm not expert either, so that's just my opinion anyway.

Here's another little article on that topic: Food for Thought: Was Cooking a Pivotal Step in Human Evolution?

Regarding Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride, I like her approach a lot and I can say that it's been super helpful to me particularly. I haven't read her book, but I followed a tweaked version of the "introduction diet" found in her website and it worked like a charm in terms of healing my gut. I think it works basically because she recommends eliminating almost everything that isn't meat and eating just stock and soups for a while depending on how bad is your condition. For me, it makes sense that soups help healing the gut because it's like "pre-digested" food that give the gut a little break in order to heal. Of course, my soups where super fatty so I wasn't hungry at all.

She also has this approach which is present in many other places that basically consists in killing off the bad critters, reducing all inflammatory factors, detoxifying, giving the proper nutrition to the body and replenishing the population of good bacteria (although she is one of the few that mention that this should be done carefully in some cases because some people are so bad that they will react very badly to probiotics). I read too that she said some of her patients remain with a diet without any plant-based foods because they simply cannot handle plants.

 

[Harmony99]

From what I've heard, marinating meat in lemon, salt, garlic, etc., lightly "cooks" the meat already. So it's more than just killing bacteria (I think it wouldn't actually kill all the bacteria). This is the process used to make "raw" fish dishes in some countries.

I agree Yas this is how i was taught to treat raw fish and meat.
Fire is needed to cure all meat and so make it more digestible. Not sure how big some Raw Food Vegan brain will grow.

 

[Fluffy]

Also, what about the fact that our intestines have shrunk a great deal ever since man harnessed fire? That allowed humans to grow a much bigger brain and all that that has done for us. The smaller intestines surely are not meant for digesting raw meat.

Listen from 18:30 on why we should not be cooking our meat.
I’ll find the info on how parasites are beneficial and get back to you shortly.

 

[Fluffy]

A

Listen from 18:30 on why we should not be cooking our meat.
I’ll find the info on how parasites are beneficial and get back to you shortly.

I don’t have online access to the information I want to site by Aajonus Vonderplanitz but the video I’m posting explains bacteria and parasites.

I guess it’s up for everyone to decide as you’ll always have two or more sides of the coin to look at, but it does not makes sense to me to destroy meat (by cooking it) to make it more digestible. It’s been ruined and thus the body will recognise it as foreign and cause a toxic reaction to it. I’ve read the info on how apparently cooking meat made us grow the big brains we have, bottom line about that is it’s hard to prove because there are no lab studies from 10,000 years ago to compare to the ones we have today. All through history humans have thrived on raw meat, and still do.

If you look into Phil Escott even further he too is interested to make the jump to going raw.

 

[Fluffy]

Sorry, forgot to add the link

 

[Fluffy]

Phil Escott in interview with Gatis.

11:40 ‘haven’t gotten into the raw meat yet... may be I’ll have a go at that soon. But it’s nice to take one stage and one stage and one stage’ suggesting that’s he’s learned and understood (or at least willing to try) and that he sees raw carnivore as the next step after cooked carnivore.

 

[fabric]

I guess it’s up for everyone to decide as you’ll always have two or more sides of the coin to look at, but it does not makes sense to me to destroy meat (by cooking it) to make it more digestible. It’s been ruined and thus the body will recognise it as foreign and cause a toxic reaction to it.

I don't think that's necessarily the case as a general statement about cooked meat. Peterson and his daughter come to mind (and the many others who seem to be improving) on a cooked meat carnivore diet. Mikhaila's situation is interesting since she has a reaction to anything but meat and seems to be doing well on just cooked meat. To me it’s also still not entirely clear whether it’s the body itself being the cause or the food itself that is the trigger and that there are genetic factors that could contribute a large portion to what makes an ideal diet for a person, of which we still don’t fully understand.

What I’m not quite convinced about is whether that much of the meat is ‘destroyed’ nutritionally when it is cooked. Why? Because of increased digestibility. For example:

We propose three candidate mechanisms for the positive effects of cooking observed in this study. First, consumer-specific digestibility may have been improved through heat-induced denaturation of protein. In this process, proteins unwind from their tightly bound structures when heated, adopting a random coil configuration that increases their susceptibility to proteolytic enzymes in the small intestine (27) before access by gut bacteria. Such susceptibility serves to increase the proportion of protein digested by the consumer compared to the proportion digested by gut bacteria; this result is especially important, because the products of microbial fermentation of protein seem to return little energy to the consumer (2). This mechanism is supported by evidence that heat-induced denaturation of egg protein contributed to increased ileal digestibility in humans (91–94% for cooked eggs compared with 51–65% for raw eggs) (28, 29). Second, diet-induced thermogenesis may have been reduced because of the compromised structural integrity of cooked meat. Although heat tends to toughen muscle fibers, it gelatinizes the collagen in the muscle matrix, easing separation of muscle fibers. This separation facilitates mastication and increases the surface area of meat exposed to gastric acids and enzymes (30, 31).

So in other words, cooking meat makes more of it available to be digested by the body. So if there are indeed more nutrients in raw meat, it seems that it will be lost to microbes in the gut.

What does seem to be fairly well backed up is that the energy content with cooked is higher vs raw. And more energy means more ability to do work (at a cellular level in this case). It also means it is easier to digest and thus less of the body’s resources would be spent on digestion.

What would be nice is to find other sources outside of stuff coming through Aajonus Vonderplanitz, ideally some studies to look at with regards to a raw meat diet and how that compares to other diets. I tried to find some actual lab studies done by AV but haven’t been successful. What I did come across was a bit of a red flag: Rawesome bombshell: Lab test evidence against Sharon Palmer (Healthy Family Farms) found invalid; allegations unsupportable

I don’t think that negates the potential benefits of going raw meat, but something to keep in mind as to what were AV’s motivations lie (is he really about helping people or just publicity, for example). For some people I think it can help when all other options are exhausted.

What it mainly comes down to is keeping an eye on how you are feeling and how things are improving while at the same time being open to testing different things as they improve. It can take a long time but worth the effort to know what one’s dietary - affinities, let’s say – are. What might be a good idea, as with any extreme diet, is to get blood and mineral work done periodically to see where things are at physiologically.

 

[Siberia]

From my personal experience, many raw foods (including meat) may cause allergies. I have a sensitive skin, and when I cook meat I try to touch it minimally with my hands while it is still raw, otherwise it immediately irritates my skin and it starts itching. Cooked meat doesn't have such effect on me if I touch it. Just sharing my experience, fwiw.

 

[Beau]

I guess it’s up for everyone to decide as you’ll always have two or more sides of the coin to look at, but it does not makes sense to me to destroy meat (by cooking it) to make it more digestible. It’s been ruined and thus the body will recognise it as foreign and cause a toxic reaction to it. I’ve read the info on how apparently cooking meat made us grow the big brains we have, bottom line about that is it’s hard to prove because there are no lab studies from 10,000 years ago to compare to the ones we have today. All through history humans have thrived on raw meat, and still do.

Where are the lab studies showing the effects of eating raw meat?

 

[Fluffy]

I don't think that's necessarily the case as a general statement about cooked meat. Peterson and his daughter come to mind (and the many others who seem to be improving) on a cooked meat carnivore diet. Mikhaila's situation is interesting since she has a reaction to anything but meat and seems to be doing well on just cooked meat. To me it’s also still not entirely clear whether it’s the body itself being the cause or the food itself that is the trigger and that there are genetic factors that could contribute a large portion to what makes an ideal diet for a person, of which we still don’t fully understand.

What I’m not quite convinced about is whether that much of the meat is ‘destroyed’ nutritionally when it is cooked. Why? Because of increased digestibility. For example:


So in other words, cooking meat makes more of it available to be digested by the body. So if there are indeed more nutrients in raw meat, it seems that it will be lost to microbes in the gut.

What does seem to be fairly well backed up is that the energy content with cooked is higher vs raw. And more energy means more ability to do work (at a cellular level in this case). It also means it is easier to digest and thus less of the body’s resources would be spent on digestion.

What would be nice is to find other sources outside of stuff coming through Aajonus Vonderplanitz, ideally some studies to look at with regards to a raw meat diet and how that compares to other diets. I tried to find some actual lab studies done by AV but haven’t been successful. What I did come across was a bit of a red flag: Rawesome bombshell: Lab test evidence against Sharon Palmer (Healthy Family Farms) found invalid; allegations unsupportable

I don’t think that negates the potential benefits of going raw meat, but something to keep in mind as to what were AV’s motivations lie (is he really about helping people or just publicity, for example). For some people I think it can help when all other options are exhausted.

What it mainly comes down to is keeping an eye on how you are feeling and how things are improving while at the same time being open to testing different things as they improve. It can take a long time but worth the effort to know what one’s dietary - affinities, let’s say – are. What might be a good idea, as with any extreme diet, is to get blood and mineral work done periodically to see where things are at physiologically.

Many of the lab works were suppressed because he was not a bio-chemist as far as legal qualification goes, he was self taught and funded by rich clients that had healed on his diet. He has no proof but his word and the word of others of what he witnessed in his investigations.
I’ve got an open mind, what I said before about many sides of the same coin rings true here because in the video I posted about how harmful cooked meat is there are many citations from many professionals other than Aaj who also studied harmful effects of cooked meat, cooked fat and cooked carbs- the info is quite contrary to the stuff you’ve just posted about the benefits, bioavailability, digestsbily of cooked meat

AV was always in some kind of legal/ethical/moral turmoil. Aajonus Vonderplanitz wasn’t his real name, he was provocative, intellectual, may be exaggerated here and there and certainly convincing but did he have good intentions, that I’m certain of. The ptb wanted to silence him, he was often in court acting as his own lawyer.

As far raw meat studies go, I too would like to see more, there are so very few people talking about raw and most of the stories are anecdotal.

I’m just saying for now, this raw meat is what I’m doing because Im rather concerned about the long term problems if what I’m reading is true about how toxic cooked meat is.
Either way it’s a carnivore diet and that’s way better than being a vegan.

 

[Starshine]

What would be nice is to find other sources outside of stuff coming through Aajonus Vonderplanitz, ideally some studies to look at with regards to a raw meat diet and how that compares to other diets. I tried to find some actual lab studies done by AV but haven’t been successful. What I did come across was a bit of a red flag: Rawesome bombshell: Lab test evidence against Sharon Palmer (Healthy Family Farms) found invalid; allegations unsupportable

Exactly, I'm trying to find more info about parasites and bacteria being good, and apart of AV and Vilhjalmur Stefansson it's hard to find any. It's controversial.
As I said in Eating Raw liver/heart. sv3rige on youtube
What I do know though is that I intuitively love cooked meat. Rare for red meat. Maybe having the organs slightly less cooked would be profitable, but without the cooking, I cannot find meat that much attractive and as total carnivore now, I like to enjoy meat. I cannot picture myself having raw pork, chicken, or else. I'm not even sure it's because of the rawness, more than the coldness. I like to eat warm.

Also, there seems to be a natural reversion for raw meats among people, when I talked about it with my people, they all had the same disgust face about it. I'm thinking anything except red meat and some seafood. In the end, what AV and Stefansson bring into the light is that we shouldn't be so scared of bacteria and parasites, the balance should be attained while listening to our own intuitive gut feeling.
Rare red meat is actually raw on the inside, I have no problems with it.

Regarding the Inuit eating raw seals and fish, we could think that their ability to handle it comes from cold-adaptation too? Better resistance and immunity could be keys.

 

[Fluffy]

Where are the lab studies showing the effects of eating raw meat?

Where are the lab studies showing the effects of eating raw meat?

These are the studies cited in the video I posted earlier.

Heterocyclic amines (HCAs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are chemicals formed when muscle meat, including beef, pork, fish, or poultry, is cooked using high-temperature methods, such as pan frying or grilling directly over an open flame.


Analysis of cooked muscle meat for heterocyclic aromatic amine carcinogens
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0027510797000353?via=ihub

Abstract
A number of related heterocyclic aminesthat are mutagenic in bacterial test systems and carcinogenic in animals are formed during the cooking of food. The most commonly reported and abundant compounds are PhIP, MeIQx, DiMeIQx, IQ and AαC. Using analysis by solid-phase extraction and HPLC, amounts found in foods range from less than one ng/g for products from fast-food restaurants, up to 14 ng/g in commercially cooked products and over 300 ng/g for well done flame-grilled chicken breast meat. Interestingly, marinating meat for 4 h greatly reduces the amount of PhIP produced during cooking, but not MeIQx. Comparing mutagenic activity in meat samples to the mutagenic activity accounted for by the known heterocyclic amines shows that most samples have activity that cannot be accounted for by the aromatic amines we can currently identify. This suggests that additional compounds are present in these foods and need to be investigated, particularly those grilled over open flames.

Mutagenic activity of heterocyclic amines in cooked food
https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/pdf/10.1289/ehp.94102s6201
Mutagenic heterocyclic amines are generated in foods when they are cooked at temperatures over 150°C. These compounds are present from 0.1 to50ppb, depending on the food and cooking conditions. These heterocyclic amines are not only present in cooked red meat, fish,and chicken, but are also present at lower levels in baked and fried foods derived from grain. .....
....In our laboratory we have shown these heterocyclic amines are capable of producing both reverse and forward mutations in Salmonella bacteria and forward mutations in Chinese hamster ovary cels(CHO).We have also been able to show a statisticaly significant increase in mutations in the pancreas of the "mutamouse" following PhIP exposure. The pancreas also shows relatively high DNA binding compared to other organs in the mouse.

Cancer risk of heterocyclic amines in cooked foods
Cancer risk of heterocyclic amines in cooked foods: an analysis and implications for research

The above article are not doing anything to confirm raw meat is good, just saying that cooked meat is not so good.
From what I can see on a quick search, not many out there really want to delve into the science of the benefits of eating raw meat, as if it’s taboo. The agenda would surely prefer raw vegan. You can look up why aspartame is good for you and get an answer (if that’s what you’re looking for to confirm a bias) but as far as raw meat, when I search it’s like nearly all I see are crickets chirping in the dark. There are a few of course, Aajonus and another Sally Fallon of the Weston A. Price Foundation fuelling most of those studies.

It’s getting late and I just want to finish this post. I’m not sure it’s going in the direction where it’s benefitting anyone to keep on pushing the issue of raw vs cooked because there’s an argument for either angle.

Someone out there has done the final bit of work for me that have have to share before I go to bed.

Night night.

The health benefits of eating raw meat? | Keeper of the Home

 

[Fluffy]

It

Exactly, I'm trying to find more info about parasites and bacteria being good, and apart of AV and Vilhjalmur Stefansson it's hard to find any. It's controversial.
As I said in Eating Raw liver/heart. sv3rige on youtube
What I do know though is that I intuitively love cooked meat. Rare for red meat. Maybe having the organs slightly less cooked would be profitable, but without the cooking, I cannot find meat that much attractive and as total carnivore now, I like to enjoy meat. I cannot picture myself having raw pork, chicken, or else. I'm not even sure it's because of the rawness, more than the coldness. I like to eat warm.

Also, there seems to be a natural reversion for raw meats among people, when I talked about it with my people, they all had the same disgust face about it. I'm thinking anything except red meat and some seafood. In the end, what AV and Stefansson bring into the light is that we shouldn't be so scared of bacteria and parasites, the balance should be attained while listening to our own intuitive gut feeling.
Rare red meat is actually raw on the inside, I have no problems with it.

Regarding the Inuit eating raw seals and fish, we could think that their ability to handle it comes from cold-adaptation too? Better resistance and immunity could be keys.

it’s not that odd to eat raw meat. All cultures do it. Steak tartare, carpaccio, oysters, sashimi, to name a few. Most people I’ve spoken to really understand, as if on an instinctual level seem to aknowlege it’s as close to natural as possible and are probably glad that I’m doing something that hopefully helps me get better so I stop whining about how crap I feel :)