The Carnivore Code: Unlocking the Secrets to Optimal Health by Returning to Our Ancestral Diet

Product Information

And it is certainly a strange juxtaposition, seeing the author smiling by darling piglets and then reading all the ways to eat them. Cardiovascular risk is determined by multiple factors, and although LDL is a big one, it’s not the only factor.

One study reports that soil carbon levels increased through year 6 of regenerative grazing practices, after which they plateaued. Loren Cordain and colleagues estimated the proportion of plant and animal foods for 229 hunter-gatherer cultures around the world.The study does report that overall zinc bioavailability from the diet may be on the low side in this sample. Page xxii: “There are now thousands of people with experiences similar to mine demonstrating improvement and resolution of a variety of diseases such as ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s, lupus, thyroid disease, psoriasis, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and psychiatric illnesses like depression, bipolar, and anxiety. Independent in this sense simply means that each contributes to increased risk, regardless of other risk factors. But does this lack of correlation in observational studies really mean high LDL doesn’t damage arteries in Japan? We discuss this meta-analysis in more detail above, but the bottom line is that it only represents a meager two trials for the most important outcomes, and the result wasn’t replicated by a 2016 meta-analysis that included more trials.

A third meta-analysis in children didn’t find evidence that fiber improves treatment success for constipation. One trial emphasized in The Carnivore Code reports that removing nearly all plant fiber from the diet completely resolved constipation in adults living in Singapore, but while the finding is intriguing, it has serious limitations and to our knowledge it has not yet been replicated. Though I love to eat meat, some aspects of this diet itself are new to me, especially the information about toxins in nuts and vegetables.

One approach is to use Mendelian randomization, which uses the random distribution of gene variants in a population to measure the causal impacts of LDL. Effects were consistent across different types of fiber, and high-dose fiber supplementation was more effective than low-dose. Citing a small number of studies or contexts that don’t confirm the hypothesis isn’t a strong argument that the overall idea is wrong.

This is another piece of evidence that our distant hunter-gatherer ancestors probably ate plants at most times and places. This is because the areas where they live, and where our human ancestors did most of their evolving, do not experience the same type of seasonality that temperate regions experience. It argues that people eating a carnivore diet are immune to this effect, and in them, high LDL may actually be beneficial. I'm also a forager so appreciate the lovely recipes featuring berries in particular like Blackberry-Mint Compote.There are possible explanations for this other than diet, such as indoor smoke exposure, but the nearly-carnivorous diet certainly didn’t prevent them from developing cardiovascular disease. To his credit, he advocates using the whole animal so the recipes also involve things like chicken heads in your bone broth. Second and relatedly, salivary amylase gene duplications are not required to digest starch-rich foods, since people without these duplications can apparently digest starch just fine.

This is the first time I've ever seen a recipe that uses bone marrow as the main ingredient in a frosting, and I can't see myself ever becoming the kind of person to eat that way. Hundreds of studies have been published on the relationship between total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, cardiovascular disease, and all-cause mortality. However, since soil carbon levels are due to compost application and the activity of all the farm’s animals, attributing it all to the cattle would be misleading. As previously discussed, there are several strong lines of evidence supporting the idea that high LDL increases cardiovascular risk. The claim that humans evolved as carnivores and rarely ate plants in the distant past received a score of 1.

Page 10: “If we couldn’t find animal foods, we might have eaten plants as a backup plan, but they do not appear to have composed any significant part of our ancestors’ diets. The claim received a score of 1, meaning that the book presents the evidence as substantially stronger than it is. A key piece of evidence presented by The Carnivore Code is a publication from the Framingham Study, including two graphs of its data on pages 187 and 189. Why we're not supposed to be scared of eating meats, and the reason why we should avoid eating some meats. The recipes are unlike I've ever seen, with pizza made entirely of animal products - that's real meat lover's pizza for you!