That puts us at 0.006% of the global population. How did I arrive at 500k? I kinda made it up based on carnivore study populations, but its super duper tiny. I looked everywhere, I can't really find a solid estimate. But we are totally in the dozens of us category.
I NEVER meet another zero carb carnivore anywhere organically. Plus there is huge stigma for being a carnivore. EVERYONE thinks I'm crazy.
- Omnivore - 73% - 6,000M
- Flexitarian - 14% - 1,100M
- Vegetarian - 5% - 400M
- Pescatarian - 3% - 250M
- Vegan - 3% - 250M
- Zero Carb Carnivore - 0.006% - 0.5M
Using ipsos (broad strokes good enough) for the other eating pattern data
It's fine to be a minority group. Live and let live.
There are some people who simply cannot suffer us in our little corner of the internet at all. My poor little community script runs every day and bans many accounts for just downvoting all the posts in the community. https://discuss.online/modlog/696952
I've dug into the many of the non-obvious-sockpuppet accounts, and it seems most of the hate directed at us comes from our nearest neighbor at 3% total population. A group 500x more popular.
I really wish we could just be friends, let's agree that whole foods, totally unprocessed is good, and leave each other alone as allies in improving everyone's health. I'd like that. This childish animosity doesn't help anyone.
Perhaps this is just the cost of being a small fringe eating pattern, easy target for other less small groups to hate.
Eyeballing daily active users on the fediverse it looks like we have about 7,000 unique users every day. There are about 3 carnivores - which puts us at 0.04% of the lemmy population.
It feels like most of the negative interactions are very emotional. We have had a few cordial discussions with doubtful people here, but they are a very rare exception - at some point most people get very angry that we exist at all.
At it's core carnivore shouldn't be controversial. It's about attaining better health through removing as many variables as possible. It's very empirical, each individual is here because it fixed something for them in a short amount of time. It's not a philosophy, it is a set of guidelines to fix problems.
The standard sick person is a omnivore eating a 75% plant based highly processed diet, super high in carbs, low in animal protein, and lots of seed oils (they didn't exist 150 years ago)
The carnivore strategy says: Let's remove the 75% of things which you don't need, remove all the processed junk (including seed oils), and see if you get better in 30 days.
The 100% plant based strategy says: Hey, its the 15% holding you back, expand the 75% plants to 100%, and look at this epidemiology to know you should get better in a few years and if you don't get better, its not because of the strategy it's because you didn't try hard enough. Feels like a philosophical trap for people trying to improve health.
Yes, I'm aware that many people DO get better on 100% plant based, removing processed gunk is a good thing! Reducing Randle Cycle (not a cycle) inhibition is also a good thing! My argument is that if those two levers are not enough for someone the strategy blames the person, rather then trying a new approach. This user hostility is spilling over onto the carnivore community here on lemmy.
Funny thing - I've spoken with maybe 15 or 20 zero carb carnivores, and none of them, NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THEM - hates plant based people. They have all tried different things, this works for them, the more curious have reviewed the literature and found carnivore the most compelling - so plant based isn't for them... but none of them wishes ill on people doing a different diet. Honestly I wish everyone great outcomes on whatever diet they have chosen.
It's a small point of order, but China has been using sesame oil in food for at least 1500 years. The first recipe we have is in the 齊民要術 (Qimin Yaoshu / "Essential Techniques for the Welfare of the People" vol. 8 ch. 70 (zh)) from c.544 CE where scallions are fried in white sesame oil as part of a meat sauce recipe.
Earlier than that it was used for warfare, torches, lamps etc. More info on sesame agriculture in: Chen et al., 2024. Sesame use in Turpan during the Tang dynasty: evidence from the Astana Cemetery. Journal of Archaeological Science
That is a great point, if people are hand crushing their sesame oil perhaps that should count as a whole food.
I haven't read any papers on hand crushed sesame oil being any less inflammatory then other seed oils, but maybe? They will have plant sterols which will interfere with cholesterol - regardless.
I'm a bit of a subscriber to the theory that the body has a certain inflammation budget capacity, under that level of inflammation you don't have any issues; perhaps hand crushed flaxseed was under the 500 year old chinese inflammation budget? I'd love to read more about it
Do you know how common it was? like what % of dietary fat did it represent? Was it significant?
No clue about dietary percentages, unfortunately. The recipes and agriculture instructions we have in the Qimin Yaoshu (amongst a few others) do indicate a large amount of grain and legume consumption, but I expect the proportions of what people ate depended on how good the yield was for any given year anyway.
What we have left of the old recipes suggests sesame was likely cheaper than animal fats, because it's mentioned as a possible substitute for when you don't have animal fat available - the theory is that sesame oil production is how stir-frying came to be one of the big Chinese cooking techniques.
Something we do know that backs that theory is that sesame oil was being produced and traded in multi-barrel quantities for military campaigns. So it had to be a pretty sizable operation, even 1500 years ago.
Stone mills were used for extraction and there's suggestion that was happening thousands of years earlier - sesame isn't native to China. The paper I linked says they even found a jar of sesame seeds in Tutankhamun's tomb, which is pretty cool.
Sesame wasn't the only plant oil around in China in 500CE either, mustard oil and occasionally vegetable oils are mentioned in the texts. We also know hemp oil was being produced in China, but I don't think we know that anyone used it for cooking.
None of that has any bearing on inflammation, but I'm not sure we can really compare the circumstances of a 500CE citizen to the world we live in today anyway - there are way too many variables at play to draw a meaningful conclusion based on sesame oil consumption in ancient China.
100%
Sesame oil is used as a seasoning in Chinese cuisine, and not a frying oil. Traditionally, foods in Chinese cuisine are fried in lard. Scallions in sesame oil would be considered a condiment, to increase the fragrance of the food it was added to.
ok - so synthesizing this.... maybe a more correct statement would be
seed oils (not a significant component of dietary fat > 150 years ago)
how does that sound?
Sounds good!
Maybe it's worth drawing the line between cold pressed oils, like sesame and olive, and industrially refined oils, like rapeseed oil (canola) or rice bran oil.
I think its getting too complicated. The message gets muddied
The whole food message is to return to a historical eating pattern and remove unknown variables; But how to say it compactly?
Whole Foods (hand pressed oils for taste, not as a source of dietary fat)?
The best source I can find is use in russia and poland during religious fasts, but no solid data on % energy intake.
I appreciate this post by the way, as before this I also saw this sub as a bunch of nuts who want to eat twice as much meat to offset vegetarians.
I would describe myself as ecotarian, trying to minimize my ecological footprint within the bounds of a healthy (and let's be honest, lazy) diet. In practice I'm mostly vegetarian with a little fish occasionally (is that pescetarian? Or does that imply daily fish? Either way, you get my point).
If you mostly have medical reasons, by all means continue, you're not affecting the big picture, but I would like for the average person to at least reduce their meat consumption if not outright drop it.
It's really hard to overeat meat, btw, the satiety signalling from fat is very, very strong. I wouldn't be able to double my meat consumption even if I tried.
This! I've tried to eat to a protein target and if I'm not hungry, I can't do it. It's super difficult.
That being said, you put a pizza in front of me and I'll finish that off... Same stomach, same space, different hormonal response!
That is probably true regardless, it is kinda crazy.
Funny thing, it doesn't matter what your diet is, your protein requirements are the same.... so compared to the standard american diet... zero carb carnivore is eating the same meat levels but adding a bunch more fat. (hence the low carb high fat mantra in keto)
Preach! That is the dream.
Occasional fish is still pescatarian I think.
Why though? One of the really curious things about the emerging ketogenic, metabolic, low carb, and indeed zero-carb literature is that many people are living with long term metabolic issues and silently suffering just thinking whatever they have is normal. The metabolic mental health connection is very compelling. There are many anecdotes (https://whycarnivore.com/) of people resolving mysterious latent issue just by trying zero carb - skin conditions are the most common "I didn't even realize it was abnormal" self-reported resolution. My key thesis here is most people (93%) don't have optimal metabolic health, carnivore/keto/low-carb will help most people resolve issues from minor things like snoring to major things like fatty liver.
Let's assume your with me so far: so the pivot is why carnivore over plant based keto? carnivore more bioavailable, less weight of food eaten per day (350g vs 3,000g). Total absorption of food in the stomach, barely anything makes it into the gut, very easy on the intestines. Plant based keto will interfere with cholesterol (plant sterols getting substituted but not signaling properly) which will lower ldl. Also lectins/oxalates and other plant compounds that appear to be highly associated with inflammation and autoimmune issues.
So the schism I think we are left with is how do we reconcile - minimize my ecological footprint within the bounds of a healthy diet
Regenerative farming - buy a cow every year (or two) from a regenerative farm, pasture raised on land that can't be used for crops, using the cows natural diet. ruminants are part of the natural biocycle, the cows emissions will fertilize the field, the hooves will aerate and churn the soil, their munching will encourage the grass to have stronger roots - over time that field will become more fertile and it could eventually become cropland. Heck even the three field rotation system still requires ruminants to do this on fallow fields. There is a necessary place in sustainable ecology for ruminants. I'd argue this is the lowest ecological footprint you could actually have. Find a local farm and you can even save on the planet with less energy spent on shipping things around and logistics.
Now... I've said lots of things, that are kinda outside the normal talking points (I admit I'm kinda crazy), but I think the extra cost of real regenerative cattle is worth it for the best ecological footprint and health imaginable...
And lets talk about lazy... this isn't a joke or exaggeration - I cook one steak every day, no prep, just heat and sear in a few minutes.. and i eat it, that's it. no prep, one meal.. and honestly I skip days sometimes if i'm busy. Life not dominated by hunger is amazing and super lazy! And as a super lazy bonus - no pooping, I barely spend any time in the bathroom... its not constipation if I'm empty, all the food fat and protein is dissolved in the stomach.
So the entire crazy pill - Carnivore gets people back to ancestral eating patterns which we are well adapted to, it gets our food back into biocycle rhythm which the nature is well adapted to, and it gets our health back toward optimal which means we spend less time being sick.
I'm not saying everyone should go carnivore, but I want people to know its a highly effective tool available to them, and I'd like them to be able to make informed decisions regarding their health without stigma.
However, I'm actually happy for you to be successful on any lifestyle you choose. If your getting the outcomes you want, more power to you. Just check your last lipid panel if your TG/HDL ratio is > 2, you have room for metabolic improvement, but if your under 2, and especially under 1, then your doing great.
This is the main thing that doesn't add up for me, this almost 10fold less food usage doesn't weigh up against the 50fold (very back of the envelope averages of things you can't average, but rough numbers) decrease of land usage of lamb/beef vs eggs/grains/fish/nuts/peas.
Source: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-protein-poore
Afaik reducing meat consumption is the single biggest (positive) impact one can have on their ecological footprint.
I wonder how correct that is, because I also know that we're one of the rare few organisms with broken genes for vitamin c, because our ancestors sat in trees munching fruits rich in vitamin c and it didn't put evolutionary pressure on the ones missing that gene.
Both can be true of course, in different distances of ancestry, but it would surprise me, given the length of our intestines compared to true carnivores, that our ideal ancestral eating pattern is pure meat. (On a side note, ancestral anything is not a strong argument imo, as neither the meat nor the fruit/veg/... we eat today resembles much of what our ancestors ate, nor does our daily pattern)
That said, I believe most of the other facts you stated, like bioavailability (which goes both ways though, prions and other diseases are way easier to catch from meat) etc, so I definitely can believe the diet works, I just don't think it should be advertised as a one size fits all, nor as a first step (not that I think you're doing that). I'll definitely accept it as a step after you've tried reducing meat and processed foods etc etc.
Same here though, I wish you and anyone else here all the best, and thanks for so honestly and openly having this discussion!
This graph is misleading because it looks at amount of land, but not type of land used. We have arable land and pastoral land. I.e. there are areas we can't grow crops but can feed ruminates. That breakdown is like 30/70 of agricultural land FAO Source
Meaning even if every cow was dead we don't get more arable land... which brings us to soil health - there is a bit of a top soil crisis happening, we are losing it, we are not regenerating it and our ability to produce fertilizer from fossil fuels is not infinite. We need to start taking regenerative farming seriously, soil health is importing for plants and animals and humans.
I disagree, I'd say people need to eat local whole foods without external inputs as much as possible. Animal sources make this possible, that is how we lived historically - we couldn't import exotic plants around the globe to cover a nutrient deficiency
Another complicating factor you need to add to your calculations is that about 800M people have T2D globally right now, and we spend something like 9% of global emissions in the treatment of T2D and it's complications. A sick population eating food that drives metabolic disease is expensive on the environment even if the food is "free"... T2D is completely avoided on a low carb / keto / zero carb eating pattern, and can even be reversed in many cases with strict keto.
Turns out one of the historic cures for scurvy is fresh meat! Basically zero carb meat eaters get their vitamin c from meat. two interesting mechanisms - carbohydrates elevate blood glucose, which cells use the GLUT4 transporter to move into the cell... but vitamin C also gets into cells via the same GLUT4 transporter. A high carb diet means vitamin c is competing for a highly contested transporter and this is why sailors eating mostly hard tack (clack-clack) often got scurvy. Now consider zero-carb carnivore, no extra glucose to compete for the glut4 transporter, so the smaller dose of vitamin c in meat doesn't compete and gets in... plus some of the products vitamin c is converted into is abundant in meat.... double efficiency win.
Well, you also need to consider the length of our cecum (place to ferment vegetable matter) - its almost totally gone. As far as I can tell from the literature, we started as frugivores in trees, we scavenged high fat left overs from carnivores / ate seafood, developed our brains, and over about 2.5 million years our gut adapted to high fat, low carb... but how we got here isn't really material, its how our bodies react to the inputs we give it, that is what matters to us today.
It might be a unpopular opinion, but i think it makes logical sense as a strong first step in anybody's health journey, do a clean elimination diet with a highly bioavailable food for 30 days - see if whatever is bothering you got better, if it did then you can add things back in and figure out what your trigger was. It's a huge efficiency - it reduces so many variables .
Agreed on processed foods as a easy first step, I've seen no data that eliminating meat has a measurable health benefit - especially not in a short term testable fashion
Absolutely! Always happy to chit chat! I like the push back, its productive!
Ok but it feels like you're being purposefully obtuse.
You know why vegans are hating on you, right? To them it's like you get a rash all the time, but you find out as long as you stomp on 3 puppies a day, you won't break out. Then you're upset because people are yelling at you to stop stomping on puppies.
In the gentlest way I can put this, that's a very unfair comparison. It's more that we've discovered that the rash is caused by eating plants, and so we've decided to stop. Wouldn't you?
I personally find it very sad that to think that we are being vilified and compared to people who'd stomp on puppies, just because we've decided to be do what we've needed to do to be healthy.
Yeah, but they also hate 98% of the world too for the same reason. I'd prefer they hate me over there in their 75 lemmy communities, no need to come here to do it.
pointing out a minority group, that is 500x the size of a super minority group, is abusing structural privilege to brigade and censor.. and just demonstrating it isn't neighborly or consistent with lemmy norms... that is a fairly muted and mellow response.