Starting The Carnivore Diet

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#3503015 15-Jun-2026 07:56

cddt:

Tinkerisk:

I buy rice in 10kg bags

I buy my rice like I buy my potatoes, in 20/25 kg bags — much more affordable.

10kg Jap. rice, 10kg Indian rice, 10kg Thai rice = 30kg. 😉

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#3503118 15-Jun-2026 13:00

cddt:

Paul1977:

I do miss snacking while watching TV though…

Could this be the root of the problem, rather than the content of meals?

Absolutely. But on a "regular" diet I find if I don't have snacks, I'm too hungry. But I certainly ate far too much chocolate and chips. I just can't moderate, which is why I fail at following sensible advice.

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#3503134 15-Jun-2026 13:53

Oddly enough, the more I eat, the more hungry I get. When I do fasting, even just skipping breakfast and sometimes lunch, my appetite reduces. Eating protein and fat helps a lot, eating carbs just increases appetite.

Paul1977

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#3503139 15-Jun-2026 14:15

dafman:

It can’t be good for you in the long run. Our bodies haven’t evolved over 300,000 years to be carnivorous only.

You may lose weight in the short term; the long term prospects are likely a toss up between, stroke, heart attack or bowel cancer.

You may well be right, but it's all correlation studies from what I can tell. People with a diet high in red meat and saturated fats have worse health outcomes on average. But that group is potentially more likely to be overweight, exercise less, and consume more sugar and processed foods as well.

I'm not saying carnivore is a healthy long-term strategy, because there have been no long-term studies of health outcomes for people who make it a permanent lifestyle change.

Rikkitic

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#3503200 15-Jun-2026 15:13

Actually, we evolved to eat fruit. Just like monkeys. Meat was a rare additional treat, not a dietary staple.

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MikeAqua

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#3503252 15-Jun-2026 15:37

timmmay:

Oddly enough, the more I eat, the more hungry I get. When I do fasting, even just skipping breakfast and sometimes lunch, my appetite reduces. Eating protein and fat helps a lot, eating carbs just increases appetite.

That's because (simplification) they spike your blood sugars, which then crash and cause you to crave food.

Often foods with a low GI don't do this. In winter, I often make myself pearl barley porridge. It's got a lower GI than oat porridge. You can make it sweet (fruit, yoghurt, cream etc) or savoury (miso, mushrooms , cooked chicken, corn, quails egg, bonito flakes etc). It can be bit of faff to make, so I make it in bulk and freeze single portions. Keeps me full until lunchtime.

Mike

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timmmay

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#3503255 15-Jun-2026 15:59

Rikkitic:

Actually, we evolved to eat fruit. Just like monkeys. Meat was a rare additional treat, not a dietary staple.

I think that comment would benefit from providing evidence. I suspect humans were omnivores, eating whatever they could find.

Rikkitic

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#3503263 15-Jun-2026 16:42

timmmay:

Rikkitic:

Actually, we evolved to eat fruit. Just like monkeys. Meat was a rare additional treat, not a dietary staple.

I think that comment would benefit from providing evidence. I suspect humans were omnivores, eating whatever they could find.

MY evidence comes from hours and hours of watching David Attenborough documentaries and others! No, I haven't studied it and I can't prove it. I remember one documentary I saw a few years ago where a horde of chimps ran a monkey down through the trees and then gorged on its flesh! Apparently researchers have been surprised by the primate taste for meat. Fruit is still the main food but that may mainly be because meat is hard to come by.

We are certainly omnivores and probably have been from the beginning but we didn't start out supporting ourselves from hunting. That came after we developed a taste for blood from opportunistic dining on carrion flesh. No, I don't have evidence for that either.

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Paul1977

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#3503692 17-Jun-2026 10:07

Strangest thing happened this morning. I didn't realise until I was at the top, but I jogged up the stairs at work instead of my usual slow lumbering effort.

MikeAqua

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#3503728 17-Jun-2026 11:43

Rikkitic:

Actually, we evolved to eat fruit. Just like monkeys. Meat was a rare additional treat, not a dietary staple.

TL;DR We evolved away from an arboreal existence with a lot of fruit and leaf consumption 8 million years ago, to a grass-plains existence, including being omnivores (scavenging and hunting).

The evolutionary pathway I was taught at school/uni was ...

We share a common ancestor with all primates. The earliest known common ancestor (from fossils) with monkeys is Aegyptopithicus (dawn ape). It lived around 30 million years ago.

From that point, evolution separates into Hominids (us, chimps, bonobos, gorillas and orangs) and old-world monkeys (monkeys, baboons, siams, etc). Old world monkeys give rise to new world monkeys, which are found in the Americas. The mechanism for this accidental spread is thought to be vegetation rafts, and it happened at least twice.

There is an ice age, which decreases forest cover and increases savannah. This eventually results in the evolution of Australopithecines, which are upright herbivorous hominids.

Eventually the Homo genus arises. One of them (I can never remember if it's H. habilis or H. erectus), develops tools for smashing open long bones to get marrow (high nutritional value). That is the start of our omnivore journey. This probably drives strong selection for group co-operation (you'd have to scare off hyenas etc to get at the bones first) and language. Kill Stealing kills from large predators, hunting and fire follow.

Our intestines shrink, because we can cook food. Our brains grow (because we can access enough fat). H. sapiens, H neanderthals and H floresiensis evolve. The hobbits die of and we kill and genetically assimilate the Neanderthals. Disclaimer: I'm sure the scientific consensus has changed since I studied all this, but the broad outline will still be about right.

Now ... back to monkeys and fruit. Monkeys also eat leaves, some roots and shoots - which they can digest. Fibre intake helps limit how much sugar is absorbed from fruit. We evolved away from an arboreal life ~8 million years ago.

We retained traits like the ability to see well, in colour and to tolerate some alcohol (fermented fruit). But ... we don't tolerate excess fructose well. Modern varieties of fruits are very sweet. Way too much fructose for us. To the point where it becomes inflammatory and can cause liver problems if fruit is eaten to excess.

Mike

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#3503731 17-Jun-2026 11:55

MikeAqua:

Rikkitic:

Actually, we evolved to eat fruit. Just like monkeys. Meat was a rare additional treat, not a dietary staple.

TL;DR We evolved away from an arboreal existence with a lot of fruit and leaf consumption 8 million years ago, to a grass-plains existence, including being omnivores (scavenging and hunting).

The evolutionary pathway I was taught at school/uni was ...

We share a common ancestor with all primates. The earliest known common ancestor (from fossils) with monkeys is Aegyptopithicus (dawn ape). It lived around 30 million years ago.

From that point, evolution separates into Hominids (us, chimps, bonobos, gorillas and orangs) and old-world monkeys (monkeys, baboons, siams, etc). Old world monkeys give rise to new world monkeys, which are found in the Americas. The mechanism for this accidental spread is thought to be vegetation rafts, and it happened at least twice.

There is an ice age, which decreases forest cover and increases savannah. This eventually results in the evolution of Australopithecines, which are upright herbivorous hominids.

Eventually the Homo genus arises. One of them (I can never remember if it's H. habilis or H. erectus), develops tools for smashing open long bones to get marrow (high nutritional value). That is the start of our omnivore journey. This probably drives strong selection for group co-operation (you'd have to scare off hyenas etc to get at the bones first) and language. Kill Stealing kills from large predators, hunting and fire follow.

Our intestines shrink, because we can cook food. Our brains grow (because we can access enough fat). H. sapiens, H neanderthals and H floresiensis evolve. The hobbits die of and we kill and genetically assimilate the Neanderthals. Disclaimer: I'm sure the scientific consensus has changed since I studied all this, but the broad outline will still be about right.

Now ... back to monkeys and fruit. Monkeys also eat leaves, some roots and shoots - which they can digest. Fibre intake helps limit how much sugar is absorbed from fruit. We evolved away from an arboreal life ~8 million years ago.

We retained traits like the ability to see well, in colour and to tolerate some alcohol (fermented fruit). But ... we don't tolerate excess fructose well. Modern varieties of fruits are very sweet. Way too much fructose for us. To the point where it becomes inflammatory and can cause liver problems if fruit is eaten to excess.

You would still be looking at something like 750g to 1.5kg of whole fruit per day to start hitting the levels that are problematic for some people when consuming foods with added isolated fructose (and the fruit has the ameloriating effect of being packaged with fibre and other nutrients).

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MikeAqua

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#3503750 17-Jun-2026 13:20

rhy7s:

You would still be looking at something like 750g to 1.5kg of whole fruit per day to start hitting the levels that are problematic for some people when consuming foods with added isolated fructose (and the fruit has the ameloriating effect of being packaged with fibre and other nutrients).

If you're eating sweet fruits, you need about 3kg per day for 2,000 calories. Something like mango is only 700cal/kg. A smart person would be eating nuts, avo's and coconuts to get some fats and proteins. Fibre helps for sure. It traps some sugar in the digestive track, so it gets egested.

The original point was we're evolved to eat fruits like monkeys [paraphrased]. To start with .... the premise is false. Monkeys don't just eat fruits. They also eat highly fibrous vegetation. And ...most monkeys are omnivores, they eat bugs, grubs, reptiles, rodents, eggs ... our ancestors were probably omnivores long before we swung down from the trees. It's likely the earliest hominids were too. Chimps use spears to hunt bush babies.

We've evolved to eat a mixed diet, including cooked foods.

Mike

Rikkitic

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#3503935 18-Jun-2026 11:56

MikeAqua:

Now ... back to monkeys and fruit. Monkeys also eat leaves, some roots and shoots - which they can digest. Fibre intake helps limit how much sugar is absorbed from fruit. We evolved away from an arboreal life ~8 million years ago.

We retained traits like the ability to see well, in colour and to tolerate some alcohol (fermented fruit). But ... we don't tolerate excess fructose well. Modern varieties of fruits are very sweet. Way too much fructose for us. To the point where it becomes inflammatory and can cause liver problems if fruit is eaten to excess.

I still like a banana, as does every monkey and ape I have ever met.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

Paul1977

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#3504011 18-Jun-2026 14:53

Well, jogging up the stairs yesterday might have been an aberration - I was back to my slow lumbering today. I'd say, so far, energy levels not noticeably affected. Same for most of the other common claims such is increased mental clarity and improved mood etc.

Too early to make any real judgements, but I suspect that a lot of these claims come from people who were suffering badly from something in their old diet - and eliminating nearly everything naturally eliminates the one or two things that were causing them issues. Or maybe I'm the exception and the only side effect for me of too many carbs and sugar is just getting fat.

My pants are feeling a little looser though, so that's good.

But assuming it works well for weight loss, I plan to stick with it until I'm down to a more sensible weight - and maybe in that time some of the other supposed benefits will manifest.

MikeAqua

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#3504050 18-Jun-2026 16:39

Rikkitic:

I still like a banana, as does every monkey and ape I have ever met.

Liking the occasional banana, does not mean you're adapted to live on fruit diet 😃. BTW humans are apes. Specifically, we are great apes - with the Pan (chimps and bonos), Pongo (orangs) and Gorilla.

Mike

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