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Connection, Consciousness, Wisdom

Nutrition

My views on nutrition have changed quite a bit over the years. Primarily I’m interested in a diet for mental health and performance. I still am. The previous dietary advice is included at the bottom of this page (the old stuff).

This is what I want to get across:

If ever in your life you are desperate for health TRY THE CARNIVORE DIET.

If ever in your life you are desperate for physical, mental, or emotional health try the carnivore diet!

I say this for two reasons, 1. it will usually take something extreme for a person to go against all nutritional advice they’ve ever heard and cut out so many foods they’re used to. 2. I’ve come to believe the carnivore diet is nearly optimal for human health.

I’ve waited along time to “evangelize” about the carnivore diet. I see why some people make it their entire personality.

Once you truly feel the effects of this way of eating you will want to shout it from the rooftops. I can’t help bringing it up to people. I try not to be too pushy, but I wish everyone would experiment. They could feel it for themselves.

I’ve seen this simple phrase come up a lot in the carnivore community: meat heals. People list all of the health symptoms that the carnivore diet cured. Sometimes health conditions they’ve had for decades gone within weeks to months of the diet change.

Dr. Ken Berry calls the carnivore diet the “proper human diet.” All the foods causing you issues get out of the way and the body can heal without impediments.

I won’t say I figured this out on my own or approached the diet with noble intentions. A friend’s partner was trying the diet. He told me that plants like spinach have toxins in them. I thought he was in an insane and harmful conspiracy theory. Plants have toxic defense chemicals? That goes against everything I’d heard.

I read so much you can find later on this page and so much included a more plant-based diet. Two of the top resources recommended meat, red meat, and eggs. I ignored the red meat, ate fish and chicken, and tried to keep my saturated fat low. I mixed all the dietary advice I could find together. I counted calories, macros, made a spreadsheet to match the M.I.N.D. diet study, and all sorts of things. I was feeling better and losing weight, but I struggled with binging and drinking alcohol. Getting most of the processed food out of my life helped a lot, but I didn’t know how much better I could feel.

Eventually I gained significant weight back. I was gaining and losing the same few pounds. I ate 4 salads per week, 2+ servings of vegetables a day, soup, a daily breakfast of protein packed oatmeal with blueberries unless I was intermittent fasting. It was okay, but the monster salads took me two hours to eat sometimes. For the first time in my life I actually got bored and tired of eating. It was really a privilege.

Then I came across a video by a martial artist I follow, Grant Stevens. He trains a ton, has explosive energy, and was super lean. He said he followed an animal based diet like many fighters do. He ate a steak per day. Whoa! What? An animal based diet? I’d never heard it put that way. That’s an option? At this point I want to be RIPPED. What do I have to do to get shredded?

While I’ve seen Grant has changed his diet, I went down the rabbit hole of animal based. That took me straight to Paul Saladino. I was hooked. In January of 2024 I decided to start the new year doing AB30, animal based for 30 days. Saladino was my introduction to the space. I became convinced.

Every living thing wants to survive. Why would a plant want you to eat its leaves, roots, or stem? You’re killing it and taking away its energy producers.

Plants fight back with chemical warfare. They create compounds to deter predators. Most meat is safe to eat because animals can fight or flee.

Plants concentrate these defense chemicals in their seeds because that’s their babies.

Suddenly things started clicking. If you think about it from the plant’s perspective this makes total sense. They want to live and protect too. Why would a plant want to be eaten with no benefit?

Well, I would give the diet a try and see what happened. I used the food calculator they provided and was generous with myself. I tried the keto diet years ago, so I thought this would be easy by comparison with some carbs. My diet was a bit ridiculous. A typical day was the following:

I would consume this twice a day. I didn’t count calories as they say that would be unnecessary. Only later did I calculate this would be over 5,000 calories per day! This was over double what I was eating in a day before. My energy levels went way up. I felt satisfied. I wasn’t tempted by anything sweet knowing that I had fruit and honey to look forward to. I was incredibly satisfied and noticed changes in my bodily health.

Not only did I feel great and satisfied but I slowly lost weight, a few pounds, while eating this much. After the first few months of this I stuck to the diet with relative ease. I wasn’t consumed by cravings for much of anything.

I fell down the carnivore rabbit hole. Some friends questioned my diet and called Paul Saladino a quack. The animal based group were a little culty. I did buy some supplements from his company, dessicated organs, bone powder pills, and some organ meat fats. I started learning more and found out Saladino originally was on the carnivore diet.

Since then I’ve learned about Shawn Baker, Anthony Chaffee, Steak and Butter gal, Ken Berry, Max German, Kent carnivore, Kelly Hogan, and more. Lots of people have tried the carnivore diet. I listened to the arguments and found testimonials. I decided to try the full carnivore diet after about 3 months.

There are two books I would highly recommend:

Dr. Ede is a Harvard trained nutritional psychiatrist. Her book is fascinating. She doesn’t even explicitly say carnivore is the best diet. She argues people can try a paleo diet, keto, then carnivore as the most restrictive. This is a therapeutic tool. She rails against grains and legumes especially. She writes about how healthy ketosis is for the brain. How many psychiatric illnesses, schizophrenia, bipolar, etc. could come from impairments in energy systems, specifically mitochondria. There’s an “engine E” and “engine M,” pathways which metabolize sugars and fats. There are more steps to the sugar pathway. If there’s some issue with metabolizing sugars then all kinds of things can go wrong. People with mental struggles may have more problems with these pathways.

Some mental illnesses can literally be cured by ketosis.

Not to mention in many studies people have reduced symptoms and far less need for medication. Like many others I was starting my day with a bowl of whole grains (oatmeal), nuts, and blueberries for my brain health. She calls out this example of how people are trying to do the right thing with the wrong information! I was blown away that some of the healthiest brain foods are the nutritionally dense red meat and eggs! So while I searched for optimal brain foods I previously ignored some of the best.

The Vegetarian Myth was also an incredible read. It’s one of the best books out there for vegans and vegetarians. Keith was a vegan for several years with increasing health issues which led her to learn more. I was once vegan for a few years and heavily struggled with it. Honestly, most meals were “sad.” Of course I missed meat. Of course I craved it. Like Keith I wanted to minimize harm to animals and the environment. Keith goes into the history of how agriculture is actually terrible for both animals and the environment. It’s a hard truth for empathetic people: life must die for us to live. There’s no way around it.

Her argument is long and worth listening to even in a podcast. Agriculture is a scar on the land, supports empires, war, keeps us addicted, and hurts animals unnaturally. Nature intended for hooved animals to live on the grasslands. Grass grazers are like the blood of the ecosystem. When they flee from predators to different areas it’s like the pulse of a beating heart. That’s what really sequesters carbon and heals the ecosystem. Animal farming can be done in a restorative way to heal the planet.

This has all radically changed my outlook on life and diet. Again, I understand this goes against everything people have likely heard about nutrition and health. All I can say is that when you feel what it’s like to be fat-adapted on animal products you will know this is truly the optimal diet for humans, the true human diet.

I am really going so far as to say that you will feel like a human being for the first time in your life.

This is why I say that if you are ever desperate for health you should try carnivore! The stories of healing are endless. There’s an answer for just about every question you have.

For now, here’s an incomplete list of the benefits I’ve experienced:

Some on this list I’ll go into detail later. It’s hard to explain what a relief this has been in so many ways. I’ve had food issues my whole life and the carnivore way of eating has cleared up so much. I discovered I do have some mild food allergies! Sadly, from what I can tell this comes from some cheese mold. I can eat fresh cheese no problem but old cheese causes me to have some rashes. I likely wouldn’t have noticed without my body getting rid of this regular exposure.

On top of all this I’ve lost over 20 pounds of fat this passed year!

That from eating above maintenance. I was never trying to restrict myself. I ate mostly whenever I wanted. That’s part of the beauty of this diet. Eat until you’re satisfied then stop. That’s never been an intuitive thing for me before. I’ve realized that carbs rev up my hunger. I’ve eating a pound of meat and been entirely full. My brother will cook and pizza and suddenly I’m hungry again. It’s just tough for me to eat until satiety with carbs.

I haven’t been strict either. If I really want to eat something I just eat it. I’ve found I almost always regret it, and rarely is it as good as I hoped it would be. I recommend not cheating! If you do get some extra vitamin C as carbs compete with vitamin C receptors. I don’t go for “healthy” foods either. I want cookies and ice cream. When I’ve had pizza, something I never wanted to go without before, I realized it just wasn’t that satisfying of a food. It’s a calorie bomb but insufficient protein. I was surprised to find how many foods don’t taste like “real” food anymore. In fact many fibrous things don’t fully register as food to my body. It’s like eating paper.

I am shocked at just how nourished my body is on a pound of beef and 2 eggs. I love getting my pound of meat out of the freezer. I think of it as my “food brick.” I did Soylent experiments, but this is what I wanted, healthy foods I could set on repeat and know my body is getting everything it needs.

For advice on how to get started:

Eat meat, not too little, mostly fat - Amber O’Hearn.

Start with balancing your protein and fat at 50/50. You can move around from there.

I hope you give it a solid try, 1 to 3 months. It may change your life for the better forever.

The Old Stuff

“Nutrition is the science that interprets the nutrients and other substances in food in relation to maintenance, growth, reproduction, health and disease of an organism,” – Wikipedia.

I’m not a nutritionist. None of this is “legitimate” nutritional advice. However food is one of the pillars of health and one area we can make good choices. To be upfront, I’ve struggled with my weight my whole life. I was obese at the age of 6 and spent most of my childhood overweight. I’ve experimented and learned about food and diets for over 15 years.

My goal is a personal diet for optimal brain function.

This isn’t about looking good, athletic performance, or a way to eat for a few weeks. This diet is for mental athletes. Foods that boost focus, learning, and wellbeing. A balanced meal plan that balances neurotransmitters. I want to present concise diet advice, and afterwards I will provide my resources and justification.

Your diet should include:

Traditional food is best. If you have a connection to a culture going back 1000 years, look into traditionally known foods of your people. What would your great, great, great grandma recognize as food? Try to cover the 4 points above.

Food is information. The closest connection our body gets to the outside world is food passing through the digestive tract. Whatever you eat is telling your body what your access to the environment is like.

Eat whole foods, not too much, mostly plants.

Eat across the rainbow - eat foods that are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Eat a variety foods where each has its own benefits.

Eat as close to the source of your food as possible. Raw nuts, not nut milk.

Avoid C.R.A.P. Chemicals, Refined sugar & flour, Artificial stuff, Preservatives.

Deep Nutrition

Much of the above is from Deep Nutrition by Catherine Shanahan, M.D. Shanahan spent years searching for good nutrition and forms arguments based on research and physiology. She honed her diet advice to the 4 pillars. Additionally Shanahan gives arguments and explanations for consumption of fats. Many of the fats available today are not properly formed on a molecular level. Fats make up so many important areas of our body from cholesterol in cell walls to the myelin sheaths of our neurons.

A key take away is: stay away from vegetable oils!

The processing of these oils breaks down the integrity of the fats which lead to a breakdown in the integrity of our bodies. The information sent confuses our bodies which have never had to process this before in nature. To keep this simple, eat no processed fats besides olive oil, avocado oil, and animal fats.

Cook with olive oil around 374–405°F (190–207°C). For higher temperatures, use avocado oil up to 520°F.

For macronutrients, the recommended fat intake is 60-85% of daily calories! That is quite a bit! Dr. Shanahan recommends only 30-70g of carbs on most days (100g max) unless you are an athlete, so this is low carb. Most carbs should be eaten at dinner.

1) Eat a big colorful salad four days per week with a non-vegetable oil dressing.

2) Grass-fed dairy fat daily

Raw is better, where available.

3) Get bone stock.

I have to say drinking bone broth had a huge impact on me. Bone broth which has 10g of protein per serving nourishes our gut lining, skin, and bones. The minerals are highly satisfying.

4) Eat organ meats at least once weekly.

Liver or liverwurst on crackers. If no organ meats, seafood 3 times weekly, preferably raw at least once - raw oysters, sashimi, ceviche, pickled herring. If not seafood, pasture-raised eggs 3 times weekly (cook sunny-side only so long that the yolk stays runny).

5) Eat probiotic-rich foods once a day.

MIND Diet

While Deep Nutrition is about general health, there are diets specifically designed for mind health. The MIND diet is a combination of two well supported diets for brain health and longevity.

10 “brain-healthy food groups:”

The 5 unhealthy groups are:

Something great about the MIND diet is they found people who follow the guidelines about 80% still got the majority of the benefits. That means we can still have “cheat” meals a few times a week to be flexible and know we’re overall protected.

Table 1

So we’re aiming for a score of 12 or above out of a possible 15. Notice we can fit this diet to the deep nutrition criteria in terms of food choices.

From the Harvard review wine is no longer required and alcohol can be removed entirely. Simple guidelines are:

“The healthy items the MIND diet guidelines suggest include:

The unhealthy items, which are higher in saturated and trans fat, include:

Genius Foods

Another diet aimed at brain optimization and Alzheimer’s prevention is Genius Foods.

Genius Foods

  1. Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
  2. Avocados
  3. Blueberries
  4. Dark Chocolate
  5. Eggs
  6. Grass-Fed Beef
  7. Dark Leafy Greens
  8. Broccoli
  9. Wild Salmon
  10. Almonds

Similar to Deep Nutrition, the Genius Foods diet calls for low carb, high fat. They recommend a 2 week period for becoming fat adapted.

Custom Carb Pyramid (3 Tiers)

Ultra-low/Ketogenic (Days 1-14)

Low(er) carb (after 14 days)

Optional: Carb cycling

Low levels of the hormone leptin can cause anhedonia (a lack of pleasure and happiness) and social withdrawal! Sleep heavily effects leptin. Intermittent fasting helps leptin regulation. Having refeed days of carbs and low fat keeps leptin levels stable. Eat your carbs on workout days. A high carb day is 150g of carbs where most Americans eat 300g of carbs on average. Low carb is 30-80g. Ketogenic diets hover around 30g carbs. The minimum necessary carbs for healthy brain function is 30g and lower causes serious health decline.

Planetary Health Diet - Flexitarian diet for 10 Billion People

The flexitarian diet which aims for sustainability. “A diet has been developed that promises to save lives, feed 10 billion people and all without causing catastrophic damage to the planet.”

  1. Nuts - 50g a day
  2. Beans, chickpeas, lentils and other legumes - 75g a day
  3. Fish - 28g a day
  4. Eggs - 13g a day (so one and a bit a week)
  5. Meat - 14g a day of red meat and 29g a day of chicken
  6. Carbs - whole grains like bread and rice 232g a day and 50g a day of starchy vegetables
  7. Dairy - 250g - the equivalent of one glass of milk
  8. Vegetables -(300g) and fruit (200g)

The diet has room for 31g of sugar and about 50g worth of oils like olive oil.

Who came up with this?

A group of 37 scientists from around the world were brought together as part of the EAT-Lancet commission.

They’re a mix of experts from farming to climate change to nutrition. They took two years to come up with their findings which have been published in the Lancet.

Why do we need a diet for 10 billion people?

The world population reached seven billion in 2011 and it’s now around 7.7 billion. That figure is expected to reach 10 billion around 2050 and will keep on climbing.

Will it save lives?

The researchers say the diet will prevent about 11 million people dying each year.

That number is largely down to cutting diseases related to unhealthy diets such as heart attacks, strokes and some cancers. These are now the biggest killers in developed countries.

The similarities are as interesting as the differences among these diets. We can mostly make one “fit” another’s requirements. While Deep Nutrition and Genius Foods are low carb high fat, the MIND diet and planetary diet call for higher carbs. However our carb limit can go up to 150g while still being far less than the standard American diet. If we have hard workout days then our carbs can be eaten like a typical MIND diet day with 3 or more servings of carbs (whole grains).

From my personal experience I can say it’s tough varying days of carbs. There are insulin spikes and drops which are destabilizing. Staying steady one way or the other helps mood stabilization. I’m still working on carb timing and carb amount. Both Deep Nutrition and Genius Foods recommend at least a 2 week fat adaptation period where eating too many carbs for too long can knock you out of this.