A commenter, Rob, wondered if we are not better off on a no-carbohydrate diet.
Could it be possible that a diet of no carbs is the healthiest for humans? Maybe early humans existed for thousands of years through ice ages eating only meat. Don’t they find fossils of animal bones butchered with stone tools and not much evidence of any other food? Our digestive system is very different from a chimps or gorillas which both are able to digest vegetation much better than us. Maybe rollercoasting insulin and glucose levels are the main cause of health problems?
My own opinion, not without reading over the years, is yes, we could easily survive on a no-carbohydrate diet. Having just indulged in two Lindor chocolate truffles (my ‘reward’ for a long bike ride), I can only suggest that Rob is correct, and that it would be just a tad boring. It so happens that I just read a piece by Gary Taubes, science journalist, who has been writing about this subject for decades. In his latest piece, Tales from the History of Carnivore Diets, he offers the following (rather long but riveting) quotes:
This first is from ” … a book published in 1917 describing the experience of a crew of explorers led by General William Ashley and (later) Jedediah Smith. Known as Ashley’s hundred, they explored the American frontier from the Mississippi River to California in the 1820s. …
This excerpt comes from Ashley’s own account, which is reprinted in the book:”
In relation to the subsistence of men and horses, I will remark that nothing now is actually necessary for the support of men in the wilderness than a plentiful supply of good fresh meat . It is all that our mountaineers ever require or even seem to wish. They prefer the meat of the buffaloe [sic] to that of any other animal, and the circumstance of the uninterrupted health of these people who generally eat unreasonable quantities of meat at their meals, proves it to be the most wholesome and best adapted food to the constitution of man. In the different concerns which I have had in the Indian Country, where not less than one hundred men have been annually employed for the last four years and subsist altogether upon meat, I have not known at any time a single instance of bilious fever among them or any other disease prevalent in the settled parts of our country, except a few instances (and but very few) of slight fevers produced by colds or rheumatic affections, contracted while in the discharge of guard duty on cold and inclement nights. Nor have we in the whole four years lost a single man by death except those who came to their end prematurely by being either shot or drowned .
Again, from Taubes:
“This reminded me of Richard Henry Dana Jr.’s experience on the California coast in the mid-1830s, or just a half dozen years later. Dana was a well-to-do Bostonian who dropped out of Harvard in 1831 and took the opportunity to experience the life of a common sailer. He signed up on a sailing ship, the Pilgrim, which would take him from Boston, around Cape Horn, to California to trade for cattle hide
Dana wrote about his experience in a book called Two Years Before the Mast, which was published in 1840. In the book, Dana describes the work they were doing once they arrived in California, loading some 40,000 cattle hides on to the Pilgrim to take back to Boston.
This was the most lively part of our work. A little boating and beach work in the morning; then twenty or thirty men down in a close hold, where we were obliged to sit down and slide about, passing hides, and rowsing about the great steeves, tackles, and dogs, singing out at the falls, and seeing the ship filling up every day. The work was as hard as it could well be. There was not a moment’s cessation from Monday morning till Saturday night, when we were generally beaten out, and glad to have a full night’s rest, a wash and shift of clothes, and a quiet Sunday. During all this time,—which would have startled Dr. Graham—we lived upon almost nothing but fresh beef; fried beefsteaks, three times a day,—morning, noon, and night. At morning and night we had a quart of tea to each man; and an allowance of about a pound of hard bread a day; but our chief article of food was the beef. A mess, consisting of six men, had a large wooden kid piled up with beefsteaks, cut thick, and fried in fat, with the grease poured over them. Round this we sat, attacking it with our jack-knives and teeth, and with the appetite of young lions, and sent back an empty kid to the galley. This was done three times a day. How many pounds each man ate in a day, I will not attempt to compute. A whole bullock (we ate liver and all) lasted us but four days. Such devouring of flesh, I will venture to say, was seldom known before. What one man ate in a day, over a hearty man’s allowance, would make a Russian’s heart leap into his mouth. Indeed, during all the time we were upon the coast, our principal food was fresh beef, and every man had perfect health; but this was a time of especial devouring; and what we should have done without meat, I cannot tell. Once or twice, when our bullocks failed and we were obliged to make a meal upon dry bread and water, it seemed like feeding upon shavings. Light and dry, feeling unsatisfied, and, at the same time, full, we were glad to see four quarters of a bullock, just killed, swinging from the fore-top. Whatever theories may be started by sedentary men, certainly no men could have gone through more hard work and exposure for sixteen months in more perfect health, and without ailings and failings, than our ship’s crew, let them have lived upon Hygeia’s2 own baking and dressing.
There’s far more in the Taubes piece, but these to quotes directly address Rob’s comment. He could not have timed it better.
Piece of Mindful 
They don’t call the British royal guards beefeaters for nothing. A loyal man well fed on good beef is a strong man indeed.
You can find diets from the bike racers in the Tour de France in the 1970s and before, and they were mostly steak and eggs. I don’t know what they eat now, but I remember the carb loading days of the 1980s and 90s.
I have posted a link to this guy before, I read almost everything he wrote up until a year ago. I think he is mostly right, with the exception of being a vegetable hating Nazi. He pretty much says everything except meat is bad for you. I like some vegetables, and a little carbs, my family has eaten them and lived long lives so I’m not ready to give them up completely. He is a good truther also IMHO.
Joachim Bartoll Official – Animal-Based Nutritionist, Fitness & Health Coach since 1995, Healer, Writer, Speaker & Author
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but in addition to all the meat.. a POUND of hard bread a day?? That’s a whole loaf lol
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I was going to comment on that. Ships biscuit was common food for sailors. It probably wasn’t that bad. Pemmican is something I’d like to make, and variations on it were probably common for sailors needing food of high nutritional value yet stable at room temperature for long periods of time.
Pemmican – Wikipedia
Also working on a ship, exposed to the elements, burns a tremendous number of “calories”. To note, JBO, the author I referenced previously, has a great critique of the whole idea of “calories”. Calories are something associated with combustion, where you burn something to it’s most stable compounds, like CO2 and water. However, biological organisms do not “burn” food, so the calorie is a pretty nonsensical form of food energy.
Back to working on boat – I recently talked to a fisherman/scientist who worked doing scalloping in Rhode Island while he got his degree. He said he could eat a dozen donuts a day and was still rail thin when working on the boat.
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Funny thing I just remembered was tales from my Uncle Bill when they were prospecting for Gold in Alaska back in the 1950s-60s. He said they would shoot a moose and gorge themselves for a week before the meat spoiled. And then shoot another one when the meat started to rot. Which is similar to the story above – they were processing a ton of hides, so there was probably more beef available than they could consume, with the hides being most valuable. Beef jerky was probably not as valuable then as now.
The odd thing I remember is Bill said they would miss fresh fruit most living on a moose meat heavy diet. And some guys would trade big $ for canned fruit, even the crappy fruit cocktail we had to eat in the 1970s-80s all the time, so they wouldn’t go crazy on that diet.
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There is this thing said that the body produces every nutrient it needs from a regular (I would say meat-based) diet except vitamin C. There was the scurvy problem and introduction of limes to British sailors that solved that problem. That indicates a dietary deficiency aboard ships but not on land, so that meat and pemmican was not getting it done.
I don’t know. I eat mostly fat and protein and some lettuce and occasional fruit. I think I am doing as well or better than any guy my age that I know. I am 75, people sometimes mistake me for 74. (Seriously, people mistake me for 10 years younger at least.)
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For a different take on Vit C deficiency, Daniel Roytas has many interviews making the rounds for his book –
https://odysee.com/@ALightOn:8/ep33:a
He has some huge health website, Humanley, with partners too.. lots of interviews, some good guests last I was there months ago.
IIRC he thinks the sailor deficiency issue is only if they’re eating refined white flours in their diet. Or was that Taubes.. but he brought a lot that was new to me, to consider..
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I’ll watch this as soon as I get time. The more I try and learn about diet and nutrition the more I realise so little seems to really be understood about it.
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That’s very true! It’s almost impossible to say anything definitive, that I don’t later see an addendum to, or counterpoint. Roytas has a unique background – he was mainstream credentialed, then went into alt health including using vitamins, then questioned that as well. But his background and study gives him many insights on vitamins and their history of “discovery,” that I haven’t seen elsewhere.
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I’ve been eating meat only, including fish, eggs and high fat negligible carbs dairy, for about 10 months now. A couple of times in the beginning I supplemented vitamin C , but I haven’t done now for over 6 months and no signs of scurvy yet. There’s an interesting piece about scurvy on the Grant Genereux blog, where he makes a really good argument for it being a toxicity condition rather than vit C deficiency. I’m on the fence about it , but it’s well reasoned .
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I can no longer find Jennifer Daniels archive of podcasts online, but she had an episode about the “perfect diet” idea that was wise and insightful – not saying, THIS is the perfect diet for everyone, but through her personal history, and comment on the main promoted diets, she reached a conclusion about different people benefiting from different things, at different times. Maybe that sounds banal, but I can’t summarize the whole thing.
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Yes, we probably (aka maybe) survive with a meatless diet … but why would we want to? There’s no fun in that. Eating doesn’t have to be fun, but why shouldn’t it be? I like my beef, chicken and pork and I want to eat it too.
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Just the power of public relations (professional lying) that keeps us up to our knees in pharmaceuticals, vaccines, and dietary supplements.
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I was just commenting to SwissMiss this morning: “We were trained to eat for flavor, rather than nutrition.”
Same assholes that gave us allopathic “medicine”, public “schools” and all the other detrimental shite.
I am a bit different in that I can eat the same stuff repeatedly. If you start with the “groceries” already in the house, my meals take no longer than 5 actual minutes. Raw. It is VERY difficult to go without my beloved scalding tea. CarlaWife cooking with all those wonderful smells does not make it any easier… ESPECIALLY the fresh baked BREAD. ________________________________
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I love bread. I eat Orowheat Keto, made mostly of fiber. Before that I was breadless
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I will challenge this prevailing view you need to eat strictly meat to be healthy and strong.
Rastafarians are pure vegetarians. I have been to Jamaica, and known a lot of Jamaicans. Rastas are some of the most impressive physical specimens I have ever seen. And they smoke a lot of weed. Often very tall with low body fat. Never get in a fight with a Jamaican by the way, they are tough.
It’s the exception that proves the rule right? A saying that never made sense to me. So as some have said in this thread not all diets have to be the same, you can subsist on a variety of foods and stay healthy. Most important is the food is not processed, and fresh.
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