11 Benefits of a Carnivore Diet | #9 Will Surprise You

The carnivore diet has quickly risen to be one of the more popular diets over the past few years competing with both the Paleo Diet and Keto Diet but many people still do not know the many benefits associated with it.

In this post we hope to provide 11 of the topmost talked about potential benefits of the carnivore diet.

So what is the carnivore diet? In case you don’t know it’s a simple diet consisting primarily of meat, animal products, salt, and water. Simple, right? It’s kind of crazy how something so simple could have so many potential benefits.

Benefit #1: Simplicity

It doesn’t get easier than having essentially 3-4 ingredients consisting of meat, meat products (sometimes dairy), salt, and water. The days of counting calories, working out macros, tedious food prep, carb counting, checking labels for gluten and GMOs, and weighing food portions are over.

Time to throw that waste of time out the window!

Can you see the amount of mental energy you will save? You’ve probably heard of Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Ferris or some productivity genius talk about the benefits of keeping your wardrobe simple in order to reduce the amount of decision making in the morning. Same thing here.

Eat meat when hungry and drink water when thirsty.

Benefit #2: Improved Digestion

Holy smokes! How could a diet devoid of fiber be good for digestion? Don’t you get constipation? Isn’t the meat going to get stuck in my colon and rot? What about diverticulitis? (It’s when you get little bulging pouches in the lining in your digestive tract which can at times become infected. Nasty situation.)

Those are all the questions I asked when I first heard about this insane diet. My general and naive thinking of fiber was that it is necessary to help push food through your digestive tract.

It’s supposed to be the bulldozer of digestion. But what if that’s not the case? What if fiber makes diverticulosis worse?

A study done by Dr. Anne Peery found that people with the highest amount of fiber in their diets had the most diverticuli and people with less than 7 bowel movements per week had less diverticulosis. The people in the study that had more than 15 bowel movements per week had a 70% increase in the risk of diverticulosis.

Another kicker to this study stated that eating red meat was not associated with increased diverticulosis.

The study also says the hypothesis of a high fiber diet being good for you should be reconsidered.

So what’s up with constipation? Don’t we need fiber to help prevent constipation?

Not so fast, no pun intended. A study found here at the US National Library of Medicine called, “Stopping or reducing dietary fiber intake reduces constipation and its associated symptoms”, pretty much busts the fiber myth.

Kok-Sun Ho and the team who conducted the study found that the patients in their study that ate a no fiber diet or a low fiber diet reported improved bowel function. In fact the study concludes that constipation symptoms can be reduced by reducing or eliminating fiber.

They also say that when you add fiber to your diet you are essentially causing heavy traffic and we all know that heavy traffic slows us down.

They explain this more scientifically by saying, “more and bulkier fecal matter can only aggravate the difficulty by making the stools even bigger and bulkier…a colon packed with feces, reduction in dietary fiber would reduce fecal bulk and volume and make evacuation of the smaller/thinner feces easier.”

So here’s the potential benefit. When you go on the carnivore diet you may experience less bloating, less constipation, less gas and you have a bowel movement once per day. Meat is so bio-available that your body uses up most of the material so there is less to poop out.

I can personally attest to this as my digestion has improved greatly! I also wrote this post of the subject which goes into greater detail called, “Do You Need Fiber on the Carnivore Diet?”

Benefit #3 Weight Loss

People seem to lose a lot weight when they go on diets assuming they stick to the guidelines and carnivore isn’t any different. People naively assume that when you eat such a high fat diet you will increase your weight but that’s not exactly the case.

When you go carnivore you eliminate all of the weight causing items like carbs, sugar, and processed foods and your body turns into a fat eating machine. It is said that your body switches from a sugar and carb burner to a fat burner in order to get energy needs and the result is the burning off of the extra pounds.

However we are all different and experience different results. Some see results quickly and others not as quickly which makes me want to mention that the other potential benefits of this diet can almost outweigh this issue.

Benefit #4 Mental Clarity

Ever wake up in a brain fog? Have trouble thinking clearly? Trouble concentrating? These are all issues I have had and when I went carnivore I noticed improvements. I’m not the only one either, it seems like a lot of other carnivore dieters out there have the same positive results.

So how could eating only meat possibly help brain function? I don’t know but what I have found is that most of the proponents say it’s due to the liver producing more ketones and the ketones are the jet fuel for your brain.

They say because the carnivore diet eliminates sugar from the diet it allows the body and brain to use fat and ketones for energy which is apparently better. Carnivore dieters can achieve ketosis and the potential result can be improved brain function.

Benefit #4 Mental Health

Westernized populations are experiencing tremendous amounts of depression, bipolar disorders, and suicides. Could poor diet be a contributing factor? It seems like it is possible.

Dr. Georgia Ede wrote an article for Psychology Today called, “The Carnivore Diet for Mental Health?”, and basically explains how a low sugar, low carb diet, and one free of the toxins found in plant matter has had positive effects for her patients.

She says, “This seemingly strange and extreme way of eating flies in the face of every piece of conventional nutrition advice we’ve been given, yet a growing number of people report  remarkable benefits, including resolution of serious, chronic psychiatric symptoms.”

Dr. Ede believes due to the elimination factor of the diet it is possible to see improvements in mental health. She often mentions that she has consulted with many people who have had serious improvements with their mental health issues.

Interested in hearing about mental health testimonials then you have to check out MEATRX.

Benefit #5 Autoimmune Conditions

Do you know what sucks? Autoimmune conditions like Rheumatoid Arthritis, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, and Psoriasis just to name a few.

The crazy thing is that there is a hypothesis that diet is a contributing factor and that when people remove plants, sugars, and processed carbohydrates from their diet and go carnivore they experience improvements!

This brings us to Mikhaila Peterson, the daughter of Jordan Peterson who has had amazing results with the carnivore diet. She was able to find relief in the diet as she has battled numerous autoimmune issues.

Here she shares her story in coping with autoimmune disorders and how she was able to find relief with the carnivore diet.

Benefit #6 Less Inflammation

Inflammation is supposed to be a good thing as it’s your body responding properly to damage by producing more white blood cells, immune cells, and cytokines but this can be a major problem if it becomes chronic.

The other challenge is that some of us have chronic inflammation in parts of our body’s where it’s hard to detect and we go on in life without knowing.

Also I hear chronic inflammation can lead to other diseases like arthritis, fatty liver, diabetes, and even cancer…just to name a few.

What gives? Why do we get inflammation problems?

Some doctors say it’s because of the refined sugars, processed foods like flour, the high fructose corn syrup, seed oils, and of course alcohol. They say when consuming these foods regularly it keeps your body in a state of inflammation. Plus proponents of the carnivore diet like to mention that adherence to the Standard American Diet doesn’t help.

The hypothesis is that when people go on the carnivore diet they are now eliminating all of the culprits and the body is able to get out of inflammation mode.

There was a scientific study done on inflammation and the relation to diet. There were two groups. One group ate a low carbohydrate high fat diet and the other ate a high carbohydrate low-fat diet. The low carbohydrate high fat group achieved lower markers of systemic inflammation.

Here is the study, “Consuming a hypocaloric high fat low carbohydrate diet for 12 weeks lowers C-reactive protein…”

Another point that doctors and proponents of the carnivore diet like to point out is that some people have general food sensitivities and most are caused by the plants they eat.

Plants have numerous naturally occurring pesticides and molecules that help protect them but can cause harm in humans when consumed. Here is a whole post on their potentially negative toxins titled, “10 Chemicals in Plant Food Slowly Killing You.”

Doctors have shown that when people reduce or eliminate plants from their diets they have a lot less C-reactive proteins in their blood samples which are indicators of inflammation.

#7 Heart and Cardiovascular Health

I hear this a lot when I mention the carnivore diet. You’re going to have a heart attack with all that meat! What about your cholesterol?

This one seems to be a touchy subject as most people and the mainstream media seem to push the low cholesterol is a better agenda. What if that’s not a good idea?

Dr. Shawn Baker talks thoroughly on the subject and likes to mention that having low cholesterol might not be such a good idea and that the recommended levels were influenced by the pharmaceutical companies.

We have all been conditioned to believe that low cholesterol is better and decreases your chance of a heart attack. But what Baker likes to bring up is that you will rarely see a heart attack victim without having inflammation or hyperinsulinemia.

He says that a majority of people that have heart attacks have normal or lower than normal cholesterol levels. He also mentions that you probably won’t find a cardiologist that can say with a straight face that inflammation or insulin sensitivity didn’t play a role.

Baker and others mention that when people go carnivore they see improvements in insulin sensitivity and a decrease in inflammation.

One other point worth making is that cholesterol is crucial for a healthy body and mind. Your brain uses a tremendous amount in order to carry out essential functions. The demonizing of cholesterol is crap.

It seems going carnivore can be beneficial to both your heart and cardiovascular health.

On a side note I highly advise reading Dr. Shawn Baker’s book titled “The Carnivore Diet.”

#8 Bioavailability

What’s the most beneficial super food on the planet? Kale or spinach! Wrong! It’s meat.

Meat is the most beneficial and contains copious amounts of minerals, protein and essential vitamins. Plus it has 9 essential amino acids and the B-12 vitamin which you can’t get if you go vegan, (unless you supplement)…oh and plus DHA.

Meat is a lot easier for your body to break down and digest plus it doesn’t have annoying fiber. Also real hamburgers don’t give you gas and bloating like those nasty veggie burgers.

The bioavailability is tremendous as your body is able to absorb and use most of the matter. It’s way more efficient than eating plants.

#9 Cows Can Save the Planet (YEP!)

This is the big surprise!

What’s the most vilified food you can think of both from a health and an environmental standpoint? Cows. Red cow meat is supposed to kill you, destroy the planet, and negatively affect climate change.

What if regenerative cow farming practices are able to save the planet? Most of us have been exposed to falsities being crammed down their face by politicians, dumb actors/celebrities, and the big agriculture industries. They say things like, “cow farts are contributing to climate change and we are doomed because of it, and if you don’t eat beef you can save the planet.”

What a bunch of garbage.

There is a lot of misinformation and propaganda out there. A lot of people don’t realize that our ruminant friends provide us with the most bio-available nutrition and at the same time are able to help sequester carbon in the ground. It’s called a cattle carbon cycle.

When cows are farmed properly their hooves and poop are able to promote the growth of grass and microorganisms within the soil. The grass, microorganisms, and roots are able to suck in and use CO2 at a phenomenal rate, even more than a rain forest.

Desertification is the real culprit of climate change and cow farming is able to change that. In simple terms cows have the ability to transform desert back into grasslands which in turn can change that climate for the better. It’s crazy stuff! Please watch this video by Alan Savory as he been able to transform deserts back into grassland with his farming techniques. It’s a game-changer!

Do you know what is destroying the planet? Monocrops! Big agriculture is an environmental nightmare due to the number of pesticides used as well as the depletion of the nutrients within the soil.

With every crop the soil gets worse and worse and there is nothing to replenish it. The microorganisms die and the soil isn’t able to sequester carbon. The produce becomes weaker and weaker and has fewer nutrients. However we can restore damaged land and make it fertile again.

Proper grazing is key. Dr. Jason Rowntree says that regenerative grazing of cattle can produce a 30-40% improvement in soil carbon when compared to non-grazing soil.

What seems to be hurting the environment and your health more than cows is soybeans, sunflower oils, and palm oils. These types of crops are managed by the big agriculture companies at great consequence to the environment and your health.

If the environment is big on your list please get educated by these great resources and help decrease the spread of propaganda and misinformation.

Books:

1. Cows Save The Planet: And Other Improbable Ways of Restoring Soil to Heal the Earth (Bookshop.org link)
2. Defending Beef: The Case for Sustainable Meat Production (Bookshop.org link)

Websites:

• Savory Institute (Dedicated to Holistic Management)
• Sacred Cow (A documentary on nutrition, sustainability and ethics)
• Grass Based Health (Blog by Dr. Peter Ballerstedt)

Benefit #10 Dental Health

People that go on a carnivore diet report better dental health. Things like improved gums and fewer cavities.

There was a badass explorer and Harvard professor named Vilhjalmur Stefansson that studied dental health was an ethnologist and explored the arctic back in the early 1900s.

He has studied both the people of Iceland and the Inuits in Northern Canada both of which were people that ate hardly any plant-based foods, at least prior to the introduction of Western cultures processed foods.

In 1905 he studied the graves and bones of the Icelandic people and found that not a single tooth had a cavity. He also lived with the Innuits and found them to have phenomenal dental health and didn’t use toothpaste or drink milk.

He concluded that the reason they had such good dental health was the absence of plant foods. He also noted that as soon as the Innuits were introduced to processed foods and plant food their health got worse and they began to experience tooth decay.

Benefit #11 Save Money

This one doesn’t make sense as we all know meat is priced higher per pound than vegetables or generally speaking plant-based foods.

Here’s the deal. When you go carnivore you are basically forced to cut out bad habits like buying Starbucks every day or snacks from the vending machine or drinking beers and cocktails on the weekend.

By cutting out these financially painful decisions you save money.

Also it is possible to save money on the carnivore diet by buying in bulk or when meat goes on sale. I wrote a whole article called, “How to Save Money on the Carnivore Diet,” which you need to check out. In it, I explain how to buy meat in bulk and when it usually goes on sale.

I also show how to buy a whole cow which is the best way to buy in bulk and you are able to help support your local regenerative farmer.

A funny thing is that you will also save on toilet paper and water! Fewer bowel movements, remember?

The other way you save money is in terms of health. There are many people that go carnivore and report they are able to get off their medications and have fewer visits to the doctor.

Not only are you potentially able to save money but your entire nation or the world for that matter could help alleviate the health-related financial burdens. Health insurance premiums would eventually be lowered and health care could improve.

I know it all sounds crazy but just think about it.

To save you time and money I created this surprising post on, “21 Essential Carnivore Diet Products You Need on Your Shopping List.”

Conclusion

As you can see the carnivore diet has many potential benefits but I will say we are all different and this type of diet may work for some and not others.

It’s not the cure-all and probably not appropriate for everybody. If you are interested in this type of diet then you need to speak with your doctor. Some people have reported adverse effects in relation to their medications, etc.

What I can say is that I have experienced many benefits with this diet. I’m not always 100% carnivore but I have gone many months on this diet without deviation. Either way I hope this post was able to inspire you to at least consider improving your health with whichever diet is suitable for you. And also remember cows can save the planet!

If you are new to this diet I have a well liked post called, “How to Get Started on a Carnivore Diet | First 28 Day Plan.”

Disclaimer: I’m not a doctor or dietician or nutritionist. Consult with and ask your doctor about any diet or medical-related questions. No information on this site should be used to diagnose, treat, prevent, or cure any disease or condition.