How To Increase Your Fat Intake on a Carnivore Diet

3 Ribeyes

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Why you may want to and why you may not want to increase fat intake. For the most part I like the Carnivore Diet to be as simple as possible, but us humans love to tinker don’t we?

And FAT consumption is certainly an area that is up for debate. It is also an area that can get pretty complicated.

I am going to try and avoid the microanalysis some people go into, and instead, just try to give you some general things to consider because at the end of the day I can’t tell you how much fat you should consume.

That is something you need to find out yourself.

In fact, this is the perfect time to disclose that I’m not a doctor or nutritionist. What I am is a Carnivore Diet coach for MeatRX and I don’t give medical advice!

Should you be considering a change in diet it’s best to consult with your physician.

And for the purpose of simplicity, we are going to be talking about animal fats and not the stuff you get from potentially toxic industrialized plant based oils like vegetable oil.

3 Ribeyes

What is the Carnivore Diet?

In its simplest form, it is just about eating animal products and not eating plant products. However, within in that there is a surprising range of things you can experiment with. For example:

  • Meat and water only
  • Muscle meat only
  • Any meat and fish you want
  • No dairy
  • Nose to tail
  • Grass-fed or regenerative farms only
  • High fat
  • High protein

If you are new to the carnivore diet then you will want to pick up an amazing book by Dr. Shawn Baker appropriately called, “The Carnivore Diet.”

Also, check out this article which will get you up to speed:

What is fat?

The easiest way of thinking about fat is that it is an energy source. If you are on a low carb diet, then you have to use fat as a lever to meet your energy needs.

This is a little harsh on fat as it is so much more than just energy. It is highly nutritious and filled with loads of vitamins and minerals.

In fact, a lot of very important vitamins like Vitamin A are fat-soluble. This means your body can only absorb the vitamin if it enters the body with a fat source.

Can you see why fat is so important and shouldn’t be demonized as it has been for the past 70 years or longer by certain corporations, government, and shady hucksters?

And this includes saturated fat. Saturated fat has had a bad wrap for sooooo long but there are many recent studies which help to vindicate it including this article by Healthline:

Fat hunter

Miki Ben-Dor does some excellent work on how our early ancestors likely ate, and I would recommend you read Man the Fat hunter –

In it, he says, “It should not come as a surprise that H. erectus, and its successors managed, and in fact evolved, to obtain a substantial amount of the densest form of nutritional energy available in nature – fat – to the point that it became an obligatory food source.”

He believed that to fuel our ever-increasing brain size, we needed a large number of calories.

We weren’t getting these calories from early versions of a kale smoothie; we were getting them from hunting huge early elephants like the woolly mammoth.

In fact early humans get the reputation that we were these great explorers, who left Africa to settle all over the world.

What actually likely happened is we moved where our food source was. We would move into an area, eat all the elephants, and move on. Pretty brutal but probably true.

We obviously don’t know for certain.

If you like this thought process, then you would be looking at a high fat carnivore diet as your base. Maybe 20% protein and 80% fat.

Check out this video of Miki Ben-Dor giving a lecture on protein, fat and are humans carnivores? It’s extremely informative!

Paleolithic Ketogenic Diet: PKD

Probably the closest thing to the Fat Hunter model in today’s diet world is from Paleo Medicina.

They promote a carnivore diet that is very high in fat and includes a lot of organ meats.

They recommend a ratio of 2:1 of fat to protein. They use this diet in a clinical environment to heal a wide range of diseases through fixing the gut permeability.

Dr. Zsofia Clemens talks with Dr. Shawn Baker about a PKD diet!

Modern Butchery

The closest way we can get to an ancestral way of eating is to mainly eat whole animals. It can involve large outlays of money, but over time you do actually save money.

Modern meat selling in supermarkets etc is all about muscle meat, the steaks, and joints. And they trim these cuts to death. So you get a lot of lean offerings.

Even traditional butchers nowadays will automatically trim the fat, unless you ask them not to.

We truly have become scared of fat, which is a shame.

I think the truest way to get close to an ancestral way of eating. Is to buy a whole cow, get it butchered with all the fat and organs included, stick it in the freezer, and eat it all over the coming months.

It’s a chunk of money up front but it saves you money in the long run plus you get a nose-to-tail culinary experience.

Meat Freezer

Simple ways to get a fat boost

Not all of us can or want to buy a whole cow, but you can buy them in halves, quarters, and eighths which could be useful.

However, let’s be honest most people are buying their food from some type of supermarket.

So here are some ways that you can boost your fat intake on a carnivore diet, in the modern-day setting:

  1. Choose fatty cuts over lean: so Ribeye over Sirloin, Chicken Thighs over Breast, and Pork Belly over Pork Loin.
  2. Cook in Grass-fed Butter, Lard, Tallow, or my favorite Duck Fat.
  3. Buy Bone Marrow which is delicious and fatty.
  4. Make bone broth.
  5. The infamous Bulletproof Coffee.
In this video I show you the easy way to make bone broth with your Crock Pot!

Supermarket hunter

The modern hunter does its shopping in supermarkets. This means we basically have an unlimited food supply in the western world.

So we can eat what we want, with the added bonus that we don’t have to waste calories catching it.

On top of this, we do a lot less moving and have found many ways to move around without actually using our legs. So our energy needs are vastly different from Caveman Jim.

We don’t know how our ancestors would have ate if a supermarket popped up on the plains of Africa, and we don’t know how they felt on their diet.

So this means we can experiment a lot more with our food and really tailor our diet to our own needs.

Protein Energy

At the opposite end of the Fat Hunter model, is the Protein Energy idea from Dr. Ted Naiman.

He promotes a lot of leaner meat and a range of around 40% protein and 60% fat.

If you are overweight and have body fat to lose, then he likes you to go really lean on the presumption you have plenty of energy stuck to your body.

Once you have lost the excess body fat, he recommends you up the fat percentage a little to cover your energy expenditure.

This is a pretty simple and logical way of thinking about diet in the modern world and is very easy to do in the modern supermarket.

All you have to do is eat leaner cuts of meat and avoid the fattier cuts, and do not add additional fats to your meals.

Balance

Humans tend to have the tendency to get into camps and groups and stand by their flag.

You see it all the time in Carnivore social media groups. Where people talk in absolutes, like “this is the best way,” and “this is what you should do.”

A lot better way is to say, “this is what is working for me currently and why I think it works.”

I don’t believe there is a definitive way that is best for everyone. I believe unless you are trying to heal from some disease, then there is room to play about a bit with what you are doing.

At least that’s what I have done.

What is wrong with; if you are going to the gym one day then eat a high protein carnivore diet, and if the next day you are going for a long run, eat a higher fat carnivore diet.

Fatty thoughts

You need to experiment to find your perfect diet, or get as close to it as possible.

Yes, 99.99% of humans would likely do very well on Carnivore. However, we all have our own personal situations and lifestyle. So there is room for different protocols.

Use diet “gurus” like Shawn Baker, Paul Saladino, and Amber O’Hearn as guides, but don’t follow them blindly.

Find out what works for you, that is the perfect diet…no need to get stuck in Dogma.

Suggestions

If you are serious about a carnivore diet but not sure where to start then get a very affordable carnivore diet coach. Check out the coaching roster at MeatRX.

You can even book me as a coach here.

Also, check out our Wild Lumens YouTube channel where you will find meaty recipes and carnivorous conversations. Subscribe and help keep us moving forward!

Disclaimer: I’m not a doctor. 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. This is not medical advice.

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