CARNIVORE DIET AND AUTOIMMUNITY

People report phenomenal results when going on carnivore diet.  It seems that all kind of chronic conditions either go into remission or get completely reversed. It seems so contrary to the prevailing belief: eat your vegetables. Just as I am writing this, I have an image of school kids having to eat peas and carrots, I saw on TV. Why does carnivore diet work for chronic conditions such as autoimmunity?

CARNIVORE DIET ELIMINATES SYNTHETIC ADDITIVES

In the last 50 years the mass production of processed foods increased exponentially. If you go to a supermarket, most isles will be filled with something that is packed or processed.

And here is the problem:  to make these foods convenient, palatable and long lived, there is a whole slew of synthetic additives in them. To be sure, they do the job: the food tastes great, has a long shelf life, ingredients don’t separate, and they are quickly available for consumption, and are cheap.

There is, however, a price to pay.  Some of us, seems like more and more, have guts that can’t handle these additives. Many of them, if not all, interact with our gut lining, weakening it, and over time cause the so-called leaky gut syndrome. Leaky gut, or gut permeability allows toxins, undigested proteins, bacteria and viruses pass to the blood stream, where under healthy conditions they should never be.  However, when this occurs it triggers the response from the immune system. It will cause inflammation. By its nature, inflammation is a normal and healthy reaction of the immune system to clear contamination from our tissues. However, if the leaky gut allows contamination to occur on the regular basis, it will result with chronic inflammation and that’s when we get diagnosed with autoimmunity. 

When you switch to the carnivore diet, all synthetic additives are eliminated. Ideally, you only get meat that you minimally spice, and prepare it yourself at home. This way you are in total control of what goes into your food. 

Check out my video about leaky gut here:

PLANT TOXINS BECAME PROBLEMATIC

Lectins, oxalates, phytic acid, saponins became a lot more popular especially in carnivore community.  These are all plant toxins. Since plants can’t attack or escape from their predators, they specialize in making proteins that cause digestive issues to the animals that eat them.

 But we have been eating plants for millennia, you may ask, so why all of the sudden they cause all kind of gut issues. 

I think there are a few points to consider here:

• We never ate food that had that much synthetic additives
• We never made plants as the basis of human nutrition or replacement for animal foods altogether
• Our ancestors always cooked, soaked, or fermented foods.  Salads and raw vegetables weren’t appreciated at all
• Sugar wasn’t available for everyday consumption. It was used sparingly for major holidays couple times a year
• Fruits and vegetables were eaten in season. 
• These days, we breed for plants that are more resistant to pesticides and thus increasing the amount of plant toxins in them
• Seed (vegetable) oils weren’t consumed at all
• Breast feeding of babies for extended period of time was a norm

These radical changes in the last 100 years into our way of eating eroded the health of our guts, making it leaky and thus allowing plant toxins to actually cause a damage.

I think, if it wasn’t for all these changes, we would have been OK consuming plants, as our guts would be able to digest food and assimilate only nutrients that it can utilize and get rid of plant toxins. I don’t believe plant toxins as a sole cause of autoimmunity.

Watch video version of my blog about carnivore diet and autoimmunity here:

CONCLUSION

Even though mainstream medicine is quite resistant to accept leaky gut as the cause of autoimmunity, people try the carnivore diet and see the results for themselves. There are so many amazing stories, it’s hard to deny the effectiveness of it. Going on the carnivore diet eliminates the flood of toxins both synthetic and natural.  Also, it provides animal lecithin and saturated fats as tools for restoring the optimal gut permeability.

Big City Mom