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I have been thinking how fantastic I feel when I eat meat and only meat - bacon for breakfast, sausage for lunch and steak for dinner. I do not crave other food, do not want to eat between meals and do not have any of the symptoms of the SAD diet when I eat this way. Great for a short period of time (say a day at most).

I was thinking, would it be beneficial to eat 100% meat (including fish) for a longer period of time, say a week or two or do you think this would ultimately be harmful to my body (to eat this way)?

Would I be missing out on any vital nutrients along the way?

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10 Answers

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I think you already know the answer. You feel great, no cravings, no snacking no problems at all. If you include organ meats and eggs and not just steak and make sure you're getting plenty of fat you won't miss any vital nutrients. Read about Vilhjalmur Stefansson and his All meat diet here http://www.biblelife.org/stefansson1.htm

I only eat animal products and have for years and am healthier now than I've ever been.

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interesting article, Alan - of course I would include fish....have to edit that one in the question – Louisa Apr 25 2010 at 16:15
Hi Alan, can I ask what you eat in a typical day and how much? How come you only eat once a day and what time do you eat? thanks Elizabeth Wells – Elizabeth Wells May 12 2010 at 14:42
@Elizabeth, it really depends if it's a workout day or not. I usually eat more calories on training days and less or even totally fast on non training days. I usually eat in the afternoon/evening, steak, 4 eggs, lots o cream/butter, and don't get hungry till next evening. On training days I'll often have several raw eggs shaken in cream as a post WO drink and then dinner in the evening. I usually only eat once a day BC I don't feel hungry. I monitor calories on Fitday.com and have 6lb to I want to lose and muscle to build yet. I eat up to 80% fat some days. – Alan May 18 2010 at 23:29
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Plenty of people do eat a entirely carnivorous diet, but no one would recommend an all muscle meat diet. Get some variety of animals, and definitely eat offal.

If you can guarantee good provenance, then try eating some of it raw.

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It is relatively untested so, yes, it is risky for that reason. That said, if you want some inspiration, check this out: http://inhumanexperiment.blogspot.com/2009/09/two-brave-men-who-ate-nothing-but-meat.html

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this is a great article, thanks, Jay - interesting to see that a diet of 80/20 fat/protein cleared up any problems the men were having..... – Louisa Apr 25 2010 at 17:05
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http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/journals/lex's-journal/

Lex Rooker has been keeping a journal on line since June 2008 regarding his experiment in eating nothing but raw meat and fat he gets from Slanker's grass fed beef in Texas. He has been on this experiment for 4 years...not anymore an experiment...but now a lifestyle.

You can read his journey...all 102 pages.

His current ratio is about 75/25 fat to protein...eating about 1.5 pounds per day once a day. He had a Dexa scan a while ago and it came back excellent..and was reviewed by Dr Harris about 6 months ago. His blood lipids are fine. He has no scurvy. He did pass a painful kidney stone a while back. The question is did his 12 or so years of veganism set up the stone or did the meat diet set up the calcium stone? No one seems to know. It seems that both meat eaters and vegetarians get stones.

Lex has recently been getting a lot of SoCal Vit D3 sun with hour walks daily with only shorts on. His dentist tells him the calculus build up he used to experience has abated since the walks.

So Lex's n=1 experiment has not adversely affected him in any way. If you want an all meat diet, go for it.

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If you wander over to the ZOIH (Zeroing in on Health) board you will find hundreds of people eating nothing but meat 100% of the time and none are suffering any trauma from it. They would claim (and I agree) that it is the healthiest way to eat.

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dirtycarnivore.com – TWS Apr 26 2010 at 16:00
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Personally, I wouldn't go on an all-meat diet just on general principles, but I'd be a lot less worried about going on a meagan diet than I would be about going vegan. I'd think that eating organ meats and marrow and bone broth would be a really good idea if one did this, again on general principles.

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I think a zero-carb diet is certainly possible, but probably not optimal. Every HG tribe on the planet eats plant matter of some source (even the inuit store berries), we don't know exactly why (acid/base balance perhaps?) but nutritional science is very very new. I think it's better than the SAD, but then again, how hard is that?

I'll wager a few leafy greens are not going to make you feel any worse than you do on ZC.

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Remember that the results from Stefansson's trial are not conclusive. X-rays were used to measure the amount of bone loss. X-rays can only detect it once you lose 30% of your bone mass. They also didn't measure his bone mass before the meat trial, they just calculated it afterwards and assumed his "before" bone mass was that of the average western person.

You can read more about it here: http://donmatesz.blogspot.com/2010/03/paleo-diet-ph-does-it-matter-part-vii.html

As far as I am aware we evolved in tropical Africa where the temperature was warm even through the ice age. See if it works out for you, I don't think it's optimal.

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Eskimos prior to contact ate a 60% fat and 40% protein diet. They apparently thrived on such a diet however a sizable portion did develop osteoporosis later in life. In fact, native Eskimos have the highest rate of osteoporosis in the world. I recall reading somewhere that the upper healthy limit of protein intake is in the range of 30% of daily calories.

Bottom line, load up on the fat and protein but also eat your vegetables.

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@Earl Cannonbear, is that your real name? There was a Eugene Levy newscaster character on 2nd City TV named "Earl Camembert"--a near-homophone. – Ed Apr 25 2010 at 14:32
I am not impressed by the source you link to- you should you link to a primary source it uses instead perhaps. Your assertion that Inuit eat 40% protein is not backed up by it or anything I have ever read. Steffanson said 20%, I have ready other accounts that put it around 30%, like this one acrobatplanet.com/non-fictions-ebook/… – HealthRediscovery Apr 26 2010 at 10:57
An unsourced throwaway line from a vegan propaganda website is not a "fact". There is debate as to the extant of various chronic ailments in the Inuit, highly confounded by the difficulty in actually studying traditional eaters given the reach of industrial food. – pfw Apr 26 2010 at 12:39
Okay I should have more closely inspected that Vegan propaganda link. For heavens's sake I'm certainly not advocating a clearly demonstrated unhealthy way of eating that is Veganism or Vegetarianism for that matter. Here, from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition: Bone mineral content of Northern Alaskan Eskimos: "Aging bone loss, which occurs in many populations, has an earlier onset and greater intensity in the Eskimos. Nutritional factors of high protein, high nitrogen, high phosphorus, and low calcium intakes may be implicated." ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/27/9/916 – Earl Cannonbear Apr 27 2010 at 15:52
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I have been eating only meat for almost 6 months now, and I feel better than I've ever felt in my life.

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