I watched a show on Nova that spoke about hunters/gatherers. The did indeed eat alot of nutritious tubers & roots. That makes sense, because as one pointed out, they would likely go for the root than the bitter leaves, and tubers/roots last longer. Think of potatoes in those caves. Makes sense, doesn't it? Plus, it's easier to roast roots and tubers on a fire. I am convinced our Paleo ancestors ate tubers and roots and the occasional green leaves, and of course fruit & nuts which was readily available, aside from hunting. Makes sense to me, so I eat according to common sense. "what did Paleo Man do?"

I used to eat pounds of spinach, but I now think there's no purpose, and possibly a risk with the oxalate load. The Hadza of Tanzania eat no non-starchy vegetation and I'd be surprised if there are/were many populations of non-starving hunter-gatherers who would go out of their way to eat the bitter leaves of plants. The questionable bioavailability of nutrients from plants doesn't come anywhere near that of something like liver, so unless you really like a particular vegetable, I don't see the purpose.

I'm definitely veggie-free for a couple weeks now, don't even use botanicals for seasoning, just have to quit the coffee and the sugar-free root beer (I think the root beer is behind me already, but it still beckons me in the the grocery store), and I'll be altogether botanical-free.

As for digestion, it works great, but you have to stay away from dairy products also (maybe it's just me). I think butter is okay, but anything else cause terrible constipation without fiber. It's hard to tell because I'm not pooping much anymore. You'll be shocked at how much coal you can shovel in with so few cinders coming out. I guess meat is overwhelmingly made up of solubles.

Eat lots of fat. Eat nose to tail, as much as possible. Eat eggs. Get a slow cooker and do pork hocks and soup bones and all those wonderful gristly things you can find, and eat everything but the bones. But suck the marrow out before you throw the bones away. Eat tripe and cheek meat and everything unusual that shows up at the meat counter. Your taste buds will change and it'll all be wonderful.

Edit:

It's been about a month now, I've been total carnivore. I misspoke when I said a couple weeks. I'm still troubleshooting problems like electrolyte imbalances, but flying blind with no blood work, and yet I think I'm making progress.

I find this question and these answers most interesting, and a bit surprising.

It seems to me Paleo/Primal (with its many variations) is essentially a plant-based diet, with more meat and fat percentages than most of the non-Paleo paradigms. Agree?

If yes: So if eating Paleo doesn't involve veggies (or minimal), is this to posit a distinction between plants (starchy ones) and veggies (the leafy stuff)?

We're all familiar with the whole “think variety, think color” approach to veggies/fruit. We are urged to consume a "rainbow" of veggies/fruit. My main fruit is berries, and not any great quantity, so let's stick with veggies. Is it easy to get requisite micronutrients (and anti-oxidants) with veggies a minimal part of one's diet?

I'm definitely clear about the need to get ride of vegetable oils. It's just that I am not inclined to want to forego all the kinds of veggies that can and do make up a great salad, especially with generous amounts of protein and fat added.

Not that I hear anybody telling me I should forego that, or that there's anything "wrong" with loving a great heap of veggies. I'm simply struck by emphasis on minimizing, per se.

I can of course totally dig that someone may not like a given vegetable, and I am definitely not in the "Eat Your Vegetables (whether you like them or not because they are good for you)" school.

I don't eat many, and I don't worry about it. I actually like most vegetables, but they're extra work, so most of the time I don't bother. Generally, they have to be cleaned, unless you buy pre-washed ones, in which case you're trusting some factory to have done the job right. No thanks. Even home-grown ones need to be washed, then peeled, chopped, or whatever. Compared to meat, eggs, or dairy, green vegetables have to be used fairly quickly or they start to lose their appeal. (Starchy and root vegetables last much longer, of course.) Most of the time, it just seems easiest to cook a chunk of meat or some eggs in a few minutes, and not mess with veggies.

My digestion is always fine without fiber as long as I get enough fat. The only time I've had trouble is when going too high in protein only. The exception to that would be when eating a lot of hard cheese; although it has a lot of fat, it can still lead to constipation for some reason.

I don't know if you're planning to keep eating fruit, but there are a few of here who eat so-called "zero-carb," with very minimal plant matter--often things like tea, coffee, and/or spices, but no fruit or veg. You might try doing a search on "zero-carb" to see what our experiences have been.

Briefly, I've been eating more or less this way for over two years now, and my health has done nothing but improve. The couple of times I've experimented with adding some plant matter back in, in fact, have gone badly (weight gain, return of autoimmune symptoms). The general advice for ZC/XLCers is to eat lots of animal fat, especially in the beginning, to help with keto-adaptation. And I second Jay's advice, above, to eat some organ meats. However, unlike Jay, I don't see any reason to limit your experiment, unless you begin to experience adverse health effects.

Only veggies I eat are onions, tomatoes (ok they're a fruit) plus random servings from random veggies (in a blue moon). Not including spices that is.

So yeah meat and starch is fine for my digestion; if anything it's better. I pretty much just eat:

• Meat (including fish, eggs etc)

• Standard primal dairy (i.e. cream, cheese sometimes)

• Tubers and starchy fruit (i.e. PHD safe starches).

Coconut products make a fairly frequent appearance too.

I'm not a Gorilla or a Chimp so I have no need for fibrous vegetables or sweet fruit.

Mark Sisson wrote about this : http://www.marksdailyapple.com/zero-carb-diet/

I ate enough salad as a teen. Now I stick mostly to a handful of herbs when I am growing them. They are pretty dense nutrient wise. I've suffered no ill effects. Maybe I have been doing this for almost a year or so.

I don't eat many non-starchy vegetables. After all, why would a forager try to gather calories from leaves when starch and prey are available, and starch and prey are available whenever leaves are available...

That said, out of caution, I bow to convention and eat just enough spinach to get about half the RDA of folate per day (including contributions from other foods too). I don't mind the vitamin K1 and betaine from the spinach either...

If you go completely without greens of any kind, I think you'll need to eat liver to get your folate and vitamin K (k2 from the liver, of course). That can potentially add up to a lot of vitamin A, so make sure you also take your vitamin D. (Btw, chicken livers provide much more folate per unit of retinol than does beef liver.)

Lastly, for what it is worth, I think it's inadvisable to do your experiment for too long.