Dr. Fernando Morales on Nostr: As a clearly biased carnivore, I would not base my nutrition around nutritional ...
As a clearly biased carnivore, I would not base my nutrition around nutritional science, not only because it is mainly composed of observational studies but also because there are no studies, that I'm aware of, that compare vegans or any other diet vs actual carnivores. For example:
Would you categorize these high animal protein consumers as carnivores? Is being a carnivore simply eating a lot of meat even though carbs, alcohol and processed foods are included? This is just one example, so feel free to check the reported diet of high meat consumers in other studies. Food frequency questionnaires are a major problem in these type of studies and there are too many confounders that simply cannot be controlled for.
Moreover, it is unwise to generalize findings from observational research and even randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to the broader population without considering the specific characteristics of the studied group and the time frame of the research.
To clarify, I'm not an expert in statistical analysis by any means, my training as an MD does not have much of that. I was taught to be able to discern between a well done study and a badly done study and if the findings can be applied to my patients. I do know that it is very possible to use statistical manipulation in observational research, with things like multivariate regression. But Prof. Bart Kay is someone I recommend you look into if you want a better perspective of the state of nutritional research.
Since I am relatively "new" to the carnivore doc space, compared to other docs out there, my current focus has been mainly on unlearning what I was taught in med school and learning how the carnivore diet reverses chronic degenerative diseases. I have not taken a deep dive into vegan vs carnivore yet since it is not as pressing to me as carnivore vs mainstream diet recommendations.
From what I'm aware, a vegan diet must be properly supplemented to avoid long term health problems, even the centralized propaganda of the WHO acknowledges this. And even though the carnivore community has different definitions of what is considered carnivore, I have not seen nutritional deficiencies long term (you could argue survivorship bias here). This is anecdotal of course, but if meat were such the demon that it is said to be, we'd be seeing a lot of health problems in the community and we definitely wouldn't be seeing the sustained reversal of chronic diseases. Sometimes common sense goes a long way, despite it not being scientific.
For starters, I recommend looking into stable isotope testing on human fossils, Fiat Food by Matthew Lysiak, the work of Weston Price, plant toxins like oxalates (Toxic Superfoods by Sally Norton is a good book), and The Big Fat Surprise by Nina Teicholz. You'll see that meat is an essential part of the human diet and that the 7th day Adventists have a more religious agenda rather than a scientific one, which subjects their observational research to a higher probability of bias. This group has done many well known vegan studies, like the Loma Linda ones.
There are many things one can get into as to why meat isn't bad and all the contrary, but in the end one needs to verify and experiment even. Carnivores and vegans can throw all the studies they want at each other, but no group can say with absolute certainty that the science backs them up due to the poor state of nutritional science. Scientists from other harder sciences would be laughed at if they tried to publish studies like the ones done in nutrition. Time and real world results will show who is right eventually, a bitcoin standard could help fund better and less biased research.
Would you categorize these high animal protein consumers as carnivores? Is being a carnivore simply eating a lot of meat even though carbs, alcohol and processed foods are included? This is just one example, so feel free to check the reported diet of high meat consumers in other studies. Food frequency questionnaires are a major problem in these type of studies and there are too many confounders that simply cannot be controlled for.
Moreover, it is unwise to generalize findings from observational research and even randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to the broader population without considering the specific characteristics of the studied group and the time frame of the research.
To clarify, I'm not an expert in statistical analysis by any means, my training as an MD does not have much of that. I was taught to be able to discern between a well done study and a badly done study and if the findings can be applied to my patients. I do know that it is very possible to use statistical manipulation in observational research, with things like multivariate regression. But Prof. Bart Kay is someone I recommend you look into if you want a better perspective of the state of nutritional research.
Since I am relatively "new" to the carnivore doc space, compared to other docs out there, my current focus has been mainly on unlearning what I was taught in med school and learning how the carnivore diet reverses chronic degenerative diseases. I have not taken a deep dive into vegan vs carnivore yet since it is not as pressing to me as carnivore vs mainstream diet recommendations.
From what I'm aware, a vegan diet must be properly supplemented to avoid long term health problems, even the centralized propaganda of the WHO acknowledges this. And even though the carnivore community has different definitions of what is considered carnivore, I have not seen nutritional deficiencies long term (you could argue survivorship bias here). This is anecdotal of course, but if meat were such the demon that it is said to be, we'd be seeing a lot of health problems in the community and we definitely wouldn't be seeing the sustained reversal of chronic diseases. Sometimes common sense goes a long way, despite it not being scientific.
For starters, I recommend looking into stable isotope testing on human fossils, Fiat Food by Matthew Lysiak, the work of Weston Price, plant toxins like oxalates (Toxic Superfoods by Sally Norton is a good book), and The Big Fat Surprise by Nina Teicholz. You'll see that meat is an essential part of the human diet and that the 7th day Adventists have a more religious agenda rather than a scientific one, which subjects their observational research to a higher probability of bias. This group has done many well known vegan studies, like the Loma Linda ones.
There are many things one can get into as to why meat isn't bad and all the contrary, but in the end one needs to verify and experiment even. Carnivores and vegans can throw all the studies they want at each other, but no group can say with absolute certainty that the science backs them up due to the poor state of nutritional science. Scientists from other harder sciences would be laughed at if they tried to publish studies like the ones done in nutrition. Time and real world results will show who is right eventually, a bitcoin standard could help fund better and less biased research.