Though I don't remember his name, but there was an anthropologist who on two seperate ocasions lived on an all meat diet for an extended period of time. The second time he did this it was for one year under controled conditions (i.e. he lived in the lab under 24/7 observation). This was around 1929. Five doctors eminent in their fields concluded that the man was as healthy at the end as he was at the beginning.
Now, I'm not presenting this example to say "See it's healty to live on meat alone". I mearly present it as an example of a successfull, documented, case where it has.
Wanting to know what meats and fats would be needed to acomplish the same feat, I did some research. I looked that the nutritional value of various meats using the USDA nutritional database. It's probably not 100% acurate because they probably didn't use wild pig, grass fed beef, etc. However it does provide a ball park figure. My conclusion was that it is possible to get all your vitamins, minerals and fatty acids from meat alone, as long as you eat organ meats, brain and suet. Fir vitamin C it would be necesary to eat raw fresh adrenal gland. Also, it would seem that fish can be substituted for brain, and fruits or vegies can be substituted for organ meats (including adrenal gland).
To say that we HAVE to eat fruits and vegies because thay have anti-oxidents is false. I say this because anti-oxidents are not REQUIRED nutrients. A nutrient is required if the body is unable to manufacture it. If you can show conclusivly that the body requires a chemical that can only be found in a plant, then I will believe that fruits or vegtables are required.
With regards to excercise and the need to "carbo-load", the human brain use both glucose and ketones. But it cannot run on ketones alone. So in an all meat diet, some of the protien consumed will be converted to glucose in order to meet some of the brains energy demands. As far as I know, muscles can run on ketones alone. What it boils down to is that carbs are not a required nutrient. protien and fat ARE required.
When I first started excersising I found that when lifting weights, especialy when using leg muscles, I would some times come close to passing out. This wasn't because I was pushing myself especialy hard, it was because I was excersising first thing in the morning and was exausting my glucose stores.
When I switched to paleo I also cut out all carbs except for tomatoes, unions and apples. About two weeks after this switch I noticed that I no longer had problems with running out of glucose in the morning.
-Tad
|