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Comment by lettergram | Hacker News Reader

The carnivore diet is a thing, it’s probably closer to historical diets of Hunter gatherers.

Having done a couple of stints of meat + veggies only for 8-12 months I can definitely say you feel wired. I highly recommend, though it takes a couple weeks to break any carbs. I prefer it personally, but alas with multiple children and constant gatherings it’s hard to keep it up perfectly.

Real trick is snacks. I would make burgers and / or bacon and store it for a week or eat jerky. Worked well enough if I got hungry. After the first week or two your body adjusts to the protein & fat based meals and you no longer snack as much. At least not for me.

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> The carnivore diet is a thing, it’s probably closer to historical diets of Hunter gatherers.

What?

> The real Paleolithic diet, though, wasn't all meat and marrow. It's true that hunter-gatherers around the world crave meat more than any other food and usually get around 30 percent of their annual calories from animals.

> So how do hunter-gatherers get energy when there’s no meat? It turns out that “man the hunter” is backed up by “woman the forager,” who, with some help from children, provides more calories during difficult times. When meat, fruit, or honey is scarce, foragers depend on “fallback foods,” says Brooks. The Hadza get almost 70 percent of their calories from plants. The Kung traditionally rely on tubers and mongongo nuts, the Aka and Baka Pygmies of the Congo River Basin on yams, the Tsimane and Yanomami Indians of the Amazon on plantains and manioc, the Australian Aboriginals on nut grass and water chestnuts.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/evolution-of...

> it’s probably closer to historical diets of Hunter gatherers.

My understanding is that this is not true, or at least extremely unlikely. The majority of hunter-gatherer societies seemed to have subsisted mostly on plants, with meat being a minority of their calories, possibly more of a special-occasion food.

Here's a sample source:

> The real Paleolithic diet, though, wasn’t all meat and marrow. It’s true that hunter-gatherers around the world crave meat more than any other food and usually get around 30 percent of their annual calories from animals.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/evolution-of...

> My understanding is that this is not true, or at least extremely unlikely. The majority of hunter-gatherer societies seemed to have subsisted mostly on plants, with meat being a minority of their calories, possibly more of a special-occasion food.

As with every statement about hunter gatherers or hunter gardeners it varies. If you’re living in the far north like the Inuit, Eskimos or similar your diet is going to be almost all meat, maybe some berries for two months of the year. Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans living in the far North of Eurasia would have had more plants but not a lot more. Humans can live on diets of 80% plus gruel, on potatoes with some milk, rice and beans, on noting not meat (as long as you eat organs and fat).

Humans are really varied. We can’t eat pure vegan without deficiency diseases but there’s a lot of variety in human diet.

It’s really a math problem. If you look up the weight needed to live off berries or veggies and it would be impractical.

Do the same for nuts, and it might work; but nuts don’t work well due to the time consuming collection.

Meat is produced from animals gathering plants and creating an energy dense food source. One which almost exactly matches what humans need.

Some tribes do milk and honey; but that’s another energy dense food source (not really hunting and gathering).

Meat was and is the primary energy source for Hunter and gatherers — period. Simply wasn’t alternatives. It’s why tribes used to follow the herds.

Did you look at my source above? The studies show that many of these peoples would have lived on diets of about 70% roots/fruit/vegetables, and only 30% meat. So unsure how the math says that's not possible.

I did read it. However that wasn’t a study, it was a comment by a magazine (National Geographic) on the current groups today (not historical).

I didn’t even see the data to back it up, nor is it evenly distributed. Aka many groups will have higher or lower distributions.

Further, it didn’t say 70% were roots/fruit/vegetables it said 30% was meat. The article didn’t clarify if that was be weight, volume, count, etc. it’s possible 30% by volume is meat, but by that measure I could eat a watermelon and a steak and only 5% of my diet is meat.

It also mentions an African tribe that survives mostly on milk and honey. That tribe isn’t hunters and gatherers (they manage herds), but let’s assume they count that (no data listed), then that still isn’t meat nor vegetables/roots/fruits.

> The article didn’t clarify if that was be weight, volume, count, etc.

Sure it did, and it did it in my quote. 30% of their calories.

That's extremely different than the watermelon and steak in your example. It's closer to about 7 kilograms of potatoes for every kilo of meat.

What's the mathematical breakdown of what you need to maintain a healthy weight on a mostly or entirely plant based diet? I know the source is biased but these people have done the math:

https://www.nomeatathlete.com

What's fun is the articles they've done on NFL players (like Brady, whose diet is 80% plants) who obviously have professionals working for them but have no negative performance issues.

modern vegan diet is not "hunter-gatherer"

    Oats

    Potatoes

    Beans and lentils

    Brown rice

    Bananas and other fruits

Inuit and Eskimos are the standard counter-example, and they are mentioned in the article, but they are a very small percentage of world-wide hunter-gatherer societies throughout history.

They also weren't around in the Paleolithic.

Your understanding would be wrong for at least temperate climate zones (North America, Europe, much of Asia, forest and steppes alike). Not much grows there for half a year. Meat is around all the time.

> it’s probably closer to historical diets of Hunter gatherers.

One thing I’ve noticed about hunter gatherer societies today, at least from various films and documentaries, is that they tend to be smaller both in height and mass than say, the westerners documenting them. That being said they seem to have significantly more stamina and incredible physical skill (watching a guy stand on the edge of a cliff and hurl sticks to knock flying bats out of the air was mindbending)

I would guess they eat a higher percentage of meat, but probably less in total.

As I understand it most non-domesticated animals (including hunter-gatherers humans) live almost perpetually in a state of low- to mid-level hunger. The expectation that you’d spend any significant portion of your life not being hungry only really happened with agriculture.

The middle paragraph should be required reading in bright bold letters in any keto/paleo website.

- Do not attempt if you have children - Do not attempt if you dont control what goes in the fridge. - Do not attempt if you cant deflect peer pressure.

> The carnivore diet is a thing, it’s probably closer to historical diets of Hunter gatherers.

No.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleistocene_human_diet

tldr: Homo habilis ate some meat, and Homo erectus was more of an omnivore, eating tougher-to-chew/digest foods...and even later, started to cook foods...both meat and plant-based.

The "paleo" diet is what happens when a bunch of jocks get high, watch the Flintstones and decide to base a diet off what they saw.

Yeah, I’m sure that’s why the tribes all over the world followed the herds...

Do the math on trying to survive off vegetables or fruit. Heavy meat consumption is basically required (alternative energy sources could be milk, honey, and nuts - but still limited and often need cultivation).

Can you define "heavy meat consumption"? What is "heavy"?

Edit: Will you define what "heavy meat consumption" means?

The vast majority of energy necessary for life (and likely nutrients) come from meat (the protein & fat). So let’s say 70-80% of the nutrition required for life.

Honestly, 30% of a Hunter gatherers m diet might be meat if it’s analyzed by volume or amount on a plate. It’s not really clear how it’s measured

Good luck eating plant based diet in the woods and steppes of Northern America, Europe and Asia.

It really shows how amazing the human body is. We can survive basically anywhere.

It is amazing how well we can adapt to the food source available. Unfortunately some people don't care about that amazement. They are preoccupied forcing their dietary and moral habits onto the others.

Yes, why wouldn't we want to resurrect things that enabled our distant ancestors to reach a heady thirty-five year life expectancy?

Our ancestors lived in extremely harsh environments, didn’t have modern medicine, and there was a very high infant mortality rate. The last one alone causes the average lifespan to drop, however many who survived past infancy lived to similar ages as today.

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