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Comment by epolanski | Hacker News Reader

1. There's no evidence that carnivore diet has any long term benefit, as this 2026 article that reviews all of the available literature points out. In fact there's more evidence of the contrary.

> The Carnivore Diet may offer short-term health benefits but carries substantial risks of nutrient deficiencies, reduced intake of health-promoting phytochemicals, and the development of cardiovascular disease. At this time, long-term adherence to a CD cannot be recommended.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12845189

2. On the contrary, the mediterranean diet is one of the most studied and backed with more evidence behind its long term health benefits.

3. In any case the topic is climate change, which agriculture and cattle are very strongly responsible for as cattle farming produces both lots of greenhouses as well as being very resource intensive.

Which is fine. But don't pretend it to be otherwise with your social media diet.

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It's not social media diet, it was invented to help children with epilepsy. The same diet works in other scenarios (diabetes 1 & 2, bipolar, schizophrenia, adhd are some examples).

> https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12845189

Again, it's very hard to form correct opinions when you're not in the trenches and just read stuff online.

A (complex) example: are bad blood lipids actually bad when you're very fit? This is being researched, might take some years. It's a complex topic, see "lean mass hyper responder" or "The cholesterol code" documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57Z8bUb1P94 . (this is the cardiovascular angle)

> 2. On the contrary, the mediterranean diet is one of the most studied and backed with more evidence behind its long term health benefits.

Yet it doesn't work in any of the scenarios I said.

It's not a bad diet, but it's a random diet IMO, no thought went into it, or some evolutionary design (I live in a mediterranean country and ate it by default).

ps: the mediterranean should work on type 2 diabetes. But what happens if eating even some plain/simple/good carbs/sweets/fruits still triggers your brain so high-carb food remains an addiction in your head? The only solution might be to quit even the "good" carbs, so after some time, you have no triggers/urges for bad food and can live in peace.

Let's cut the chase: if you have medical conditions for which *a doctor* prescribes you a carnivore diet, referring to the original comment, you can be exempt from the carbon tax.

I disagree, I think red meat is healthy in all/most scenarios.

What should be taxed is high carb, sweets, ultra processed.

No, that's your opinion not backed by any science.

As I posted you a comprehensive review of carnivore diet literature there's no evidence of any long term benefit, in fact, there's evidence of the contrary.

You really sound like somebody who takes advice from Joe Rogan and Tik tok instead of going to a doctor.

Continue believing the narratives and data that back your preferences or your anecdotal experience I guess.

There is no literature on carnivore, it's just people who eat more meat while still eating "normal" food.

While carnivore is eating only meat.

Your paper just said that you may have issues with blood lipids and stuff, there's no real measurements if those blood levels end up as real issues.

Example:

> In contrast, a systematic review by Palmer (2025) [12] concluded that the long-term adverse effects of red and processed meat consumption—such as increased risks of type 2 diabetes, cancer, obesity, hypertension, inflammation, and atherosclerosis—clearly outweigh any potential benefits [12].

Putting diabetes & obesity in there is literally insane! One big issue on carnivore or keto is it's very hard to gain weight, because protein & fat are very fulfilling.

The whole study is always "eating more meat might do this", and never considering real carnivore where you eat nothing else. And even on cases on carnivore, most of the things were extrapolating from the transitory period (hint: staying 30 years carnivore and transitioning to mediterrean also has issues)

Again, it's very hard when you know no details whatsoever.

This is a mongodb moment for you my man (going by marketing), but it's ok, you just don't know better, and don't have the tools or time or ability or the necessity! to try anything else.

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