One major hurdle most will have to get over to adopt a carnivore lifestyle is that they don't eat vegetables. Since most of us have been taught from the minute we could listen that we needed to eat our vegetables with each meal we have a sort of mental block trying to tell us to eat some vegetables.
Why no vegetables on a carnivore diet? Most animals have defenses to allow them to protect themselves from predators. In vegetation though, they have no external defense system so they developed poisons or anti-nutrients which cause health issues in animals that consume them, these are the reasons to exclude them from a carnivore diet.
Since we understand at a basic level why we avoid plants on the carnivore diet, let's take a deeper look into why we avoid the on a carnivore diet and how they impact your health. Then we will jump into fruits and why they should be limited at most and how it is unnatural to have them as options year-round.
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The purpose of you taking on a carnivore diet is to help eliminate everything which could be causing you a health issue or impact. With a large amount of people having issues with gluten, and many other intolerances that cause overt stress on your body today is why you want to start healing.
When you remove them and focus instead on meat your body begins to have a chance to start repairing issues that have happened, like a leaky gut, and to begin the healing process. A carnivore diet isn't intended to be only meat forever but meant instead to help you remove everything and begin adding in to find what works for you and doesn't cause health impacts.
What most people find over time is that very specific vegetables will cause them the most impact, some will find things like potatoes may not give them any impact and they could look at adding them back in more frequently.
This is one of the largest misunderstandings around a carnivore diet, many will stay meat only because they feel so much better, but it isn't a forced decision to only have meats.
Plants don't have the same ability to physically defend themselves from animals who are attempting to eat them, this has meant they evolved other defenses. The most major one which people should be aware of is the ability to impact your ability to absorb vital nutrients.
As I read up on anti-nutrients they actually are chaotic to our ability to absorb vitamins and minerals due to their taking the same pathway as a mineral or vitamin to be absorbed. This means you need to eat more of the vitamins and minerals to get to the healthy amount you need, many times this is why the RDA values are so high versus the actual need.
Fruits have an interesting place in our history as humans have consumed fruits for a very long time. The real reason they have become issues for us is that they used to be available in a real finite amount and for a very small season of availability.
What we have done in making fruit available 24/7/365 has given us a very unnatural amount of natural sugars that aren't how we evolved with them. This leads to larger caloric intake and less nutrient content in each fruit and this means they aren't very helpful in maintaining health.
While I am not against having fruit it is something that should be better controlled, it is a treat, not a food. You should focus instead that it is like a desert and you enjoy it and savor it.
Hopefully, like myself, you understand a little bit more how and why the vegetables can cause many of our current health issues we have been plagued with in recent times. In addition, I didn't even expand into Monsanto and the bug sprays and chemicals used which are shown to also inhibit our ability to absorb nutrients, this means plants can contain serious double whammies.
Take the time to read up, understand what you choose to eat and understand the side effects. If you allow others to provide you all the information you will not get the entire story, many times you will only get the information they view valuable, be knowledgeable, keep learning.
If you read this far you are amazing! I would love to hear from you in the comments below if I helped you gain knowledge and useful information, additionally I would like to know if I got anything incorrect that you believe should be researched more and updated. As always to get the word out please join our new Carnivore Rx group on Facebook and share this out on social media!