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Dirty Carnivore is dedicated to providing information about diets where the vast majority of one's nutritional needs are satisfied by foods from the animal kingdom - roughly 90% or more.

Since the dawn of civilization, our health has rapidly diminished as the foreign foods of the Neolithic Age have entered our diet in increasing amounts. These foods include grains, dairy, legumes and modern fruits. No longer do we have the tall stature, symmetrical features, large cranial capacity and robust health of our Paleolithic ancestors. Rather we are facing an epidemic of diseases of civilization compromising our cardiovascular and metabolic health as evidenced by the shocking increase in rates of cardiovascular disease, cancer, obesity, and diabetes. At Dirty Carnivore, we recognize an urgent need to return to the era of healthy living that existed before the advent of agricultural industry when the focus of nutrition shifted from fat and protein supplying the majority of the diet to edible harvested plant matter, high in carbohydrates.

Why "dirty?" By dirty, we distinguish between those who purely eat from the animal kingdom, and thus consume virtually zero carb, and those who take a more facultative carnivore approach. Let's consider the fact that the definition of carnivore is any animal that eats most or all of its food from the animal kingdom, and therefore lies on a spectrum of possibilities. Furthermore, we recognize that it is not always easy to let go of long held beliefs steeped in mainstream nutritional dogma. Moving in the direction of better health continually and by degrees can, in the long term, be more effective than an immediate "all or nothing" tack. Frankly, too often we've seen the "black or white" approach fail as most people find it impossible to make such drastic dietary and lifestyle changes in one fell swoop. Good nutrition is the most important consideration. A carnivorous diet "dirtied" by the inclusion - depending on individual tolerance - of limited amounts of dairy, non-starchy low carb vegetables, nuts and the occasional low sugar fruit can be a good step in realizing significant improvements to our health today.

Who are the carnivores among us?

In modern times, we can look to some fine examples of peoples who have lived on traditional hunter-gatherer diets, with an emphasis on animal foods. Examples include traditional Inuit, Masai and Plains Native Americans. In terms of modern 'civilized' people, probably one of the most famous experiments came early in the 20th century from an anthropologist who lived with the Inuit for years.

Vilhjalmur Stefansson (1879 -1962) spent years with the Eskimos, learning their ways of living. Read his own words below, recorded in the introduction to an article entitled "Adventures in Diet," which was published by Harper's Monthly Magazine, November 1935. The entire 3 part series may be found here: Adventures in Diet, Part 1.

"In 1906 I went to the Arctic with the food tastes and beliefs of the average American. By 1918, after eleven years as an Eskimo among Eskimos, I had learned things which caused me to shed most of those beliefs. Ten years later I began to realize that what I had learned was going to influence materially the sciences of medicine and dietetics. However, what finally impressed the scientists and converted many during the last two or three years, was a series of confirmatory experiments upon myself and a colleague performed at Bellevue Hospital, New York City, under the supervision of a committee representing several universities and other organizations.

"Not so long ago the following dietetic beliefs were common: To be healthy you need a varied diet, composed of elements from both the animal and vegetable kingdoms. You got tired of and eventually felt a revulsion against things if you had to eat them often. This latter belief was supported by stories of people who through force of circumstances had been compelled, for instance, to live for two weeks on sardines and crackers and who, according to the stories, had sworn that so long as they lived they never would touch sardines again. The Southerners had it that nobody can eat a quail a day for thirty days.

"There were subsidiary dietetic views. It was desirable to eat fruits and vegetables, including nuts and coarse grains. The less meat you ate the better for you. If you ate a good deal of it, you would develop rheumatism, hardening of the arteries, and high blood pressure, with a tendency to breakdown of the kidneys - in short, premature old age. An extreme variant had it that you would live more healthy, happily, and longer if you became a vegetarian."

The experiment at Bellevue was quite a success. Stefansson and his colleague did not develop scurvy, artery problems, kidney trouble or other things their doctors expected from eating an all meat (including organ meats) diet.

Please explore the alternatives to mainstream nutritional madness found here at Dirty Carnivore.

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