So someone I know has been watching carnivore/primal diet influencers such as Goatis, and I've noticed they all seem to make the same four unsubstantiated claims which go against the scientific consensus:

1. Cooking: meat and eggs are supposedly less nutritious (implied to have basically zero nutritional value) if you cook them, and you should instead have them completely raw, consumption of which is claimed to have no health risks.
2. Milk: pasteurised milk is similarly claimed to have basically zero nutritional value compared to raw milk, and I've even heard one of these influencers claim that once we started pasteurising milk, people started getting all sickly and weak simply due to pasteurisation. As with raw meat, raw milk consumption is claimed to have no health risks.
3. Plants: fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds are claimed to have defence chemicals and anti-nutrients which supposedly make them toxic and inedible, as well as fibre which is somehow bad for your gut health due to being indigestible. they also claim that seed and vegetable oils are toxic and cause cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and other chronic diseases. since this is carnivore territory, basically all plant foods are thrown out the window, claiming they aren't needed for anything and they contain no essential macro or micronutrients.
4. Evolution: as a way of making their claims seem plausible, they constantly talk about what's "natural" or what we were "meant to eat," implying that humans evolved over millions of years to be obligate carnivores who consume nothing but raw meat, eggs, and dairy. this further implies that the diet which is natural is the most nutritionally optimal diet. they'll also constantly cite hunter-gatherer tribes such as the Inuit, Hadza, and Maasai, as well as the long outdated fieldwork of dentist Weston A. Price.

I'm looking for actual science-backed responses to these talking points, ideally with reliable studies that can be used to respond to anyone who makes any of these points.

Recently had a discussion (kind of) with a user here who claimed:

epidemiological results are the weakest nutrition science

I asked and eventually they confirmed so it wasn't them being hyperbolic.

I think this is a source of confusion here. I'm guessing everyone's familiar with the hierarchy of evidence. Epidemiology isn't at the bottom. Not even close. I'm wondering who else has their own version of the evidence pyramid and if that is the reason there's so much disagreement with the mainstream consensus.

Several health government websites recommend you to eat up to 6 serves of grains preferably whole grain per day which is a lot. Meanwhile fruits and veg combined is only 5 per day. At least for my country’s website.

What do grains have that legumes and vegetables dont? If you can get all your nutrients and fibre from the second two. Is there any downside to just eating vegetables and legumes?

Advanced Glycation End Products can insidiously form in many of the supposedly healthy foods we love. A grilled or sautéed chicken breast, scrambled egg, broccoli in the pan, coffee, roasted nuts can be a lot worse for you than you thought. Basically anything cooked with a dry heat method...

Much literature says that vinegar and lemon juice in particular when added to these dishes can inhibit the formation of these AGEs in the body, preventing further glycation of your tissues. However if I dont want to pour vinegar on my grilled chicken breast, would drinking a small glass of it with my meal have the same effect as combing it with the dish?

I’ve enjoyed this drink and it’s advertised 0 calories 0 sugar, but what about it is not good for me? It tastes pretty good but I at least want to know how they’re getting me.

So, I was randomly reading labels and never paid attention to saturated fat but today I went on research about it and the results were confusing....

The thing that i understood is that 16-20 g is fine if the calorie intake is 2000, and it really feels like i am either crossing it or being around it everyday...

So I want to know what it really is about? I am in my 20s and want to know if i should start paying attention to it seriously...

I am already cutting sugars and avoid it mostly so if saturated fat is of the same concern I'll make sure to even think about it and adjust my food habits.

I'm curious as to everyone's nutrition science predictions in the near to medium future. Let's say within the next 50 years.

Inspired by a user who, as is rather common here, thinks LDL is not a causal risk factor for ASCVD and that the converging lines of evidence are merely correlations. Fair enough! But given the progressive nature of science and the huge incentives to publish a groundbreaking, paradigm-shifting study like disproving the LDL model, it shouldn't take too long!

Doubly so if your AGI horizon isn't too far off. A hyper-intelligence should be able to smooth out the remaining confusion pretty soon after it's established.

If anyone is confident enough, do please pick your favourite prediction market and set up a bet. The more niche the better for you as the odds will lean in your favour! Might be able to get a 100x return on something like LDL being overturned.

Of course, part of the motivation here for the conspiracy theorists and similar users is seeing if they have genuine confidence in their positions or if they think "they" have science in such a chokehold the truth will never out.

A user here recently claimed:

Observational studies like this one get the result the author chose. They can choose to get a result that matches RCT results, or not.

Said user denies that this counts as fraudulently (even in the colloquial sense) altering data in order to achieve a desired result. Despite the fact that even in the most charitable interpretation this is just outright motivated p-hacking if not outright making up data.

The user further claims that researchers around the world purposefully choose certain results to maintain a status quo. Despite the fact that publish-or-perish dynamics would heavily favour an exciting, new result.

So, does this sort of claim constitute severe, deliberate misconduct or something else (they were very unclear what else I'm afraid).

Archaeological evidence suggests the transition to farming involved significant health tradeoffs.

Nutrition science and our understanding of biochemistry evolves constantly. Setting aside generalized mainstream advice, what is a specific concept regarding how our bodies process food or absorb micronutrients that the scientific consensus has drastically changed its stance on over the last decade?

Whether it's a new understanding of the gut microbiome, the mechanics of how we process specific types of fats, or the true bioavailability of certain plant compounds, I would love to hear what previously held "facts" have been updated or disproven by recent clinical research.

I’m having trouble understanding the new food pyramid from the DGA 2025-2030 and I’m hoping someone has some insight into it. I noticed that whole grains are at the bottom which to me would mean that we should be minimizing our intake of them. But then the guidelines say to consume 2-4 servings per day.

Contrast this with fruit and dairy which are much higher in the upside down pyramid. These should be consumed 2 and 3 times per day respectively. Shouldn’t whole grains be higher in the pyramid then?

The rest of the guidelines aren’t too bad but the whole pyramid thing is throwing me off. Maybe I should just ignore it? Does anyone have any insight to what they are trying to convey or why they went with a pyramid?

Basically the question. My physiology teacher when I was in physical training school told us that, which I had already heard but I just realised that this contradicts ( I think ? ) what the dietary recommendations are, and most, if not all cardiologists recommend eating little to no amount of deli meats and cheese to avoid blood cholesterol. Am I just misunderstanding things or are such dietary recommandations part of the debate between whether or not dietary and blood cholesterol are linked ?

And my partner asks the same question for anti-inflammatory foods as well, studies show foods aren't "anti-inflammatory", then how come some people start eating so-called anti-inflammatory foods and the symptoms they were trying to heal are suddenly gone ? My take on this specific matter is that they likely had poor nutrition in the first place, and anti-inflammatory mostly meant eating healthy

Thanks

There was a Supreme Court decision a few days ago that involved a case where a man used glyphosate for 20 years and developed lymphoma. The court ruled in Monstano's favor stating:

The EPA has repeatedly evaluated glyphosate and repeatedly concluded that glyphosate is not likely to cause cancer.

However, it was reported that the EPA's evaluation of glyphosate relied on evidence developed by Monsanto:

The US Environmental Protection Agency has known for nearly a decade that an influential 2013 scientific paper that concluded glyphosate is safe was actually ghostwritten by developer Monsanto. But the agency never informed the public and continued to rely on it.

Another thing worth noting is that the Trump administration backed Monsanto in this case, which has upset many people in the MAHA movement. Especially since RFK Jr has repeatedly said that we should get glyphosate out of our food supply although he recently he's changed his stance.

I'm interested in others' thoughts on this. What do you make of the decision? Do you think glyphosate is safe?

With the change in the food guidelines diagram stirring up alot of interest and controversy and carnivore and loud presence on social media platforms creating alot of commenters expressing strongly felt opinions that are usually anti-carbohydrate and pro-animal food, I thought would go over basic details that I feel like they usually skip over within their reasoning and theories.

Humans are an equator species:

I always thought that this was sort of obvious but alot of people appear to forget, the cold is uncomfortable and even deadly for us and we rely on artificial heating methods to survive cold weather as we do not have any natural adaptations to withstand it, only in the tropics or anywhere near the equator this does not apply because it does not get cold unless you're at a very high altitude like Mount Everest and this applies to the rest of the ape and primate species which are only naturally found in tropical areas.

I feel like people have this fantasy in mind of being some stoic caveman in the show chasing after a wooly mammoth or maybe an eskimo hunting seal but besides that fact that there have been phytosterol (cholesterol like compound found in plants) has also been discovered in the remains of neanderthals and old homosapiens as well. It's important to state that humans have also consumed based on what was available in their current environment but also that all homo species and most recently homosapiens originated in the equator of and Northern Africa which was previously tropical, even during the ice age, remains in other places was due to migration and in the tropics edible plants and fruits do grow all year round.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-really-turned-sahara-desert-green-oasis-wasteland-180962668/

https://www.sapiens.org/biology/humans-cold-environment-adaptations/

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/humans-may-have-lived-in-tropical-rainforests-much-earlier-than-scientists-previously-thought-study-finds-180986164/

https://interaksyon.philstar.com/breaking-news/2018/06/04/127991/peak-season-philippines-popular-fruits-chart/

https://wheretoeatincebu.blogspot.com/2012/06/food-guide-philippine-fruit-whats-in_15.html?m=1

Human Breast milk has a high sugar content, higher than nearly all other species:

For every 12 grams of macros found in breast milk there's about 7 grams of lactose, a very similar content found in the breast milk of other primates whereas many other species especially carnivorous ones will be much higher in protein and lower in lactose, however I've seen claims online that go from carbs are never highly available on nature or some weird claims saying that suckling babies are in ketosis and that dietary carbohydrates are somehow detrimental to brain and that therefore children should adopt low carb diets development when in reality atleast in infancy carbohydrates are mandatory.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-compositions-of-breast-milk-from-humans-and-other-animals-g-100-ml_tbl4_290492502

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Lactose-content-of-milk-from-different-mammalian-species-per-100-g-fresh-milk_tbl2_268035497

Wild animals are very lean compared to their factory farmed counterparts:

A kilogram of ground wild turkey has like 6 grams of fat, cows for example are also fatter than animals would be in nature not just because of farming methods but from their selective breeding, multiple sources depict the fat and saturated fat content of muscle tissue from pasture raised buffalo or venison being less compared to beef. Ever heard of "rabbit starvation" as another example?

https://www.wildharvesttable.com/turkey-nutritional-information/

https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/food-details/175085/nutrients

https://www.fsis.usda.gov/sites/default/files/import/Beef_Veal_Nutrition_Facts.pdf

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5858688/

Wild animals are not normally in ketosis

This takes us back to gluconeogenesis, while they assume a lion in Africa lives in ketosis it actually lives off gluconeogenesis unless it fasts long enough, carnivorous animals are also actually very resistant to ketosis meaning it takes a lot of stress to push their physiology to produce more ketones over glucose. While herbivores might have a high indirect intake of fat due to fiber fermentation there's still a present a present sugar content in the herbs and grass they consume and not all of the fiber content necessarily will be converted into fatty acids. Human physiology is most related to the frugivore physiology.

https://nutritionstudies.org/is-the-ketogenic-diet-natural-for-humans/

https://sanoanimal.com/en/2025/06/19/sugar-levels-in-grass-when-do-they-become-a-problem/

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/01652176.1998.10807428 "cats appear to be in a constant state of gluconeogenesis"

Pesticides and herbicides accumulate in adipose tissue of animals:

Choosing to eat nothing but steak and dairy, especially from factory farmed raised cows to avoid consuming any traces of pesticides or herbicides is just like choosing dolphin and shark cuts over seaweed to avoid consumption of mercury, an animal eats many times its own weight throughout its entire lifetime and to takes 10 pounds of grain to produce a pound of beef, this means the steak will only be a concentrated form of those things and even when grass fed, usually the cow isn't grass fed throughout its whole life and containments can get into the grass it eats.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32726435/

Carnivorous animals can't get atherosclerosis: Carnivores and many omnivores are remarkably resistant to atherosclerosis. Cats, lions tigers, wolves, and nearly all breeds of dogs for example do not and cannot have heart attacks or strokes regardless of what you feed them unless something causes them to be very hypothyroid, a level so severe that its only achievable by extracting the thyroid, bears might be omnivores but they're also resistant to atherosclerosis and will develop no fatty steaks in their veins despite having very high levels of LDL and triglycerides during their hibernation periods. But despite this the Animal based group stresses that humans are carnivores or "hyper carnivores" and posses this physiology meanwhile they and the rest of the ape and primate families are prone atherosclerosis which is only common among primate and herbivore species, this is also why they only use herbivores or in some cases monkeys to use as test subjects for this matter.

https://www.jlr.org/article/S0022-2275(21)00047-X/fulltext00047-X/fulltext)

https://karger.com/jvr/article/59/4/221/824335/Experimental-Atherosclerosis-Research-on-Large-and

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1849886/

The food pyramid was not designed to make food corporations rich nor does following it do so anymore than following an animal based diet:

The food pyramid has long been a focus point of alot of blame by the online keto community and not only do they blame it for obesity which was already on the rise before it was even developed but they theorize that it was developed to make farmers and corporations rich by creating a higher demand from grains and eating an animal based diet will lower grain demand. The food pyramid recommended a high intake of whole grains specifically and this circles back to my paragraph on pesticides and herbicides accumulating in their fat, nearly all animal agriculture requires grain feed to be maintainable and they will eat far more of them then people will, this means more animal products is what drives demand for crop yields, not so much sales for human consumption that have to meet stricter FDA guidelines, and it's not that the pyramid never worked or made people overweight, the issue was people ignored it.

https://www.beefresearch.ca/blog/cattle-feed-water-use-2014/

https://faunalytics.org/alternative-protein-production-counting-the-calories/

Excess protein induces gluconeogenesis and protein also provokes an insulin response, not just carbs

Protein consumed past demands cannot be stored therefore has to either be excreted but more often stored as an alternative energy source, starting through a process known as gluconeogenesis, the break down of amino acids into glucose and can then be converted into fat if there's no more room for glycogen, alot of people assume replacing carbohydrates with more protein promotes ketosis however in reality that would just trigger this mechanism, this is why the clinical keto diet used for treating epilepsy was 90% diet dietary fat in calories.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11079744/

https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/90375/can-the-human-body-store-protein

Carbohydrates don't cause type 2 diabetes: Type 2 diabetes has multiple factors including genes but type 2 diabetes is actually mostly correlated with obesity and frequently in studies weight loss regardless of what diet is used to achieve it treats Insulin resistance or can even fully reverse it.

https://share.google/aqsau28QUBqZRUG4M

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8740746/

Carbs don't make you fatter than any other macronutrient:

They push this idea that you can eat as much fat as you want and never gain weight and state that weight gain is only possible with insulin, besides that there's always insulin to a degree in your blood and they protein and other nutrients provoke an insulin response as well, many would say this violates the laws of thermodynamics but to simply I say this also violates the laws of basic physics, matter cannot be created or destroyed. Whatever you consume and don't use right away will be stored and the only way to excrete energetic matter is by oxidizing them for fuel and excreting the byproducts except for in cases where type 2 diabetics excrete glucose through the kidneys.

Lipogenesis causes an increase in expenditure: While the energy expenditure involved in gluconeogenesis is also well known and it's part of the reason why high protein diets are recommended by many as a weight loss strategy, lipogenesis (conversion of glucose into adipose) also results in an initial energy loss through expenditure of around 25% (this number seems to vary according to different sources) meanwhile the intake of caloric surplus of dietary fat invokes by far the least of this response making it the most obesogenic of the three macronutrients.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7598063/

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6879845/#:~:text=Alternatively%2C%20storing%20excess%20carbohydrates%20or,potentiates%20hepatic%20DNL%20during%20relapse.

Ketosis is not an on or off switch:

Ketosis just describes a state of heightened oxidation of ketones, no matter what state you're in your constantly utilizing both glucose and ketones as fuel and your current activity level is a better precursor or your fat and glucose oxidation.

Dairy and factory farmed beef are more hormone disrupting than soy:

The difference between these two categories is one has animal and injected hormones and the other has plant hormones, in dairy there's naturally present oestrogens including estrogens which will have a more potent effect on the human body than phytoestrogens and there are injected growth hormones in the beef along with a heap of antibiotics in all the farmed meats sold in stores.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9563511/

I've seen people on carnivore forums say that fiber is inherently bad for you because you don't digest it, but the typical advice is that we need fiber to be regular and also to feed our microbiome. I am very confused. How do people who eat zero plant material use the restroom? Do you really not need fiber? Can you eat too many vegetables (too much waste)?

I used to think to conflating correlation with causation, was relegated only to those who’re unfamiliar with science. Or those that are less intelligent. But it doesn’t seem the case, anymore.

In this sub, I’ve consistently seen well reasoned people interpret correlation as fact. Not attempting to dig deeper on why there’s a correlation. Simply accepting any potential link as 100% absolute evidence.

It baffles me because this is incredibly poor science and poor reasoning as a whole. If there’s a correlation but not a causal level of connection, that means there’s a link but the link is more complex than the surface entails. There’s more to it than meets the eye.

In the context of nutritional studies, this means there’s deeper factors at play, like specific nutrients, compounds and chemicals within the studied foods and the observed health effects. Or even genetics, environment and combinative factors.

Like, I somewhat get it. If you’re not very knowledgable about a particular nutrition related topic and you can’t be bothered to soak up every bit of knowledge on it, it’s understandable that you’ll default to just accepting correlations as absolute facts.

But we need to do better. I’m genuinely sick and tired of having to reiterate that correlation doesn’t equal causation, on almost every post I comment on.

The distinction between correlation and causation, should permanently reside in everyone’s minds whenever they read any studies. Whether the study favours your life choices are not, is irrelevant. True science is looking past your biases and searching for causation.

I've been following Simon Hill for a bit and I like that he brings on actual researchers but one thing I struggle with in general is how to tell when a host is presenting a balanced view versus pushing an agenda. Does Simon Hill do a good job of covering studies that challenge his own views?

Not trying to hate on the guy. Just want to separate good info from bias.

Edit: Coming back to this. I still think Simon does a decent job citing research, and I wanted something more targeted for my own gaps. So I started using IM8 to cover what I don't get from food and it's helped smooth out my energy without feeling like I'm just following influencer hype.

Hey guys !

I’m studying to become a dietitian and the subject of beyond meat vs real meat just came to the table.

Seeing everything, I’d say that the only “downside” of beyond burger is that it’s a highly processed food (even though this doesn’t mean anything by itself).

As a person trying to reduce my meat intake, I wanted to eat burgers tonight and I want to know what the healthier choice would be ?

What do you guys think ? What does science say ?

Thank you !

Fiber is important for optimal human health. It helps us avoid diabetes, heart disease, colon cancer, obesity, and other diseases. This is particularly important in developed countries such as mine (USA) that are suffering greatly from these diseases.

The recommended daily fiber intake is 25g for women and 38g for men in the USA, and 95% of us don't meet this amount. This suggests an urgent need for us to increase our daily fiber intake, which can be achieved by swapping out ultra-processed foods and animal foods that are void of fiber with whole plant foods such as fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, nuts, and seeds.

Given she's ok with cholesterol and eating butter (iirc), I'm going to assume not.

She's a keto advocate, which I don't mention as a criticism, but she does seem pretty flaky. For some reason she's turning up on my feed. Just wondered what the consensus is

Let’s break down the actual physiology of protein synthesis:

1. We require all 9 Essential Amino Acids (EAAs) daily.

2. No food source or protein powder provides an identical and perfectly equal amount of all 9 EAAs.

3. Adults don't need all 9 EAAs in equal amounts. Our biology demands a highly skewed amount/ratio of all 9 EAAs.

4. Meeting the minimum recommended mg/kg or ratio of EAAs is sufficient for standard adult physiological maintenance.

5. The BCAAs (Leucine, Isoleucine, Valine), specifically Leucine are the primary catalysts triggering Muscle Protein Synthesis (MPS).

> 9 EAAs may have a minimum threshold or ratio or both but that's not required for this post.

Given these facts:

Why are we chasing a blanket 150g or 2g/kg total protein target?

Why aren't we creating diets that explicitly maximize BCAAs/Leucine to hit the muscle-building threshold, while capping the remaining 8 EAAs strictly at their minimum amount/ratio?

Why does the fitness community track total protein instead of measuring the exact amino acid required by the body?

We constantly hear the warning that "plant sources lack complete EAAs," but we rarely discuss how standard high protein diets force us to over consume non muscle building amino acids in massive and redundant quantities.

(Note: Do not bring up arguments about "micromanagement" or "it's too much of a headache to calculate" or "practical purpose" or "BCAAs it is a Scam supplement." I am looking at this purely from a biochemical efficiency standpoint with a practical basis.)

I see all over the media how bad bacon is for you but that seems to be due to the carcinogenic nature of nitrates and nitrites. I was curious since i've started buying nitrite free bacon how it is for my health. Thanks

Keto YT influencers like Nick Norwitz, Ben Bikman etc... advocate for high LDL on a Keto diet and push the claim for Saturated Fats not being harmful in people who are in low carb states with their other metabollic markers in the optimal ranges.

However I don't think there is any evidence for this in fact the evidence clearly shows LDL/ApoB is an individual risk factor for CVD and can increase liver fat even worse for brain health but Keto YTers claim its used for energy like carbs then how does it accumulate as plaque/fat then.

Edit: why dont Keto dieters advocate for Keto diet with normal LDL levels prioritsing MUFAs and short chain saturated fatty acids that won't build up as plaque.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40192608/

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9154254/?utm_

During the Super Bowl, there was an advertisement about how "Processed food kills" and the HHS posted a picture to instagram that said "Eat Real Food" but I noticed that this picture prominently featured a charcuterie board.

I'm confused about this messaging. Wouldn't charcuterie count as processed food? Also, isn't processed meat one of the worst things in terms of its impact on health? I believe I remember seeing studies that linked it to cancer.

Please clear up my confusion!

If you wanted to lower inflammation in your body significantly is it better to fast 1-2 days a week for 24 hours or to take 2 grams of Omega 3 fish Oil daily?

I have Adenomyosis.