Book Review: The Carnivore Code

TLDR: The Carnivore Code Review — Excellent book. Highly recommended. Buy it!

What follows is more like a summary of Dr. Paul Saladino’s book. I extract the high points to entice to you dive deeper for yourself.

I’m a contrarian. There’s no way I would have found the carnivore diet without questioning the healthy eating narrative. 

Settled science is something I have a huge problem with. There’s no such thing. 

Oh, it’s an official decree from a government agency … then I should do the opposite. 

So, when Paul Saladino M.D. anchors his book in evolution of man, and what our prehistoric ancestors did a million years ago, I get a little sketched out. We don’t know what the hell happened a million years ago. Fossils and carbon dating are so speculative it’s crazy to nod and be like “yep we know what was up back then.”

Using science to make points on a diet book is walking the razor’s edge.

Harkening back in the day, when man separated from monkeys by eating meat and growing bigger brains and living much healthier lives doesn’t grab me, but Saladino’s modern-day anecdotes, incessant testing with bloodwork and assays, and sifting through the modern-day BS science is fantastic.

He shines a light on the plant-based food agenda, and the “science” propaganda to jam a profitable ideology down our throat. Diet advice from corporations filtered through government has been oozing into the populace’s ears for decades. And look at the rampant poor health. 

So, what I’m trying to say is I love this book. 

If you’re interested in the carnivore diet, Saladino brings a ton of information to the table, so you can make informed choices.

He walks the talk. He’s a physician on a carnivore diet. He puts the research skills that got him through medical school into finding the evidence for why the carnivore diet works. The book is well-sourced with 747 references. He tests himself often to make sure all his bloodwork and other health markers are on point. 

Spoiler: They are.

I can’t think of a more qualified author to write a book like this. 

I have dabbled in a meat-based diet for months, and this book highlighted things I need to work on, and resources to take advantage of. It gave me the confidence and resolve to keep going. That’s huge for me as I make daily food choices.

Saladino hits all the classic objections head-on. And for you nerds, he gets deep in certain passages. My eyes glazed over, but you science wonks will love chewing on that material. 

> Get the Book

The Carnivore Code Book Summary

Paul Saladino’s Story

What makes The Carnivore Code even more legit, is that Dr. Saladino had to solve his own auto-immune issue. This isn’t book learning and cherry-picking research studies. He was in the trenches working to “heal thyself.”

He suffered from bad eczema, including weeping and infected sores on his back. As he eliminated food from his diet, there were improvements, but it wasn’t until he went full carnivore that eczema cleared up completely.

After three days doing carnivore, Paul started feeling calmer and had a more positive outlook on life.

These days he has all the anecdotal markers of health:

• Stable emotions
• Good sleep
• Strong body
• Lots of energy
• Robust libido
• Beautiful daily poop
• No eczema flares

Plus, as a physician, who tests himself, he has hundreds of assays with great results. 

• Healthy kidneys and liver. 
• No scurvy. 
• No inflammation. 
• No insulin resistance. 

Definition of the Ideal Diet

I like Paul’s definition of the ideal diet:

• It should have all the nutrients our bodies need to function optimally.
• Those nutrients should be in the most bio-available forms (meaning our bodies can actually use the nutrients we are consuming).
• The food we eat should have minimal toxins.
• And the diet should include all the building blocks we need, including vitamins, minerals, and amino acids.

The Solution to Modern Day Ill Health

“The majority of the disease and illness we experience today is autoimmune and inflammatory in nature, and I believe that by focusing on nutrient-rich animal foods while avoiding the toxins found in plants that trigger these processes, we will swiftly return to our ancestral birthright of radical health and vitality.”

87.8% of Western populations have insulin resistance and metabolic dysfunction.

Definition of insulin resistance from Wikipedia: “Insulin resistance is a pathological condition in which cells fail to respond normally to the hormone insulin. Insulin is a hormone that allows glucose to enter cells which also reduces blood glucose. Insulin is released by the pancreas in response to carbohydrates consumed in the diet.”

Food is the biggest cause of inflammation in our bodies. Our bodies are affected by a milligram of a pharmaceutical. How much more by kilograms of toxins in our food?

The toxins from plant foods, we’ll get into more detail on those later, damage the gut and activate our immune system. They get through the gut lining which puts our defense systems on high alert, which causes an inflamed state. We’re not meant to live with constant inflammation. It takes a toll on our bodies.

“The critical error of judgment that Western medicine is making is in imagining that there are thousands of different chronic illnesses, when in fact there’s really only one big one—inflammation.”

Saladino argues that meat does not have this effect on our systems. Only plant-based foods.

Plant food is for losers.

I’m not trying to be mean here. In the olden days when you had to hunt for your food, sometimes you came home empty-handed. That’s when you ate plant foods. 

If you didn’t succeed on the hunt, the fallback food was plants. Plants were survival food until you brought home the real prize: meat.

Today, we can order grass-fed beef on the Internet, or hit the local market, or visit the ranch on the outskirts of town. The meats are abundant and accessible for most of the Western world.

Take advantage.

Eating Advice

Dr. Paul has a tiered approach to the animal-based carnivore diet. It’s hard to dive in full carnivore, so he suggests moving through tiers, eliminating the worst plant offenders as you go. He shares a ton of information on different foods. Here’s a brief summary.

He suggests starting out eating 80-90% animal products including beef, bison, lamb, poultry, fish, and eggs. Try to get grass-fed because it has more nutrients with fewer toxins than grain-fed.

Supplement with the least toxic plant foods, which include winter and summer squash, avocados, cucumbers, olives, and berries.

Don’t forget to consume 8-10 grams of high-quality salt.

Keep eliminating the plant foods as you grow more accustomed to the diet.

Rule of thumb: 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight, and 1 gram of fat per pound of bodyweight.

To take it to the next level add seafood and fish like wild salmon, sardines, shellfish, fish eggs, and oysters, plus organ meat, bone broth, bone marrow, bone meal, suet, and fat trimmings.

Dairy is tricky. Some people can handle it better than others. Dr. Paul breaks out in eczema when he consumes it. Dairy has both sugar and fat, so the body doesn’t send out signals of satiety when you eat it. This means you can over-eat it. He generally recommends leaving milk, yogurt, butter, and ghee out for the first 60 to 90 days of trying carnivore.

Drink filtered water, spring water, and/or sparkling mineral water.

Try to stop drinking coffee, tea, and alcohol. No sugary drinks.

Dr. Paul says his recommendation to stop coffee drinking causes the most pain and suffering for his clients. Coffee beans contain polyphenols, which, unlike what you hear in the mainstream media, damage DNA. Avoid coffee for the same reason you avoid plants, which I discuss in the next section. 

Coffee also raises the heart rate, blood pressure, blood glucose, and anxiety. And it contains mold, and man-made pesticides. Plus, the roasting process produces a carcinogen called acrylamide.

Plants Are Poison

Animal foods are the best. Plant foods are sub-optimal with fewer nutrients that are less bioavailable, and a myriad of toxins that harm us.

Neither plants nor animals want you to eat them. Animals are able to run away or fight back, but plants are stuck in the ground. Plants developed chemical defense mechanisms to dissuade predators from eating them in the future.

Plants have natural pesticides. In fact, according to Bruce Ames and his article, Dietary Pesticides: 99.9% All Natural, 99.9% of human consumption of pesticides comes from the plants themselves and only .1 percent comes from pesticides sprayed on the food. 

We aren’t letting Agribusiness off the hook for the poisons they’re spraying all over the planet, like Glyphosate and synthetic pesticides, but it’s the natural properties of the plants that may cause the most harm.

A small sampling of the damaging molecules in plants:

• Lectins
• Oxalates
• Phytoalexins
• Polyphenols
• Tannins
• Flavonoids
• Isothiocyanates

The human body was not built to handle these. It does not want them and does everything it can to excrete them. They “trigger defensive reactions in our body,” while animal foods trigger “active absorption and biochemical utilization of the vitamins and minerals.”

Broccoli, kale, and spinach all have brutal amounts of DNA damaging properties. Dr. Paul goes deep into the science to prove it. I’ll never touch the stuff again.

With damaged DNA you’re a sitting duck for chronic diseases like cancer.

Quick story about oxalates straight from the book:

“When examined at autopsy, a survey of 103 thyroid glands showed that 79 percent contained oxalate crystals. A toxic compound is found in the vast majority of thyroid glands? People must be eating tons of this stuff throughout their lives. Oh wait, that’s exactly what’s happening! After all, we are told that many high oxalate foods are healthy, and we are encouraged to consume as many of them as possible. Maybe it’s time to reconsider the mainstream health advice that spinach, almonds, beets, and chocolate are good for us?”

Nightshades and Evil Lectins

Tomatoes, eggplants, white potatoes, bell peppers, chili peppers, tobacco, and goji berries are in the nightshade family. They contain lectins and other harmful toxins.

Removal of these vegetables from the diet often helps with joint pain, arthritis, and other autoimmune symptoms.

Lectins damage the gut causing leaky gut syndrome, and they screw up hormones responsible for signaling satiety, like insulin and leptin.

More lectin-heavy foods include seeds, grains, nuts, legumes, the skin of squashes, and dairy products. Dr. Steven Gundry, the author of The Plant Paradox, has great success with low lectin diets in his patients. 

His study results:

95 of 102 patients had complete resolution of autoimmune and inflammatory markers within 9 months. The other seven had reduced markers but not complete resolution. 80 of 102 got off the immunosuppressive and biologic medications.

Eat The Meat

Animal foods have nutrients required by humans where plants and fungi are insufficient. 

• Vitamin B12 – Wards off brain atrophy and cognitive impairment.
• Creatine – Helps working memory, intelligence, reaction time, and strength.
• Choline – Helps with deficiencies associated with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, neurodegenerative disease, and heart disease.
• Taurine – An antioxidant in the muscles and an “anxiety-reducing neurotransmitter.”
• Carnitine – Helps use fat stores for energy. Helps with depression.
• Carnosine – An antioxidant that reduces advanced glycation end products (AGEs)
• Vitamin K2 – Helps with calcium storage, bone density, and arterial health. Reduces risk of coronary heart disease mortality.
• Trace minerals (zinc, copper, selenium) – Helps with deficiencies associated with neurologic disorders, anemia, and bone strength.
• Magnesium – Alkalinizing mineral important to balance acidic input of protein.
• Amino acids (glycine, cysteine, glutamine) – form glutathione, which is a major component of the body’s antioxidant workings.

Less Oxidative Damage

Look at the results of a study where subjects went 10 weeks without fruits and vegetables.

“The overall effect of the 10-week period without dietary fruits and vegetables was a decrease in the oxidative damage to DNA, blood, proteins, and plasma lipids, concomitantly with marked changes in antioxidative defense.”

Reduced Cancer and Cardiovascular Disease

An Asian study followed 300,000 people for 11 years to keep track of mortality causes. The conclusion: 

“Our pooled analysis did not provide evidence of a higher risk of mortality for total meat intake and provided evidence of an inverse association with red meat, poultry, and fish/seafood. Red meat intake was inversely associated with CVD (cardiovascular disease) mortality in men and with cancer mortality in women…”

Improved Satiety Signals

Eating carnivore improves satiety, meaning you don’t have constant cravings or desire to eat. I have found this to be true. It took a while to get there. My brain and body were fighting carnivore for the first few weeks, whispering into my ear “am I only going to eat meat and eggs for the rest of my life … shouldn’t you eat that pint of amazing salted caramel ice cream?” 

But, that subsided. Sometimes I get a craving for something off the diet like sweets, but it’s more emotional than physical. I’m surprised how rarely this happens.

Deep Down Even Vegetarians Know

An interesting study, tested vegetarians on their neural response to meat. It was obvious they had aversion to meat on a subjective level, but their brains responded positively to it on a neural level. Their bodies were craving meat.

The Research

You may be saying to yourself:  “This doesn’t line up with what I read. The health segment on the nightly news doesn’t jive with this.”

Well, you may not be receiving the whole truth on nutrition from your “trusted” sources.

There are two types of studies: epidemiology studies and interventional studies. 

Epidemiology studies base discoveries on questionnaires that researchers pass around to participants, asking questions about diet and exercise. They take the responses and try to match the patterns with health outcomes. This modality is abused with leading questions and selective promotion of only the results that support a pre-ordained narrative.

Correlation does not equal causation.

Interventional studies expose groups to specific interventions like a change in diet. The monitor the groups over time, looking for specific changes. Often they randomize, double-blind, and placebo-control these trials to keep bias, assumptions, and manipulations out.

This method is much more sound, and it’s harder to fudge the numbers or spin the results. It’s also more time-intensive and costly, which is why you rarely see them in the nutritional world.

In Dr. Paul’s perfect research world: “epidemiology studies would be used to generate hypotheses about how diet and health outcomes might be related, which would then be tested with interventional studies.”

Why the Plant-Based Food Agenda?

Saladino says big money drives the plant-based food agenda. 

“If an interventional study shows that meat is good for you, cattle farmers aren’t exactly going to get rich. They might sell a few more rib eyes here and there, but their profits won’t be anything like the billions garnered by pharma when it strikes molecular gold.”

That’s a big part of it. There’s another population-control agenda that gets a little too conspiratorial for this post, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility that weakening the general population with soy burgers, chemical-laden fake meat, and vegan propaganda is reducing human’s ability to procreate on purpose. If that’s the plan, the alarming drop in fertility rates suggests it’s working.

Also, studies show that men who ate the most fruits and veggies had the worst sperm quality, including lower count and less drive to get the job done.

But, let’s stick with the BIG PROFIT angle. They use fake science and cherry-pick results to push a certain narrative through media and research institutions to keep people eating processed foods and franken-farmed foods so the profits keep rolling to big corporations and big agricultural interests.

Make no mistake, they have the money and power to “encourage” news media, medical journals, research facilities, and government agencies to whore themselves out and lie, to fulfill corporate agendas.

They’re feeding the population bad nutrition advice in order to make more money. 

For example, the American Heart Association (AHA) has pushed a low-fat, carb-laden diet based on plant foods over animal foods. 

Doesn’t matter that the population is fatter, and diabetes and heart disease have skyrocketed in the decades they have been dispensing this advice. 

Food corporations, selling vegetable oils and low-fat, grain-based foods, donated millions of dollars to the AHA to nudge them toward the correct conclusions.

Dr. Paul suggests reading The Big Fat Surprise by Nina Teicholz to see the dirty game that is played with “shoddy science, corporate gain, and political interest” to drive these policies.

Frequently Asked Questions About the Carnivore Diet

There’s a lot of misinformation out there about eating meat. It’s hard to break out of some of that thinking that’s presented as settled science.

We live longer today than at any point in history. Modern man and the modern farm-based diet must be doing something right?

We live longer but with rampant chronic disease, our overall health has plummeted. The difference in life expectancy is childhood mortality rates. Improvements in sanitation and more access to clean water have reduced those rates.

My friend’s health improved after switching to a plant-based diet?

This happens because oftentimes people that switch to a plant-based diet eliminate processed foods as well. Over time, these benefits fade, and long-term health issues begin to arise.

The Blue Zones research said the most healthy people eat plant-based foods?

The Blue Zones are five regions of the world where people lived longer. Researchers looked for commonalities in diet and lifestyle to find hints as to why. These locations were Okinawa, Sardinia, Loma Linda, Nicoya region in Costa Rica, and Ikaria in Greece. 

Researcher Dan Buettner wrote an article for National Geographic on this phenomenon in 2005. He determined the commonalities were …

• Low smoking rates
• The importance placed on family
• Moderate physical activity
• Plant-heavy diets

Studies confirm the non-diet stuff in that list increase the length of telomeres which are important markers of longer life expectancy. 

But, red meat is the only food correlated with longer telomeres. 

The study left out countries with longer life spans. For example, Hong Kong has one of the highest life expectancies in the world (85 years) and they consume the third most beef per capita.

There were big flaws in Buettner’s claims within the highlighted regions themselves. Only the males live longer in the Nicoya region in Costa Rica, and guess what … they eat a lot of meat cooked in animal fat. Not a minor thing to leave out of the Blue Zone study.

There are similar assessments coming out of Sardinia, Okinawa, and Ikaria.

That leaves Loma Linda, CA, which is home to many vegetarian and vegan Seventh Day Adventists. They don’t smoke or drink, which helps with longevity. The Mormons in California live similar teetotalling lives except they eat meat. The Blue Zones study left them out despite similar life expectancies. Curious.

How do I poop without fiber?

Studies show that stool frequency and volume can increase with fiber in the diet. However, there’s no improvement in consistency, ease of passage, bleeding, or discomfort. Fiber also appears to promote the growth of harmful bacteria in the small intestine called small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO). High fiber intake was also associated with a greater prevalence of diverticulosis. Studies have also discovered that fiber provides zero benefits in preventing colon cancer.

You can thank Dr. Denis Burkitt for triggering all of the misinformation about fiber and launching an erroneous health obsession on the basis of ill-conceived observational conclusions.

What about all the benefits of polyphenols?

These are compounds made by plants for plants. Epidemiology studies have leaped to conclusions about the benefits of polyphenols contained in fruits and vegetables, but interventional studies find zero benefits. They do not help with inflammation or DNA damage.

Don’t I need plant-based food to maintain a healthy microbiome?

We still don’t know that much about the complexities of the microbiome, but studies are demonstrating that consuming fructose and glucose negatively alter the microbiome. Dr. Paul has done extensive testing on his microbiome and has high scores for microbial diversity.

Are therapeutic plant-based applications bad for you?

There’s a difference between plants as medicine and plants as food. We should study the short-term applications of plant compounds for healing. But, you wouldn’t take chemotherapy as a preventative would you? Same principle. Use only when needed.

Won’t you get calcified arteries and high cholesterol eating meat?

Studies show vitamin K2 protects against heart disease. The richest sources of K2 are eggs, liver, and meat. LDL is linked to arterial plaque, but there’s something the studies miss: sticky arteries. This is when LDL gets stuck in the arterial walls and oxidizes. This is when you have plaque build-up. But, what’s not mentioned is that insulin resistance and inflammation cause stickiness in the arteries. 

Dr. Paul argues that plant-based foods are the main culprits for these conditions. Otherwise, higher levels of LDL are beneficial.

Both HDL and LDL are vital to health. There is not bad cholesterol that you need to reduce. That’s a myth. And many studies prove it.

Dr. Saladino goes deep on cholesterol in the book, and I’m not doing it justice here. The upshot is if you’re eating meat and minimizing the toxins you are consuming, your cholesterol will be fine.

“Want to live a long time? Eat in a manner that allows for insulin sensitivity, decreases inflammation, and leads to a robust amount of valuable LDL particles. Carnivore diet, anyone?”

What about the colon?

What about it? In 2015 the World Health Organization (WHO) in their International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) reported in 2015 that “for every 100 grams of red meat eaten per day, there was a 17 percent increase in colon cancer risk.”

They classified red meat as “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

Dig a little deeper and you discover that the WHO only revealed findings from 14 of the 800 studies, and all 14 were observational epidemiology. They had interventional studies in the remaining 786 but chose not to report on them. Wonder why? Well, because the findings did not show a clear relationship between red meat and cancer. 

In fact, of the 14 studies reported on, eight of them also showed no link. And, of those, eight only one showed a statistically significant correlation. And that one study with statistically significant results involved the Seventh Day Adventists. The study did not mention that the people, who were eating red meat were also engaging in other “rebellious” behavior like smoking, drinking, and skipping exercise. The study itself said cancer occurred in obese red meat eaters with a “higher propensity for insulin resistance.” 

You would think they would mention that obesity might be a more likely cause of cancer. To sum up, of 800 studies, only one was statistically significant, and it was sketchy. But the WHO had no problem spreading this disinformation far and wide.

Most of the studies came up with the exact opposite conclusion. This is malfeasance.

Won’t you get scurvy without fruit?

Without enough vitamin C, we can’t make collagen and scurvy develops, which manifests in slow healing of wounds, bleeding gums, brittle hair, and loose teeth. However, meat has enough vitamin C to ward off scurvy. A study from the 1940s determined that you only need a minimum dose of 10 milligrams of vitamin C to recover from scurvy. 

Despite the proclamations of Linus Pauling, interventional studies have failed to show benefit from vitamin C beyond the minimal dose to keep scurvy at bay, so shoot for 10-70 milligrams. This is obtainable in a meat diet. There is evidence that too much vitamin C can be harmful with increased incidents of oxalate kidney stones, nausea, bloating, acid reflux, B deficiency, and oxidative stress.

Don’t we need antioxidants from plant food?

No! Though studies and the media tout antioxidants as the key to lasting youth, it was a misrepresentation of animal studies. Paul goes deep into the so-called antioxidants we get from berries, wine, chocolate, and more, and why they’re more harmful than helpful.  

Our body produces its own antioxidants, like glutathione, which are sufficient. We don’t need to consume so-called antioxidants from plants.

“We don’t need fruits and vegetables to achieve robust antioxidant defenses, and there isn’t any evidence that consuming these plant foods makes us healthier.” – Dr. Paul Saladino

Doesn’t too much protein cause kidney problems?

In a meta-analysis of 28 studies, there was no evidence that a high-protein diet adversely affected kidney function.

Isn’t saturated fat bad for you?

Recent studies are showing what carnivores have known for thousands of years. Saturated fat is vital to good health. There are now connections between saturated fat consumption and reversals in diabetes and insulin resistance. Polyunsaturated fats (i.e. vegetable oils like corn oil) increase levels of oxidized LDLs, which increase the chance of heart disease.

Isn’t methane gas from cows a primary contributor to climate change and the destruction of our planet?

The cattle industry only pumped out 1.9% of the greenhouse gas emissions in 2016.

In fact, regenerative agriculture (grass-fed beef operations) is a net negative in greenhouse gas emissions and they’re healing the land. It’s a perfect cycle. Sunlight and water feed the grass. Ruminant animals eat the grass, and trample organic matter into the soil, while also leaving magnificent fertilizer plops. This feeds the land, so it can grow healthier grass, which produces healthier animals.  

Plus, with healthier soil plants are able to grab more carbon dioxide from the environment and move it back into the soil.

This is much more “sustainable” than mono-cropping grains, which depletes the soil, or awful factory-made fake meat products, the production of which pumps out many times more carbon emissions than regenerative ruminant agriculture.

The people spewing the “sustainable” green agenda don’t actually care about the planet. They care about profits and reducing the population.

Carnivore Diet Resources

• Book: The Carnivore Code
• See more information and case studies at Paul’s website.
• Heart & Soil – Paul’s organ meat supplement company. 
• Find a local clean meat provider.