Snowman
Level 6 Valued Member
I think "insanely is probably a strong word. I couldn't find a lot of information on the carbohydrate content of fresh, raw whale flesh, but I did find this. As far as I could tell, the highest carbohydrate level was found in the skin, and it was about 22% carbohydrate by calories. I think part of the reason that whale meat/blubber glycogen content was hard to track down is that it breaks down pretty quickly once the animal dies (even in a cold environment), but I could be wrong. So, while they were certainly not eating a "zero carb" diet, it was definitely meat based and very low-carb. Even when they could have potentially traded for other foods, it would have created a higher carb "window" for a few weeks/months within the year.Plus blubber is not like the fat of land dwelling mammals - it has insanely high carbohydrate content.
If anyone has any higher quality data about marine mammal carb content, I would certainly be interested.
I don't disagree, but I would say that a long term 100% meat diet has no natural analog. A 90-100% meat diet for 3-6 months at a time has a variety of natural analogs. The question (which I am yet to develop a strong opinion on) is whether or not 100% meat is a good way to go for months/years at a time.100% modern meat diet really is an experiment with a diet that has no natural analog,
I would agree with what @ali brought up, and have been skeptical for a while of the multi-decade sustainability of a keto diet. Fundamentally, ketosis is a starvation strategy, and would typically be self-limiting in most situations. You either find food and stop starving, or you die. There are a few more specific comments I could make, but that's the core issue. I do think it's a good idea to dip in and out of ketosis on a regular basis (as we see with IF, carnivore, and a cyclic keto diet), but 100% keto 100% of the time might not be ideal. Unless you're using it to treat epilepsy or a specific metabolic disorder, in which case being 100% keto is probably healthier than seizures and death.
Very true. That being said, he still seemed to do well on his (admittedly bastardized) version of the Inuit diet. If we do have a "minimum necessary dose" of carbohydrate for long term health, it's very likely that we can make it from protein, regardless of any exceptional degree of liver function (of course, that begs the question, why?). From a macronutrient standpoint, I find it unlikely that we would develop any issues, assuming we don't intentionally restrict protein or fat.Stefansson had to add a bunch of fat to his diet compared to what the Inuit were consuming - making it more of a modern Keto diet. He couldn't hack the high protein and didn't have the capacity for gluconeogenesis the Inuit possessed.