Have Keto and Carnivore lost thier way?

A couple times per year we send out a newsletter via LMNT that has some of our top articles. In one of those I talked broadly about diet and recommended a "minimally processed whole food diet." Within that I referenced everything from steak to fruits and veggies. This is a customer service email we received:

From Mary: "What is a whole foods diet? Are you kidding me with fruits and veggies?!? There is no such thing as an essential carbohydrate! This is why we are in such poor health...getting advice like this. Fiber destroys your intestinal lining and causes leaky gut, crohns, ibs, etc. Humans can not turn fiber into short chain fatty acids like herbivores. The fruits, veggies and fiber are all carbos and this causes hyperinsulinimia - high and continuous insulin, which leads to obesity, cardiac issues, arterial issues, brain fog, diabetes, cancers, etc. I thought you were in contact with Dr Ken Berry.....our health was hijacked in 1977 when a vegan was put in charge of our food pyramid. You do not need to be pushing this bs diet guidelines that have lead us to a sick society. We need a proper human diet of fatty red meats, eggs, bacon, butter, ghee, tallow, and salt. This article will do more harm than good because you are pushing the globalist agenda."

This is my response:

"Hi Marry, Robb wolf here, one of the LMNT co-founders.

I'm not sure if you are familiar with my background but I nearly died from ulcerative colitis 25 years ago, adopted a ketogenic diet to deal with that situation and have been fairly close to carnivore for the past 6 years. This is a carnivore guide I produce about 6 years ago:

https://substack.com/home/post/p-154549913

Ok, that background out of the way...I'm honestly pretty disappointed by this reach out as ironically the carnivore community has become as dogmatic and closed minded AS vegans. Are you really suggesting that fruits and veggies are THE ROOT CAUSE of the modern health issues we face, not hyper-palatable processed foods? I know Dr. Berry quite well, and although he is a serious champion of keto and carnivore, he is not to my knowledge advocating this position.

What is particularly troubling is the wording I used was purposefully vague...minimally processed whole foods can include anything form steak to apples. I have 25 years experience working with folks in this space, lean heavily towards keto/carnivore but never in my life would I suggest this is the one and only way to eat for every person on the planet. My wife and daughters eat plenty of protein, but also do well on fruits sand veggies. Far better than I. If they ever developed issues, clearly we could modify things, but my 12 and 10 YO daughters are at the 99th percentile on height, strong (both have pull ups and push ups, to say nothing of cardio for days...) am I really to believe that deleting their bowl of berries, or spaghetti squash is going to magically improve their already excellent health, or conversely is DESTROYING it?

Mary, I suspect you had a transformative experience with carnivore. That makes me incredibly happy, but this dogmatism does not. I've found it ever more difficult to identify with the keto/carnivore communities due to this dogmatism. Now, this email may make you angry, you may end up cancelling your subscription, but I'm not just going to roll over on this. My direct email is Robb@xyz.com and my cell is 406-XXX-XXXX. If you'd like to discuss further, I'd be more than happy to do that, but I'd suggest some reflection on this."

---

Fruits and veggies are a "globalist agenda??" REALLY? Yes, some people do poorly with these and other items. Some, do great. Yet there is an ever growing swath of the keto/carnivore scene that is cognitively incapable of squaring these realities. It is both depressing and frankly embarrassing. I thought this was the pervue of raw vegans, but the keto/carnivore scene often conducts themselves in ways that would make vegans blush.

Y'all clearly do whatever the hell you want to but I've long made the point that if one is operating with a faulty world view it becomes ever more difficult to have predictive models of the world that actually work. When models are constrained by nearly religious ideology one must lie to oneself and ignore contradictory information to protect the faulty world view.

My greasy-used-car sales pitch has always been: Try something for 30 days. See how you look, feel and perform. Check biomarkers before and after the intervention. Then, assess if the change was worth the effort FOR YOU.

I'm not sure how much more honest or transparent a process one could propose around diet and lifestyle change, but I can for sure point out process far afield from this.