Animal Products are not “the most nutrient dense” food – and So What even if they were?

I hear a lot from people on the carnivore diet that meat is the most “Nutrient rich” food. It’s kind of spooky how they universally use the same turns of phrase in the same tone of voice, as if they’re all getting it from the same media.

First of all, the claim isn’t true. Algae like spirulina and chlorella are the most nutrient dense foods. If you want some details, fire up your podcasing app and search Catharine Arnston, who goes into extreme detail about all the nutrients in spirulina and chlorella – including all the supplements you can throw in the bin if you take chlorella and spirulina instead. I was not affiliated in any way but was going to include a link because it’s interesting and might help you: Spirulina and Chlorella Algae Nutrition Facts | ENERGYbits® but then I got affiliated just for this article so if you want 20% off use the promo code Antony please. Spirulina and chlorella are not only vegan, but keto and paleo as well, so everyone can enjoy.

Secondly, even if it was true that animal products are the most nutrient dense food – so freaking what?

It’s not only important how nutrient rich a food is, it’s also important:

  1. What those nutrients are.
  2. What form they come in.
  3. If they come in the right proportions to one another.
  4. How bioavailable they are. How absorbable they are – not only into the bloodstream – but also into your cells themselves.
  5. What it costs your body to extract them from the source. Is it metabolically expensive? Does it require a lot of energy or resources? Does the extraction process cause subtle damage to the system?
  6. Whether they burden your body with harmful chemicals in the process or enervate you.
  7. If there are too many of some of them to use which will overburden they system or stay in the body because they are hard to remove.

There are lots of other factors too.

It could be your meat is way too rich in a whole bunch of nutrients and not rich in others, and in the process of getting rid of the excess of some nutrients your body has to leach other nutrients from your body to return to homeostasis and that that is damaging. It could be placing an excessive acid burden on your body which has to be counterbalanced by leaching alkaline metals like calcium out of your bones to balance itself out, causing osteoporosis in the process.

So, overall, the statement that animal products are “the most nutrient rich” is a very silly, meaningless statement.