Buzz Moller’s dead after eating carnivore bread sad news..
I don’t care what your doctor says – I feel great on The Carnivore Diet
OPINION: Buzz Moller’s diet has evolved over the years from conventional to low-carb, and for the past two years he’s eaten nothing but meat and animal products. The Carnivore Diet doesn’t come recommended by the vast majority of dietary experts but, at 61, Moller says he’s never felt better. He shares his experience.
Note: The following is a personal account and should not be read as medical advice.
Readers are advised to check with their doctors before radically changing their diets.
For the dietary advice of Health New Zealand (te whatu ora), see the foot of this story.
Ok, you asked. My experience on the carnivore diet – yes, it’s a bit unusual. While most people eat meat, if you eat ONLY meat, you suddenly become a weirdo. Most people are eating what you are, but you aren’t eating the other stuff they are. I try to keep it secret when I’m out socialsing, I’ll get the pie and quietly dig out the middle. I’ll put salad and bread on the plate but then only eat the ham. I do tell the people I really care about, especially if they are suffering health issues. I try to get them to give it a go, but in two years, that’s worked on about two people.Our family’s journey into carnivore (currently four of us in the same household) started slowly about ten years ago. I’ve always been into food. I love it all without exception. I’ll eat anything. I’ve done some bizarre stuff with it – once, at boarding school, I chugged a large glass of milk thick with dissolved sugar and went temporarily blind, ending up in the sick bay. Another time, on a skiing trip, I ate nothing but 24 meat pies. As I got older, I started getting interested in the health side of food. I’ve tried most diets (macrobiotic, the Zone, vegetarian, 10-day fasts, etc). But things got serious when our son was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at 11. In the hospital, after learning he couldn’t process carbs without insulin, they brought him a carb-heavy meal. He looked at me and said, “Why do I have to eat that if I can’t process it?” I didn’t have an answer. But it kicked me off into heavy research mode. I started reading science studies and listening to audiobooks on nutrition and metabolism. One major thing I learned was that carbs aren’t essential. What? Who knew? After discussions with my partner Janey, we slowly moved our son to a low-carb regime, and the rest of the family followed suit. We were basically eating the Keto diet, before we’d heard of it. We cleaned out the fridge and cupboards of sugar and carb-based foods (that included fruit, grains, legumes and high-sugar vegetables like beets, carrots and potatoes). My health started changing.Before this, I had always eaten big-ass salads every day (I even made a YouTube video called “Salads for Blokes” – chopping stuff with knives is cool). We had porridge for breakfast and broccoli pasta for dinner. But my health wasn’t that great. I had arthritis in my hands, knees, and back; the kids can remember me getting off the trampoline after playing monsters saying I was too sore. I had lung issues, heart issues (35% blockage, so no life insurance), and I was lined up for hip surgery due to minimal cartilage left in the joint. I was 51. I’m 61 now, and have no symptoms of any of these conditions anymore. But it was gradual. As we cut out grains and sugars, the arthritis started to improve, and I pulled out of the hip surgery on the day of the operation. The surgeon wasn’t happy. After six years of Keto, we stumbled across The Carnivore Diet through a friend and initially thought it was nuts. No plants at all? But the more I looked into it, the way our gut and digestion works, the more it made sense to me.Driven by the fear of a probable lung condition (my dad and grandpa both died of lung disease), I dropped the plants and went all-in on meat. Within months, my lungs cleared and I stopped coughing up gunk for the first time in a decade. The doctor couldn’t give me an explanation, other than they must have misdiagnosed me. My singing voice came back and my migraines stopped. Janey cured her lifelong IBS in a few weeks of giving up the cauliflower and broccoli. Her knee which was always unstable and sore from a serious skiing accident is fine now. You laugh because it’s so unexpected. What you thought was all just normal age-related genetic stuff.
By the way I’m not an official expert on any of this stuff. After school, I decided to flag my dream of becoming a doctor and did a Bcom. I worked in the share market but ended up a solid plasterer with a masters in music. Health is a fascinating hobby to me and I’m always reading about it. In mental health as well it looks like major breakthroughs are happening with diet. Two psychiatrists I like from Harvard University, Dr. Chris Palmer and Dr. Georgia Ede, are amazing. In New Zealand, Dr. Matthew Phillips’s metabolic work on Parkinson’s and neurodegenerative diseases is groundbreaking.
But back to daily life, the four of us in this house eat pretty much the same, so it’s no drama at mealtime. And because we transitioned into it slowly, it feels completely normal. There’s a kind of freedom you feel when cravings for modern man-made foods disappear. Our daughter who struggled with disordered eating found it has helped free her from constant anxiety and shame around food.A typical day for us is something like bacon and eggs for breakfast, lamb chops or burger patties for lunch, and steak for dinner – maybe with some butter on top. We’ve swapped cooking marathons for quick, satisfying meals, and, due to steadier blood-sugar levels, there’s no craving snacks, or guilt or overthinking about food anymore. No measuring. Eat if you’re hungry.
As for the critics? Sure, people warn about things like bowel cancer and heart disease. In my view, that’s kind of old thinking from the 70s.*
Research suggests a processed carb-heavy diet causes inflammation.
What do I love most? I feel like I’m aging backwards. It’s a mix of energy and calmness. My body has reverted closer to what it was in my 20s. And it’s liberating not to be obsessed with food.
So yes, at the moment, it’s still a bit unconventional, but if you can cope with being a weirdo or you’re just sick of feeling like crap all the time, you learn not to care what people think.
