animalcule
Member
- Joined
- Oct 22, 2019
- Messages
- 361
If you've ever tried the carnivore/zerocarb diet and frequented that subreddit, this is just a vent. If you've never been there, this is a warning and a bit of insight into how the mods operate and gate-keep info on that useless subreddit ...
I used to do the carnivore diet until it gave me gastroparesis and insane mood/hormonal instability (among other things). I would visit r/zerocarb and comment on occasion, until it became clear that 1) the diet was harming my health and 2) the subreddit was a deafening echo-chamber that was absolutely useless when it came to people struggling on the diet because the only advice seemed to be "eat more fat," "eat more meat," or "add electrolytes." Now that I've had a little run-in with the mods, it's now clear that not only is that the best advice they can come up with, it's the only advice they *allow.*
An r/zerocarb post popped up in my feed -- it described the trouble someone with fibromyalgia was having "adapting" to zerocarb. I thought I might respond, not to debate the carnivore diet, but just to throw out a tidbit of info that I've found immensely helpful and that I didn't think this poster would be hearing from anyone else in the r/zerocarb bubble. In my comment, I described how I too had had arthritis flare-ups when doing zerocarb, and I suggested that OP look into thiamine deficiency, as not only is thiamine deficiency possibly associated with fibromyalgia, but it can also hinder fat metabolism, which people switching to zerocarb begin to rely on heavily. I had had a great deal of difficulty digesting fat, and noticed that my joint pain would flare up after eating very fatty or cartilage-y cuts -- just an observation. I mentioned he might read some articles Dr. Lonsdale had written on the links between thiamine deficiency and fibromyalgia, fatigue, fat metabolism, etc., and said that I'd found these articles on hormonesmatter.com.
My comment was auto-deleted because the account I used didn't have a lot of karma (I don't comment much with it). Still, I thought I'd message the mods bc my account was over a year old, my comment was useful and reasonable, and because I figured nothing I'd written made me come off as some carnivore-bashing troll who just wanted to stir up trouble. How naive of me.
I was basically told to **** off for recommending the work of an "anti-vaxxer." This surprised me, because while being pro/anti vaccine is not a litmus test I use when reading articles on nutrition, I truly had not read anything by Lonsdale that screamed "anti-vaxx" apart from some vague recollection of him briefly suggesting certain adjuvants could deplete thiamine and cause problems. I (wrongly) assumed that the mod must have gone through my profile to find some old comment I'd made about a particular vaccine, but it turns out the truth was even worse: he wasn't telling me to **** off for some old comment I'd made about Gardisil (which I didn't even recommend people not take) -- he'd actually gone to the website I'd mentioned, but instead of reading Dr. Lonsdale's articles about thiamine deficiency and its cascading effects, especially as it may pertain to people with chronic illness and as it may pertain to fat metabolism (which was what I thought OP might find useful), he instead latches on to the fact that, I guess, Lonsdale doesn't like vaccines. Now, I don't care if he's anti-vaxx. I still haven't googled Lonsdale for his opinions on them, because I don't care, and because all I really cared about were his theories about thiamine deficiency and the fact that when I started supplementing with allithiamine, my digestion improved. I was directing OP to info very specific to his issues. My comment was not posted because of my lack of karma, but the mods made it clear that they gatekeep so strictly against specific "alt-health" ideas, that it doesn't matter if his research might be helpful -- all of his work is tarred by being vaccine critical. All of it. (Forget that, of course, zerocarb is itself an alt health subreddit... you'd think they'd be aware of the pitfalls of dogmatically following the mainstream, and immediately averting one's eyes from all of the classically taboo subjects).
I may upload some screenshots of our convo in a bit ... just snide little cretins controlling that sub. Apart from their inability to absorb any info from a source they are arrogant enough to dismiss bc he violates one of their taboos (while being a part of a 'community' that seems to be so proud of how they're bucking convention and mainstream advice and thriving because of it (even though *whispers* they're not all thriving! shhh...), they seem incapable of dealing with anyone in good faith. It was my mistake to take the time to write paragraphs of explanation, only to be told to **** off and have them point to one of their asinine rules that didn't even apply to anything I was saying/doing...
For a group that prides itself on experimentation and challenging mainstream assumptions (or so I thought), they sure are authoritarian... not to mention possibly illiterate. Or perhaps their poor-faith method of dealing with people blinds them so much that they can't see how they're misapplying their own rules and degrading the spirit of the sub.
I used to do the carnivore diet until it gave me gastroparesis and insane mood/hormonal instability (among other things). I would visit r/zerocarb and comment on occasion, until it became clear that 1) the diet was harming my health and 2) the subreddit was a deafening echo-chamber that was absolutely useless when it came to people struggling on the diet because the only advice seemed to be "eat more fat," "eat more meat," or "add electrolytes." Now that I've had a little run-in with the mods, it's now clear that not only is that the best advice they can come up with, it's the only advice they *allow.*
An r/zerocarb post popped up in my feed -- it described the trouble someone with fibromyalgia was having "adapting" to zerocarb. I thought I might respond, not to debate the carnivore diet, but just to throw out a tidbit of info that I've found immensely helpful and that I didn't think this poster would be hearing from anyone else in the r/zerocarb bubble. In my comment, I described how I too had had arthritis flare-ups when doing zerocarb, and I suggested that OP look into thiamine deficiency, as not only is thiamine deficiency possibly associated with fibromyalgia, but it can also hinder fat metabolism, which people switching to zerocarb begin to rely on heavily. I had had a great deal of difficulty digesting fat, and noticed that my joint pain would flare up after eating very fatty or cartilage-y cuts -- just an observation. I mentioned he might read some articles Dr. Lonsdale had written on the links between thiamine deficiency and fibromyalgia, fatigue, fat metabolism, etc., and said that I'd found these articles on hormonesmatter.com.
My comment was auto-deleted because the account I used didn't have a lot of karma (I don't comment much with it). Still, I thought I'd message the mods bc my account was over a year old, my comment was useful and reasonable, and because I figured nothing I'd written made me come off as some carnivore-bashing troll who just wanted to stir up trouble. How naive of me.
I was basically told to **** off for recommending the work of an "anti-vaxxer." This surprised me, because while being pro/anti vaccine is not a litmus test I use when reading articles on nutrition, I truly had not read anything by Lonsdale that screamed "anti-vaxx" apart from some vague recollection of him briefly suggesting certain adjuvants could deplete thiamine and cause problems. I (wrongly) assumed that the mod must have gone through my profile to find some old comment I'd made about a particular vaccine, but it turns out the truth was even worse: he wasn't telling me to **** off for some old comment I'd made about Gardisil (which I didn't even recommend people not take) -- he'd actually gone to the website I'd mentioned, but instead of reading Dr. Lonsdale's articles about thiamine deficiency and its cascading effects, especially as it may pertain to people with chronic illness and as it may pertain to fat metabolism (which was what I thought OP might find useful), he instead latches on to the fact that, I guess, Lonsdale doesn't like vaccines. Now, I don't care if he's anti-vaxx. I still haven't googled Lonsdale for his opinions on them, because I don't care, and because all I really cared about were his theories about thiamine deficiency and the fact that when I started supplementing with allithiamine, my digestion improved. I was directing OP to info very specific to his issues. My comment was not posted because of my lack of karma, but the mods made it clear that they gatekeep so strictly against specific "alt-health" ideas, that it doesn't matter if his research might be helpful -- all of his work is tarred by being vaccine critical. All of it. (Forget that, of course, zerocarb is itself an alt health subreddit... you'd think they'd be aware of the pitfalls of dogmatically following the mainstream, and immediately averting one's eyes from all of the classically taboo subjects).
I may upload some screenshots of our convo in a bit ... just snide little cretins controlling that sub. Apart from their inability to absorb any info from a source they are arrogant enough to dismiss bc he violates one of their taboos (while being a part of a 'community' that seems to be so proud of how they're bucking convention and mainstream advice and thriving because of it (even though *whispers* they're not all thriving! shhh...), they seem incapable of dealing with anyone in good faith. It was my mistake to take the time to write paragraphs of explanation, only to be told to **** off and have them point to one of their asinine rules that didn't even apply to anything I was saying/doing...
For a group that prides itself on experimentation and challenging mainstream assumptions (or so I thought), they sure are authoritarian... not to mention possibly illiterate. Or perhaps their poor-faith method of dealing with people blinds them so much that they can't see how they're misapplying their own rules and degrading the spirit of the sub.
