Animal-Based Nutrition

A nutritional framework grounded in human history, biological needs, and real-world outcomes.

EVOLUTIONARY CONTEXT

Animals and plants evolved to defend themselves differently

Animals and plants evolved to defend themselves in different ways. Animals rely on active defenses like movement, strength, awareness, and escape to avoid being eaten. Plants cannot flee, so they evolved passive defenses in the form of chemical compounds that deter insects, animals, and environmental stress.

These compounds are part of how plants protect themselves from being consumed. Humans have adapted to tolerate some of these plant defenses over time, but tolerance is not the same as benefit. Even when plant foods contain nutrients humans desire, those nutrients often appear alongside plant defense chemicals, or antinutrients, complicating digestion and base nutrient absorption.

Animals do not rely on chemical deterrents for survival. As a result, animal foods tend to present fewer defensive obstacles during digestion, providing nutrition in forms the human body can readily recognize, break down, and use. This is why they are deeply nourishing, reliably satiating, and easier to build a diet around long term.

Some animals evolved to process plant defense chemicals. These animals are called Ruminants.

Humans can eat plants, but we did not evolve the digestive anatomy required to reliably process plant defense chemicals. Ruminant animals like cows, bison, and elk did, and have multi-chambered stomachs designed to break down tough plant material through prolonged fermentation and specialized microbes.

This difference matters because much of the nutrition in plants is locked behind fibrous cell walls and packaged alongside defensive compounds that require fermentation to dismantle. Ruminants ferment and reprocess plant material, extracting nutrients over many hours. Humans, with a single stomach and limited fermentation capacity, do not digest plant material this way.

As a result, what works for ruminant physiology does not translate cleanly to human physiology. Humans can tolerate some plant foods, but we are not optimized to neutralize plant defense compounds or fully extract nutrients from plant tissues. Ruminants can, and become valuable sources of nutrition for humans.

NUTRITIONAL MECHANICS

Animal foods offer higher nutrient bioavailability

Nutrients are only useful if the body can access and absorb them. Beyond the label, nutrient bioavailability determines how much the body can actually use

In many plant foods, nutrients are bundled alongside antinutrients—compounds that evolved to protect the plant from being eaten. These compounds can bind minerals, interfere with digestive enzymes, or stress the immune system in many individuals. At the same time, plant nutrients are often locked inside rigid cell walls made of fiber, which humans cannot digest directly and can only partially ferment. Even when nutrients are present, a significant portion may pass through the body unused.

Animal foods do not present these same barriers. Their nutrients are not paired with antinutrients that interfere with absorption, nor are they trapped behind fibrous structures that require fermentation to access. Instead, animal foods deliver nutrients in forms the human digestive system is designed to process directly. As a result, a greater proportion of what is consumed is absorbed and used by the body, rather than passing through unused or requiring workarounds to extract value.

The Animal-Based Food Pyramid

The goal of the animal-based food pyramid is not to create strict, dogmatic adherence to a diet, but rather to anchor habits around what matters most and then layer preferences, flexibility, and enjoyment thereafter.

At the foundation are foods that consistently deliver the most complete, bioavailable nutrition with the fewest digestive tradeoffs - ruminant meat and animal fats. These are the foods that form the backbone of an animal-based diet and support long-term metabolic health.

As you move up the pyramid, foods become more contextual. They may be beneficial for some people, in certain amounts, or at certain stages of life, but they are not required to build a strong nutritional base.

At the top sits “everything else.” These are inputs that fall outside nutritional fundamentals. Some people enjoy them, some tolerate them well, and others choose to avoid them entirely. They are not demonized here, as enjoyment and preferences matter, but they are not mistaken for essentials either.