What you’re getting yourself into
Why you don’t need to fret over missing out on 100 percenting your micronutrient needs on this diet.
Picture this: you’re three months into carnivore, feeling better than you have in years, but you pull up Cronometer to log your ribeye and suddenly the interface is screaming at you in angry red. Vitamin C? 2% of your RDI. Magnesium? 40%. Potassium? Don’t even ask. You’re officially a walking nutritional disaster according to your app, yet somehow you’re sleeping better, thinking clearer, and lifting heavier than ever before.
What gives?
Here’s the truth that nobody in mainstream nutrition wants to tell you: the Recommended Dietary Intakes were designed for a high-carbohydrate diet. They’re the nutritional equivalent of giving you driving directions for Manchester when you’re trying to get around Leeds. The roads might have the same names, but you’re in a completely different city.
When you switch to carnivore, you’re not just changing what you eat. You’re fundamentally altering your metabolic state, and with it, the rules of the game. You’re running on fat and ketones instead of glucose, you’ve eliminated the chemical warfare that plants wage against their predators, and you’ve drastically reduced the oxidative burden on your system. This isn’t a minor adjustment. It’s a completely different fuel state with completely different demands.
So before you spiral into anxiety about hitting those arbitrary targets, let’s talk about why the RDIs don’t apply to you anymore.
The Glucose-Vitamin C Competition: Why You Need Far Less
Let’s start with the poster child of carnivore nutritional anxiety: vitamin C. Every vegan on the internet will gleefully inform you that you’re going to die of scurvy the moment you stop eating oranges. The app tells you that you need 90mg per day, and you’re getting maybe 5-10mg from your meat. Cue the panic.
Here’s what they’re not telling you: vitamin C and glucose are molecular twins. They’re so structurally similar that they compete for the same transport proteins to enter your cells. This is the bit that matters. When you flood your system with glucose from a high-carb diet, you’re essentially blocking vitamin C from getting where it needs to go. The glucose muscles its way to the front of the queue, and your vitamin C gets left standing outside the cellular nightclub.
Studies show that high blood glucose progressively inhibits dehydroascorbic acid transport into red blood cells, which means diabetics and high-carb eaters literally can’t use the vitamin C they’re consuming efficiently. This competition happens via the GLUT glucose transporters, the cellular doorways that both glucose and the oxidized form of vitamin C use to enter cells.
On a carnivore diet, you’re not running that glucose interference anymore. Your blood sugar is stable and low, which means every molecule of vitamin C you consume gets VIP access to your cells. You’re not competing with a constant glucose flood. The efficiency is night and day.
Additionally, ketone bodies themselves upregulate your body’s own antioxidant systems, particularly glutathione production, which takes over many of vitamin C’s antioxidant functions. You need less vitamin C because your body is producing more of its own antioxidants to handle the workload. The state of nutritional ketosis increases antioxidative defenses through mitohormesis, upregulating enzymatic pathways like AMPK, PGC-1α, FOXO and NRF-2 that all enhance cellular resilience.
This is why traditional Inuit populations, consuming virtually no plant foods and minimal vitamin C, never developed scurvy. They weren’t defying biochemistry. They were playing by different rules, where their minimal vitamin C intake went ten times further because glucose wasn’t sabotaging absorption at every turn.
The RDI for vitamin C was established for people eating bread, pasta, and fruit. For you? You’re running a completely different operating system, and the requirements simply don’t apply.
Vitamin E and PUFA: Less Oxidation, Less Requirement
Here’s another nutrient that carnivore folks stress about unnecessarily: vitamin E. The RDI is 15mg daily, and unless you’re eating copious amounts of seeds and vegetable oils (please don’t), you’re probably nowhere near that target.
But here’s the critical context: vitamin E’s primary job is protecting polyunsaturated fatty acids from oxidation. The more PUFA you consume, the more vitamin E you need to prevent those fragile fats from degrading into toxic compounds.
Research shows that the relative amounts of vitamin E required to protect fatty acids scale with the degree of unsaturation. Monounsaturated fats need minimal protection. Polyunsaturated fats with multiple double bonds? They’re absolute vitamin E gluttons. Studies found that the quantities of α-tocopherol required to protect mono-, di-, tri-, tetra-, penta- and hexaenoic fatty acids were approximately in the ratios of 0.3:2:3:4:5:6. The more double bonds, the more vitamin E you need.
On a carnivore diet centered on ruminant fat, you’re consuming primarily saturated and monounsaturated fats. These fats are oxidatively stable. They don’t generate the same cascade of free radicals that seed oils do. Beef tallow is roughly 50% saturated fat, 42% monounsaturated fat, and only 4-8% polyunsaturated fat. Compare that to soybean oil, which is 15% saturated, 24% monounsaturated, and a whopping 61% polyunsaturated.
When you eliminate seed oils and minimise PUFA intake, you’re not fighting the same oxidative battle. Your vitamin E requirement plummets because you’ve removed the primary source of oxidative stress. The ratio of at least 0.6 mg alpha-tocopherol per gram of PUFA is suggested, but when your PUFA intake drops from 60+ grams to single digits, your vitamin E needs follow suit.
You’re not vitamin E deficient. You’ve just stopped setting your house on fire, so you don’t need as many extinguishers.
Omega-6 and Omega-3: The Ratio Is Everything
Speaking of PUFAs, let’s talk about the omega-6 to omega-3 balance, because this is where carnivore shines and the RDI framework completely falls apart.
The standard nutritional advice focuses on absolute amounts: get X grams of omega-3s daily. But that’s missing the entire point. What matters isn’t just how much omega-3 you consume, but your ratio of omega-6 to omega-3.
Evolutionary evidence suggests humans thrived on omega-6 to omega-3 ratios between 1:1 and 4:1. The modern Western diet provides ratios around 16:1 or higher, driven by the industrial-scale consumption of seed oils. This dramatic imbalance drives chronic inflammation, because omega-6 fatty acids metabolize into pro-inflammatory compounds while omega-3s produce anti-inflammatory ones.
Here’s the beautiful simplicity of carnivore: when you’re not consuming a lot of pro-inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids, you don’t need a lot of anti-inflammatory omega-3 fatty acids. The inflammation you’d need omega-3s to combat simply isn’t there in the first place.
Ruminant meat has naturally favorable omega-6 to omega-3 ratios, especially grass-fed beef which can approach the ancestral 1:1 ratio. Even grain-fed beef, while higher in omega-6, is nowhere near the inflammatory catastrophe of seed oils. A tablespoon of soybean oil contains roughly 7 grams of omega-6. An 8-ounce ribeye? Maybe 1-2 grams total. The RDI approach of obsessing over hitting specific omega-3 targets misses the forest for the trees. You’re not trying to douse a five-alarm fire with omega-3s when you’ve eliminated the seed oils that started the blaze. You’re maintaining a system that’s fundamentally less inflamed, requiring far less anti-inflammatory ammunition.
Antinutrients: What You Don’t Eat Matters
Here’s where things get really interesting. The RDIs were established by studying populations eating mixed diets heavy in grains, legumes, and vegetables. But those foods come with a catch: antinutrients.
Phytates bind to minerals like zinc, calcium, iron, and magnesium in the digestive tract, forming insoluble complexes that your body can’t absorb. High levels of phytates can inhibit the absorption of these minerals, particularly zinc and iron. Studies show that phytate:zinc molar ratios above 15 indicate poor zinc bioavailability, and common foods like soybean (23.5), sorghum (62.8), and maize (40.6) are well above that threshold.
Oxalates bind to calcium and prevent absorption, which is why spinach, despite being calcium-rich on paper, is an absolutely terrible calcium source. The oxalates lock the calcium up tighter than Fort Knox. Molar ratios of oxalate to minerals greater than 2 indicate that excess oxalate is limiting mineral absorption.
On a carnivore diet, you’ve eliminated all of this. There are no phytates in beef. No oxalates in eggs. No lectins in lamb. The minerals you consume, particularly the highly bioavailable heme iron and zinc from animal foods, are absorbed with minimal interference.
This is why vegetarians and vegans require higher RDIs for iron and zinc than omnivores, yet carnivores likely need even less than the standard omnivore recommendations. You’re not fighting absorption battles at every meal. The calcium in cheese, the zinc in beef, the iron in liver, all of it enters your system without plants throwing up roadblocks.
Your actual requirements drop dramatically when you stop consuming foods that actively prevent nutrient absorption. The RDIs were calculated assuming you’re eating foods that sabotage themselves. You’re not.
Iron: When Bioavailability Actually Matters
Here’s where the RDI framework becomes truly laughable. The iron RDI is 8mg for men and 18mg for women, but those numbers don’t distinguish between heme and non-heme iron. That’s like giving someone directions without mentioning whether they’re traveling by car or on foot.
Heme iron from meat absorbs at 15-35%. Non-heme iron from plants? 2-20%, and that’s being generous. But the real kicker is that non-heme iron absorption plummets in the presence of phytates, tannins, polyphenols, and fiber, meaning plant-based eaters are fighting absorption battles at every meal. Studies show iron bioavailability drops to 5-12% for plant-based diets compared to 14-18% for omnivores.
Despite heme iron representing only 10-15% of dietary iron intake in Western diets, its superior absorption means it accounts for roughly 40% of total absorbed iron. On carnivore, virtually all your iron is heme, absorbed efficiently, with zero antinutrients blocking the pathway. You don’t need to hit the RDI when every molecule you consume is three times more bioavailable than what those recommendations assume.
Vitamin A: Preformed vs Hoping Your Genetics Cooperate
The vitamin A situation is even more absurd. The RDI treats all vitamin A sources as equivalent, which would be fine if humans weren’t walking around with wildly different genetic abilities to convert plant carotenoids into active vitamin A.
Up to 45% of people carry variants in the BCMO1 gene that reduce beta-carotene conversion efficiency. Depending on which variants you inherit, your conversion rate can drop by 32-69%. Even under ideal conditions, beta-carotene to retinol conversion ratios range from 3.6-28:1 by weight, and only about 3% of ingested carotenoids are absorbed in the first place.
Carnivores bypass this genetic lottery entirely. Liver, eggs, dairy, and fatty fish provide preformed retinol that requires zero conversion and is immediately bioavailable. No genetic variants, no conversion efficiency concerns, no crossing your fingers hoping your BCMO1 enzyme decides to show up for work. The RDI assumes everyone efficiently converts beta-carotene, which nearly half the population demonstrably cannot do. You’re getting the real thing, not hoping your body can manufacture it from plant precursors.
B Vitamins and Carbohydrate Metabolism
The B vitamin complex, particularly B1 (thiamine), B2 (riboflavin), B3 (niacin), B5 (pantothenic acid), and B6 (pyridoxine), are heavily involved in carbohydrate metabolism. They’re the cofactors your body needs to convert glucose into energy via glycolysis and the citric acid cycle.
When you’re burning through hundreds of grams of carbohydrates daily, you need robust B vitamin status to process all that glucose. The enzymatic machinery running glycolysis is B vitamin dependent. But on carnivore? You’re running primarily on fat oxidation and ketone metabolism. These pathways use different enzymatic machinery with different cofactor requirements.
You still need B vitamins, don’t misunderstand. But you don’t need the same amounts required for processing massive glucose loads. Your demand for these vitamins shifts when your primary fuel source shifts.
Additionally, animal foods are extraordinarily rich in B vitamins. Liver contains absurd amounts of B12, B2, B3, B5, B6, and folate. Eggs provide excellent B vitamin coverage. Meat delivers bioavailable B vitamins in forms your body readily uses. You’re not relying on fortified breakfast cereals and hoping your gut bacteria can convert plant-based precursors into active forms.
The RDIs for B vitamins assume you’re metabolizing carbohydrates at a rate that carnivores simply aren’t. Your requirements are lower, and your intake from properly-sourced animal foods is higher. It’s a win-win.
Sodium and Water: The Low-Carb Shift
Let’s talk about sodium and ketosis, because this is where the metabolic shift becomes immediately obvious.
When you eat carbohydrates, your body stores them as glycogen in your muscles and liver. Each gram of glycogen binds to 3-4 grams of water. On a standard high-carb diet, you’re walking around with several pounds of water weight just from glycogen storage.
Insulin also signals your kidneys to retain sodium, which in turn causes water retention. When you slash carbohydrates and enter ketosis, insulin levels drop, your kidneys dump sodium, and your glycogen stores deplete. That initial water weight loss that everyone experiences in the first week of low-carb? That’s your sodium and water homeostasis completely recalibrating.
The average person on a carnivore or ketogenic diet needs substantially more sodium than the RDI suggests because they’re not retaining it via insulin’s effects on the kidneys. The standard recommendation of 2,300mg might leave a carnivore feeling like a wrung-out dishrag. Many carnivores find they thrive on 4,000-6,000mg or more, especially if they’re active.
The standard solution espoused by keto zealots is to add more salt, and more electrolytes on top to manage the loss of sodium that can occur during the drop in water retention. But here’s the thing: any issues with sodium retention comes as a temporary phenomenon. The body adjusts, and becomes much more competent at managing its electrolyte stores. Ketosis is a low fluid state. That means it needs less sodium to manage it.
That’s not the end of it. When you’re not piling in a load of potassium in the form of vegetables, as the case is with standard keto, you also don’t need as much sodium to balance it out.
Your sodium requirements on this diet are already in place in the meat you’re eating. Adding more sodium on top just invites more thirst, more water, more dilution, and more imbalances. It’s a leap of faith for people that have been entrained to treat salt and electrolytes as inextricable parts of low carb dieting. But in reality, it shouldn’t be. There is no evidence of our paleolithic ancestors seeking out salt licks. Because that’s what herbivores do when they’re managing their extra potassium intakes.
Humans are not herbivores. We are hypercarnivores. Salt might be a prized asset now, but that’s only because we invented agriculture.
The Big Picture: Different Fuel, Different Rules
Here’s what ties all of this together: the RDIs were established by studying populations eating high-carbohydrate, plant-heavy diets. The researchers measured nutrient intakes, correlated them with health outcomes, and established minimums to prevent deficiency diseases in that context.
But that context doesn’t apply to you anymore.
You’re not competing with glucose for vitamin C absorption. You’re not oxidizing massive amounts of PUFA and depleting vitamin E. You’re not fighting a 16:1 omega-6 to omega-3 ratio driven by seed oil consumption. You’re not consuming phytates and oxalates that block mineral absorption. You’re not metabolizing hundreds of grams of carbohydrates requiring extensive B vitamin cofactors. You’re not relying on extra sodium to manage the water retention and potassium load.
Every single one of these factors changes your nutrient requirements, and every single change lowers your needs compared to the RDIs established for mixed-diet populations.
This is why experienced carnivores can function beautifully on nutrient intakes that would make a dietitian’s head explode. It’s not magic. It’s not genetic luck. It’s the natural result of removing the metabolic burdens that inflated those requirements in the first place.
So What Should You Do?
Does this mean nutrients don’t matter? Absolutely not. It means the targets you’re aiming for are completely different than what Cronometer is shouting at you about.
Focus on nutrient density within the carnivore framework. Eat nose-to-tail when possible, including organ meats weekly. Organs provide vitamins and minerals in concentrations that make muscle meat look nutritionally boring. Liver is nature’s multivitamin. Bone marrow provides fat-soluble vitamins. Eggs are nutritionally complete. Fatty fish provides omega-3s if you want them.
Stop tracking your intake against RDIs designed for a different metabolic state. Those targets don’t apply to you. Judge your nutrient status by how you feel, how you perform, and if you’re curious, by blood work that actually measures your status rather than comparing your intake to arbitrary standards.
If you’re sleeping well, recovering from training, thinking clearly, maintaining energy throughout the day, and not experiencing obvious deficiency symptoms, you’re getting what you need. Your body is extraordinarily good at communicating its needs through symptoms. Trust that feedback more than an app telling you that you need 600mg of magnesium because that’s what the government recommends for people eating breakfast cereal.
The carnivore diet isn’t a nutrient-deficient approach that you’re white-knuckling through despite inadequate nutrition. It’s a completely different nutritional paradigm where your requirements have fundamentally shifted.
You’re not playing the same game anymore. Stop keeping score with the old rulebook.
The RDIs are designed for Manchester. You’re in Leeds. Different city, different roads, different rules. And you’re finding your way just fine without directions written for somewhere else entirely.
Read My Previous Article – The Corrupt History Of The Dietary Guidelines
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