A mysterious illness has caused one man to survive on raw meat for the last five years. Derek Nance was losing weight and his doctors suspected he had an allergy. He first tried cutting dairy and wheat out of his diet, then attempted a Mediterranean diet of fish and vegetables. When that didn’t work either, he tried veganism. Nance then met a man who suffered from similar symptoms and suggested he try raw meat. “[The diet] was started by a dentist named Weston Price who in the 1930s studied the health benefits of eating more raw foods, including raw meats. He studied the Native Americans and a few of them who lived on a guts and grease diet. He found people in primitive communities were much healthier than we are today and I thought alright, I’ll give it a try,” Nance told Vice. He began the new diet by slaughtering two goats he had in his yard for milking. He ate them raw and never turned back. “I’m into lamb mainly. It’s just easy to go out to farms, barter over a decent price, slaughter it and throw it in the truck,” Nance adds. “It’s a lot harder to deal with beef because it’s a lot bigger. Pigs are kind of a no-no because they shoot them full of hormones and raise them on grains, which promote bacterial growth.” To avoid scurvy, Nance receives a daily intake of vitamin C from consuming organ meat. Even more bizarrely, he eats rotten meat for the probiotics. “Half of my problem with my digestion was actually just lack of enzymes. My body just doesn’t produce enough enzymes to digest starchy foods. So the probiotic bacteria in rotten meat actually help me to digest the food.” While Nance’s family doesn’t quite understand the reasons behind his dietary choices, his girlfriend, who happens to be a devoted vegetarian, supports him. After years of going to farms and slaughtering animals for his meals, Nance has since switched careers from an electrician to becoming a butcher. Once in a while, the man who survives on raw meat will even help out at his girlfriend’s vegan juice bar. Source
