Here is a diet that goes against all conventional nutrition advice, banning bread, potatoes,

and pasta in favor of red meat, eggs, and bacon.

What's not to love?

People all of a sudden are allowed to eat cheese, and all of a sudden they can have a steak

a few times a week that couldn't have before.

They can eat the eggs with the yolk.

This is something I've heard on and off for literally decades.

People saying they're cutting out all sorts of things that I love, like grains and beans

and bread, and most fruit, and even a bunch of vegetables, in favor of steak and bacon,

and that this is a good thing.

Me too, and I hate hearing it.

For a lot of reasons, some of which are to do with the concept of diets in general,

in which we talked about in our episode on diets and dieting, and some of which are

to do with the fact that eating basically only meat and fat sounds terrible.

And frankly, like, kind of a disaster for the environment.

But one of our listeners made us think about this topic in a new way.

Hi, gastropod.

This is Catherine Elkins from St. Louis, and I just listened to your recent podcast on

medically tailored meals, and it got me thinking about a dietary therapy that we use in patients

with epilepsy called the ketogenic diet.

Catherine is not only a gastropod listener, she's also a pediatric neurologist.

I treat children with epilepsy, and that includes both treatment with medicine and both

...