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A New Keto: The Carnivore Diet

The carnivore diet has made its way around social media, but who really knows what carnivore means besides eating animal-based? I want to discuss precisely what the carnivore diet is, why people are obsessed with it, how to build a carnivore plate and the effects of carnivore diets. Stay with me.

If the words "carnivore diet" sound familiar, you have probably seen an attached photo or video of a plate (or the popular cutting board) with a meal that is most likely a medium rare steak, mashed-up avocado, and runny eggs. According to Harvard Health, the carnivore diet is a meal plan that" only allows consumption of meat, poultry, eggs, seafood, fish, some dairy products, and water. You must exclude all vegetables, fruits, grains, legumes, seeds, and nuts. That's why it is sometimes referred to as the "zero carb" diet." In the past 50 years, fad diets have been fixtures in lives, so the carnivore diet is nothing but a different take on the keto diet, but any health professional will tell you that diets, especially the restrictive types, are never the way to go.

A normal human diet should be tailored to individuals; however, a standard agreement among health professionals is that 2000 calories a day through a mix of whole and clean foods will be the trick to staying healthy for a long life. When I heard about the carnivore diet, I was told it was a solution to weight loss; by that, I mean it was weight loss made easy. However, there is nothing easy about the ordeal of going through the carnivore diet. First, the carnivore diet is heavily (and in extreme cases completely) animal-based, which is controversial for a few reasons.

The meat industry's global environmental impact is a heavy contributor to the growing climate crisis. According to the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford, "Livestock production accounts for 18 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, including 9 percent of carbon dioxide and 37 percent of methane gas emissions worldwide".

The carnivore diet is a keto or "no-carb" diet, which means yes, you will lose weight, but the second you reintroduce carbs back into your diet, all that weight will come back if you are careless with consumption.

The restrictive carnivore diet, yes, might answer some problems you have encountered in your health, but it is only because you are cutting out almost everything you usually eat and only consuming a few ingredients in their place. When you cut out things from diets, usually after some time, you re-introduce certain foods and find out what the problem is.

Animal-based diets have been proven to lead to high LDL cholesterol rates due to their heavily saturated fat content. According to Harvard Health, "The disadvantage of all keto diets is they tend to raise LDL cholesterol levels in both the short and long term. Other longer-term concerns about keto diets, especially the carnivore diet, include the increased risk of kidney stones, gout, and osteoporosis. Also, the very high protein intake associated with the carnivore diet can lead to impaired kidney function.".

With all the health talk, as someone who has a complicated relationship with nutrition and the way it is portrayed in the media, I have a bone to pick with people who promote this diet. To make things simple for people when nutrition is involved, I want to break the food plate down to its functions.

Proteins, fats, and carbohydrates are all energy-yielding nutrients. They are designed to keep you full and energized for daily physical functions. Proteins keep people full, and carbs also keep you full, but carbs become energy. However, too many carbs unutilized in the body turn into fat, and fats (aka lipids) keep the nutrients inside where they need to be and are absorbed in the right places. Non-energy-yielding nutrients are water, vitamins, and minerals. The purpose of those is to assist the energy-yielding nutrients through the body. Nutrition in a basic form is very easy, but when the health and wellness industry steps in, then everybody is worried about health issues that only spawn up once a certain problem is identified; for example, I saw a carnivore diet enthusiast influencer say that the carnivore diet cured her PCOS, cystic acne, and numerous other health-related problems. Nutrition is indeed linked to some of these things; however, SO MANY factors are at play when lifestyles change (for example, exercise, more sleep, and more water consumption).

I could go on for ages about how the health and wellness industry is tricking consumers into buying products they don't need (which I will eventually), so I can understand why people would be so willing to gravitate towards a diet like this. On paper, it might be expensive (making it a luxury to eat this way as it is inaccessible to the people who can't afford it), but it is an easy way of doing a diet because the truth is, a majority of people who want to be healthier or lose weight don't understand how. The ingredients are "clean" and simple when building a carnivore plate. The industries profiting from this diet use fear-mongering tactics about the ingredients to make the more expensive things stand out. You can't just eat regular steak; it has to be grass-fed (& finished); there must also be pasture-raised eggs and organic fruits on that cutting board people eat off of. I am all for eating clean foods and learning how to cook them properly, but making people scared of other foods is creating eating disorders among people who were just trying to get healthier and didn't know any better.

The carnivore diet is bad for you and stupid in general is just my opinion, but if you are thinking about doing it, I recommend you take a crash course in nutrition before you potentially disrupt your health. With my gracious and amazingness, I have even linked it for you right here. Thanks for reading this far, and stay tuned for my thoughts on beef tallow, organic foods, and the phenomenon of Trader Joe's.

Works Cited:

Howard E. LeWine, M. (2024, May 8). What is the carnivore diet?. Harvard Health. https://www.health.harvard.edu/nutrition/what-is-the-carnivore-diet 2. Brooks , C. (2024, September 10). Meat’s environmental impact. Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. https://woods.stanford.edu/news/meats-environmental-impact 3. Categories of nutrients. FutureLearn. (2022, October 25). https://www.futurelearn.com/info/courses/healthy-eating/0/steps/336806 4. Nutrition for dummies cheat sheet. dummies. (n.d.). https://www.dummies.com/article/body-mind-spirit/physical-health-well-being/diet-nutrition/general-diet-nutrition/nutrition-for-dummies-cheat-sheet-208631/