| My social media feed has been flooded with videos that look like a butcher’s spread: a wooden chopping board stacked with meat, sticks of butter, and a copious amount of fried eggs. Some go even further and show people biting into raw steak or chomping on butter blocks as if they were candy bars.
It’s all part of the viral food trend: the carnivore diet — a restrictive regimen that excludes nearly everything except animal products. No vegetables. No fruit. No carbs. Just meat, fish, eggs, and some dairy products. So what’s fueling this meat-driven diet craze? The short answer: influencers. They’ve turned meat into lifestyle content — posting meal-prep tutorials, ‘how to start’ guides, and day-in-the-life videos that garner millions of views with the hashtags #Carnivore and #CarnivoreDiet. One of the most prominent advocates is Courtney Luna, a health influencer and three-year carnivore, who promotes the diet on her social media platforms. The long answer: Shawn Baker, a former orthopedic surgeon, is credited with helping to popularize the movement with his 2019 book The Carnivore Diet. Paul Saladino, an American psychiatrist, has also helped push the trend while high-profile figures including podcast host Joe Rogan and psychologist Jordan Peterson have publicly shared their experiences. Supporters argue that this is not just a meat-intensive diet but a cure-all lifestyle change that offers everything from rapid weight loss and relief from autoimmune disorders to sharper mental clarity, and even clearer skin. Luna says she first turned to the carnivore diet for weight loss, shedding 55 pounds in 10 months. But she says the appeal went further than losing weight: it released her from the “anti-diet” and “yo-yo” culture, giving her what she calls “food freedom.” She also claims the diet boosted her mental health, cleared her skin, eased bloating and gas and left her feeling “good all around.” However, this enthusiasm is not shared by many doctors and dietitians, who warn that while the carnivore diet might deliver dramatic short-term changes, it can carry serious long-term health implications.
Many of the weight-loss results praised by followers are “short-lived and not unique to the diet,” said Dell Stanford, senior dietitian at the British Heart Foundation. The supposed benefits of the diet are also “largely anecdotal and scientifically weak,” she added. The potential dangers of meat-heavy nutrition are well-documented. Excess red meat consumption is linked to higher cholesterol and blood pressure, raising the risks of a heart attack and stroke, according to the National Health Service in the UK. It said the risk of bowel (colorectal) cancer is also probably raised by a high-meat diet.
The carnivore diet “lacks vital nutrients found in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, which play a crucial role in supporting immune function, digestion, and long-term cardiovascular health,” Stanford said. Raquel Britzke, founder and registered dietitian of the Raquel Britzke Nutrition Clinic, says one of the most significant issues with the diet is the lack of fiber. “You’re cutting out antioxidants, which play an integral role in cancer prevention,” she said. Both Stanford and Britzke recommend the Mediterranean diet as a safer alternative and a more nutritionally balanced way to live. Hearing about the dangers the diet carries makes me wonder: are many of the people following this meat-centric trend truly aware of the risks?— Tala Ahmadi | 
