The Rise and Fall of the Carnivore Diet

Origins and early popularity

• The carnivore diet excludes all plant foods. It consists mainly of red meat but can include poultry, fish, eggs, and sometimes full-fat dairy; fruit, vegetables, legumes, nuts, seeds, and sugar are excluded.
• Google Trends shows little interest before late 2017. Shawn Baker’s visit to Joe Rogan around December 2017 was a likely catalyst in its popularity, especially among men.
• In 2018, Jordan Peterson’s and Mikhaila Peterson’s guest spots and viral clips increased its visibility. Headlines said it cured his depression and fixed her arthritis; these were major unsupported health assertions.
• Podcast hosts have a responsibility to vet guests and challenge unsupported medical assertions. Publishing sensational excerpts without scrutiny helps spread misinformation.
• One carnivore follower said his health markers improved but LDL increased; when his doctor expressed concern, he dismissed the doctor as an ignorant drug pusher. Improvements elsewhere do not erase a worsening cardiovascular risk marker.
• Some carnivore supporters distrust doctors and reject unfavorable science while accepting evidence they believe supports their diet. This does not apply to every follower, but can prevent constructive exchanges.

Masculinity, influencers, and personal illness

• In a poll of roughly 1,000 American men, more than half viewed carnivore eating as masculine. Meat, raw organs, hunting imagery, and Joe Rogan’s audience fit an alpha-male identity around the diet. [1]
• Comments have associated vegetables with homosexuality and soy with femininity. Only 18% of men in the poll viewed the Mediterranean diet as masculine, despite its reputation as a highly health-promoting pattern. [1]
• Carnivore books became popular in 2019–2020. Liver King’s viral consumption of large quantities of raw meat and testicles added a muscular, supposedly ancestral image; the lifestyle was also seen as ironic and financially unrealistic beside ordinary shopping and cooking.
• Many people adopt carnivore because of illness, desperation, and fear of foods, not because of a glamorous ideal. Their symptom improvement is a meaningful personal experience.
• Crohn’s disease led to a hospital-guided elimination of foods believed to aggravate digestive symptoms, eventually excluding many foods without knowing which restrictions were necessary.
• Fatty steak has caused diarrhea in the speaker, but this does not establish harm for everyone. Relief after excluding rice or plants likewise cannot justify universal dietary restrictions.
• Google Trends shows carnivore interest peaking in late 2024 and subsequently falling; the decline concerns search interest, not established discontinuation by every follower.

Why people can feel better

• Carnivore is simple: eat animal foods and remove almost everything else. This simplicity is appealing, even though chicken breast and deep-fried bacon have different nutritional profiles.
• It is a highly restrictive elimination diet. Moving from a typical American diet can remove sugary snacks, pizza, chips, deep-fried foods, and alcohol; benefits can follow changes in excluded foods as well as included foods.
• Narrower food choices often lower calorie intake. Reduced energy intake and weight loss can improve several health markers even when the chosen foods are not nutritionally optimal.
• Professor Mark Haub’s Twinkie diet illustrates this: he ate largely junk food in a calorie deficit, lost weight, and had better blood lipids. Improved markers after dieting do not establish that the foods are optimal. [2]
• Research on low-carbohydrate and ketogenic diets finds that high-protein, restricted eating can reduce ad libitum calorie intake, meaning food intake falls without prescribed calorie limits.
• Reduced carbohydrate intake can also cause rapid water-weight loss. Someone starting carnivore may quickly lose weight, look different, and improve some markers, without demonstrating superiority over other diets.
• Long-term effects on food anxiety, social activities, restaurants, and adherence also matter. Mikhaila Peterson called her beef-salt-water approach the Lion Diet partly because the underlying restriction was socially awkward, not glamorous.

When health promises become extreme

• Paul Saladino’s book The Carnivore Code advertises carnivore as scientifically proven to lower inflammation, improve sleep and mental clarity, reduce joint pain, and support weight loss. The wording “scientifically proven” is central.
• Eddie Abbew said carnivore can cure Crohn’s disease and inflammatory bowel disease, using his daughter’s relief from irritable bowel syndrome as support. IBS and IBD are different conditions; easing IBS symptoms is not evidence of curing Crohn’s.
• Identifying this distinction drew angry reactions from supporters. Refusal to acknowledge an exaggeration protects a dietary identity without establishing medical validity.
• Jordan Peterson told Elon Musk carnivore would fix his back injury without knowing the injury’s type. Musk resisted the assertion; improvement in another person’s back pain cannot establish efficacy for an unspecified injury.
• Anthony Chaffee says plants are trying to kill humans, and Saladino has identified plants as a possible root of illness. The rationale involves plant defenses such as phytates, oxalates, and tannins.
• Plant defenses against insects do not establish harm from human consumption. Research connecting plant foods and dietary fiber with better health is much stronger than evidence favoring total plant exclusion.

What the carnivore evidence actually contains

• Direct research on strict carnivore eating is extremely sparse. Evidence from ketogenic or other low-carbohydrate diets is related but is not a direct carnivore comparison.
• A case series contains ten patients with inflammatory bowel disease whose symptoms improved on carnivore or ketogenic diets. The outcomes are encouraging, especially for people with Crohn’s disease, but the evidence remains a case series. [3]
• Individual carnivore case literature also covers a patient with diabetes whose health improved; a single case cannot establish the best diet for every patient. [4]
• Another case involves one person with schizophrenia whose condition entered remission during carnivore-ketogenic metabolic therapy. [5]
• A further case involves a woman whose Candida vulvovaginitis improved during an all-meat ketogenic diet. [6]
• Inflammatory bowel disease case studies also exist for the specific carbohydrate diet, so benefits in a few carnivore cases do not demonstrate unique efficacy. [7]
• One case involved ulcerative colitis developing during a low-carbohydrate diet and improving after a switch to a plant-based diet. [8]
• Enteral nutrition, including tube feeding, also has published research on inducing remission in Crohn’s disease. Positive cases from these dietary approaches also warrant attention under the same standard of evidence. [9]
• Moving from a poor baseline diet to carnivore and feeling better establishes improvement from that baseline, not superiority over every other dietary option.
• Shawn Baker and supporters sought donations for a proposed million-dollar carnivore randomized trial, raised a few hundred thousand dollars, and stopped. Promoters funding studies of their own diet also have potential conflicts of interest.
• A 2021 carnivore paper attracted widespread attention. Mikhaila Peterson said 90% of participants improved across all diseases, but the study recruited existing carnivore followers through social-media groups after at least six months on the diet. [10]
• This design excludes many who discontinued the diet early and preferentially samples satisfied adherents. It was a survey, not a randomized comparison with objectively measured before-and-after health outcomes. [10]
• In the survey, 93% followed carnivore for health, 85% ate red meat daily, fewer than 10% ate plant food more than monthly, 95% indicated improved overall health, and about 1–6% identified adverse effects, mostly gastrointestinal. These were self-assessments. [10]
• Participants also indicated lower BMI and reduced diabetes medication use. LDL cholesterol was elevated in some, an important cardiovascular risk marker alongside the favorable outcomes. [10]
• A 2026 scoping review included nine human studies, with possible short-term improvements in weight, satiety, and some metabolic measures, alongside risks of nutrient deficiencies, inadequate phytochemicals, and cardiovascular disease. Long-term carnivore adherence was not recommended. [11]

Prominent supporters moving away

• After about two years on strict carnivore, Paul Saladino experienced poor sleep, palpitations, muscle cramps, and testosterone around 500. He concluded long-term ketosis was poor for him and probably for humans generally, while The Carnivore Code remains on sale.
• After eight years, Mikhaila Peterson began reintroducing foods because her health had improved enough to tolerate them. Her experience fits a restrictive diet used during serious illness, not a lifetime ideal for everyone.
• Liver King later said he had been starving himself, had been wrong about carnivore, and wanted people to know. Drug use influenced his physique, so his muscularity did not establish dietary efficacy.
• Dr. Kiltz began softening his approach after about 15 years when his coronary artery calcium score rose and he developed acute colitis. He added foods such as fish, chicken, and potatoes beyond red meat.
• Podcast host Chris Williamson said strict carnivore felt mentally good but raised his cholesterol sharply. Subjective well-being and worse cardiovascular measurements can occur simultaneously.

Dogmatism, course corrections, and conclusion

• Cognitive dissonance can lead someone to defend a diet while dismissing adverse measurements. Similar contradictions occur when smokers or drinkers justify a risky behavior through stress relief or social benefits.
• For people who experienced illness followed by improvement, criticism of carnivore can feel like criticism of their recovery. This helps explain emotional attachment but does not establish the diet as optimal.
• An elevated LDL, blood pressure, or coronary calcium result can motivate reassessment and dietary changes. Some advocates dismiss the measurements or blame individuals for insufficient dietary adherence.
• Accounts of heart attacks after years on carnivore can attract replies questioning vegetable intake or saturated-fat consumption. Keto communities can similarly attribute adverse results to excessive carbohydrate consumption.
• Influencers often withdraw gradually without publicly retracting earlier assurances. Saladino now eats fruit, honey, and other plant foods after previously promoting strict carnivore.
• Carnivore can make many people feel substantially better, and the mechanisms behind improvement matter. Evidence on high saturated-fat intake, high red-meat intake, and the diet’s long-term risks underlies the recommendation against strict carnivore.

References

1. [08:27] New Poll: More Than Half of Men Think Meat Is ‘Masculine’ — https://www.pcrm.org/news/news-releases/new-poll-more-half-men-think-meat-masculine
2. [20:39] Twinkie Diet class demonstration (Mark Haub) — https://experts.ksu.edu/mark.haub/professional
3. [32:23] Case report: Carnivore–ketogenic diet for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease: a case series of 10 patients — https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2024.1467475
4. [32:29] Reversing 20 years of diabetes using the carnivore diet in India: a case report — https://doi.org/10.7762/cnr.2025.0026
5. [32:32] Case Report: Remission of schizophrenia using a carnivore ketogenic metabolic therapy with nutritional therapy practitioner support — https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2025.1591937
6. [32:33] Consuming an All-Meat Ketogenic Diet for the Long-Term Management of Candida Vulvovaginitis and Vaginal Hidradenitis Suppurativa: A 47-Month Follow-Up Case Report — https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.30510
7. [33:45] The Specific Carbohydrate Diet for Inflammatory Bowel Disease: A Case Series — https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jand.2015.04.016
8. [33:49] Onset of Ulcerative Colitis during a Low-Carbohydrate Weight-Loss Diet and Treatment with a Plant-Based Diet: A Case Report — https://doi.org/10.7812/TPP/15-038
9. [33:57] Enteral nutritional therapy for induction of remission in Crohn’s disease — https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD000542.pub3
10. [37:20] Behavioral Characteristics and Self-Reported Health Status among 2029 Adults Consuming a “Carnivore Diet” — https://doi.org/10.1093/cdn/nzab133
11. [42:01] Carnivore Diet: A Scoping Review of the Current Evidence, Potential Benefits and Risks — https://doi.org/10.3390/nu18020348