The Guardian view on the carnivore diet: red meat for influencers, but bad news for health | Editorial

"Followers of this diet eat meat, fat, seafood, eggs and butter, avoiding all vegetables, fruits, grains and legumes as if plants were, as Paul Saladino, an advocate of this diet alleged, poison. Dr Saladino is a US psychiatrist and health influencer with a range of supplements called Heart and Soil that contain dried animal organ meat. He appears shirtless on social media, denouncing vegetables, which he says will harm us. Other Instagrammers tuck into plates of huge steaks and seven or more eggs for breakfast."

"Joe Rogan has claimed on TikTok that his brain was working better after a week of meat, fat, bacon and eggs, and nothing else. Others show off huge muscles or say their skin has improved. There's something messianic in their insistence that going carnivore has changed their life. This is a virtually zero-carbohydrate, high-fat diet, whose antecedents are the Banting diet, promoted as early as 1863, the Atkins diet in 1972 and the ketogenic diet."

The carnivore diet emphasizes eating meat, fat, seafood, eggs and butter while excluding vegetables, fruits, grains and legumes. Some proponents claim cognitive, skin and muscular benefits and dramatic life changes after adopting the diet. The diet is a virtually zero-carbohydrate, high-fat regimen that induces ketosis by forcing the body to burn fat stores instead of glucose. Historical antecedents include the Banting, Atkins and ketogenic diets. Low-carbohydrate approaches can produce rapid initial weight loss, but long-term weight loss at one year equals that of mixed diets. Health organizations warn that diets high in saturated fat and low in fibre could be harmful.

Read at www.theguardian.com