Carnivore, lion diets are hailed as transformative. But is a meat-only diet actually healthy for you?

 

Keto, Paleo, or Carnivore? 

On social media, many seem to be following the current diet fad of not eating their vegetables, claiming that doing so has benefited them with a range of health issues. 

Nutritionists have gasped in alarm at videos of people adopting an all-meat, or carnivore, diet. 

"Dana Ellis Hunnes, a senior dietician at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, describes the diet as "not healthy at all" and adds that it is "harmful to our microbiota, heart health, and brains." I simply cannot express how terrible that is." 

Advocates of the carnivore lifestyle assert that eating just meat can help with problems including autoimmune disorders, obesity, eczema, psoriasis, and even eczema, acne, and eczema. However, specialists warn USA TODAY that the diet is risky and that their suspicions about its purported advantages are unfounded. 

The carnivore diet raises a lot of red flags' for nutritionists 

1. With one user, @roryskitchen, going famous over the past two months for chronicling his 30 days of consuming just meat, bone broth, salt, and water, the #carnivorediet tag has gathered over 645 million views on TikTok. He claims in one video, which has had over 9 million views, that the lion diet, a more stringent variant that only allows water, salt, and meat from ruminant animals, convinced him to try the carnivore diet. Ruminant animals, like cows and lambs, are those that have many stomachs, and hooves, and often consume grass, according to the lion diet page. 
2. An all-meat diet lacks fiber, which is essential for digestion and gut health, as well as thiamin and folate, which support healthy cell activity, according to Hunnes, despite the benefits offered by its supporters. 
3. She continues, "I wouldn't even advise it for a week." The fact that this has been reported anecdotally doesn't give me the confidence to claim that it is safe. 
4. A healthy diet includes a diversity of nutrients, which the carnivore diet lacks, according to Barbara Sobel, a clinical nutritionist who treats chronic inflammation in her patients. 
5. Sobel asserts that if our diets are solely centered on eliminating items, we won't be consuming nutrient-dense foods that support the development of our systems, the reduction of inflammation, and the healing of our guts. "We really want to be consuming colorful plant foods for our gut flora to be thriving, healthy, and mending and create that protective barrier." 
6. The absence of fiber, antioxidants, polyphenols, vitamins, minerals, probiotics, and prebiotics in the carnivorous diet, she continues, may raise the risk of long-term health issues including cancer. 

Who are the carnivores? 

Some carnivores, like podcaster and creator of the lion diet Mikhaila Peterson, adopted an all-meat diet out of need rather than following a social media fad. She believes that the diet helped her juvenile rheumatoid arthritis symptoms, which had plagued her with excruciating pain and swelling for much of her life. When Peterson can control her autoimmune flare-ups and realizes that her diet is not essential for most people, she intends to start eating vegetables again. 

According to her, the goal of the diet was always to gradually return at least nutritious vegetables into her diet as soon as she figured out how to avoid an immunological reaction. 

Like Peterson, many more exist. Over 12,000 people have joined a secret Facebook group she formed for individuals following the diet; practically all of them, according to her, suffer from terrible ailments like she does and regard a carnivore diet as their final resort. 

They have tried every alternative, she claims. They wouldn't become this limiting, if not. 

Why do carnivores say they've seen benefits? 

However, according to dietitian Akua Woolbright, who holds a Ph.D. in nutritional research, this diet is not a healthy choice for anyone. 

According to Woolbright, it seems reasonable that participants first felt better after beginning the diet. That's because, according to her, they probably stopped consuming items that harmed their bodies when they transitioned to being carnivores. However, this does not imply that becoming a carnivore is beneficial. 

Because you've eliminated the items that were damaging your body, such as potato chips, soda, sweets, popcorn, and processed oils, she adds, she can envision patients losing weight while on the diet and maybe feeling better at first

. 

Woolbright suggests a typical elimination diet rather than depriving the body of nutrient-rich veggies. This entails eliminating the most frequent dietary triggers, such as white sugar, white flour, alcohol, maize, soy, eggs, and dairy, then returning them gradually one at a time. 

To keep track of how eliminating and reintroducing certain items affects you, Woolbright advises writing throughout the process. According to her, the outcomes may be astounding. 

She claims that by adopting the elimination diet, people have had "tremendous, insane results," such as avoiding operations and curing all kinds of illnesses. 

Carnivores demand studies on their diet, particularly its implications on autoimmunity, even if the medical profession has issued cautions. 

The sixth consecutive year that the Mediterranean diet has been crowned "best diet overall." How to begin is as follows. 

Nutritionists told USA TODAY that such a study is pointless and probably dangerous for the subjects. 

Sobel argues research may be useful if it helped put an unsettling social media trend to rest. 

Before it is suggested on TikTok and people start using it, she says, "I would like to see some research done." "That's the only way we could find out. And I'm completely open to being disproven, which frequently occurs in the fields of nutrition and health." 

It concerns what we consume. The "optimal" diet is continuously being sought by researchers.