Food is the best medicine. It sounds cliche, but only people who fixed their health by changing their diet genuinely understand how true that statement is. Those still at the beginning of their health improvement or optimization journey can find many options. One option that has been gaining popularity in recent years is the carnivore diet.
The carnivore diet consists of meat and sometimes other animal products such as eggs or cheese. Everything else is excluded. No fruits, no vegetables, no bread, no grains, no legumes, no nuts, no seeds… Carnivore diet means you’re eating only meat and nothing else.
If that sounds pretty unhealthy to you, you’re not alone. Here, I will give you 8 reasons why I think (based on scientific research) the carnivore diet might be a pretty bad idea for 99.9% of the population.
1. Meat contains lots of iron – known to fuel cancer growth.
Meat contains essential nutrients like amino acids, vitamin B12, calcium, and metals such as zink and iron. Iron is necessary for the proliferation of cells and other intracellular and biological processes in the body, and deficiency of these nutrients can cause anemia and other serious health problems. However, too much iron – an inevitable side effect of overeating meat – is bad because iron is also a fuel for cancer growth. So while occasional meat consumption is suitable for your health, a carnivore diet can fuel cancer cell growth.
2. Processed meats are loaded with sodium and chemicals.
Many processed types of meat like bacon or sausages are loaded with sodium, and a diet high in sodium can cause high blood pressure and kidney problems.
In addition, nitrite and nitrate are chemicals used in processed meat for preservation. When nitrites and nitrates are digested, they form a chemical called N-nitroso. This chemical has been found to damage the gut lining epithelial cells, leading to inflammatory bowel diseases and later bowel cancer.
3. High temperature turns amino acids and creatine into carcinogens.
Do you like to eat your steak, chicken wings, or minced pork raw or grilled, pan-fried or baked?
If you said you like to eat your meat grilled, pan-fried, or baked, I must tell you some bad news. With each such meal, you might be supporting inflammation and cancer growth in your body.
It’s because meat contains amino acids and creatine. When creatine mixes with protein and sugar at temperatures above 148 ℃ (when grilling or pan-frying meat), the chemical reaction produces carcinogenic heterocyclic amines (HCAs). A carcinogen is a substance that causes cancer.
So is it better to eat your meat raw? Not really. If you choose that, you must account for pathogens that meat contains…
4. Meat often contains antibiotics
It is a fact that animals fed with antibiotics gain 15% more weight than animals not fed with antibiotics at the same time and eating the same feed.
Farmers put as many animals per square meter as possible to get the maximum yield. For example, pigs on pig farms in Germany (in category 4 meats) have only 0.75 square meters of space per pig, and those animals are locked in that space almost their entire life until they are slaughtered. Same for the chickens, cows, and other farm animals. And it’s not just in Germany but all countries across the globe. Germany just decided to inform people about what they’re buying so you can read about that.
Because these animals are fed corn or soy and antibiotics to gain weight quickly, their immune systems are compromised. Those antibiotics are present in the meat you can buy at the store. Can those antibiotics also affect your gut microbiome in one way or another? We think so.
5. Meat is often contaminated with antibiotic-resistant pathogens and toxins.
Because farm animals are being fed simple sugary diets (corn, soy) and antibiotics to grow faster, their microbiomes are disrupted and often contain resistant pathogens such as Salmonella spp., Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Campylobacter jejuni, Listeria monocytogenes, Clostridium perfringes, Arcobacter, Yersinia enterocolitica or Aeromonas hydrophila.
Farm animals are not only grown in large quantities in a limited space but they are also mass slaughtered using automated lines. It’s almost impossible to prevent meat contamination with pathogenic bacteria.
If you start eating a carnivore diet, it may even make you feel good initially, but as the toxicity and bacterial load builds up, negatively affecting your microbiome, you might start feeling worse over time.
6. The carnivore diet is high in saturated fats and can elevate your cholesterol.
If you have digestive issues you’re trying to solve, such as SIBO or IBS/IBD, this diet can make things even worse with all that protein and fat, which takes much longer to digest.
The carnivore diet is high in saturated fats, which can cause elevated cholesterol levels and put you at risk for heart disease. You should not try this diet if you have a pre-existing chronic condition, like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or any history of stroke or other cardiovascular diseases.
7. Carnivore diet lacks nutrients found in a variety of other foods.
The carnivore diet at its core is highly restrictive. And when you omit entire food groups from your diet, there are bound to be consequences.
Your body needs macro and micro nutrients. Macro nutrients are carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. Micro nutrients are vitamins, minerals, and other trace minerals and metals.
Our body can create some of these nutrients, but we must supply other essential nutrients through our diet.
Now meat is an excellent source of amino acids, vitamin B12, and other things, but it simply doesn’t cover everything our body needs.
Lack of essential nutrients with a carnivore diet can manifest as inflammation and pains, digestion problems (diarrhea or constipation), apathy or irritability, mood/energy/sleep problems, or lack of appetite.
If you decide to try the carnivore diet and will experience some negative physical and psychological symptoms within days or weeks, it’s probably because your body misses other nutrients.
8. No fiber = no food for probiotic bacteria
The carnivore diet is extremely low in fiber, which might cause a lot of constipation. Decreased bowel movement frequency will cause the waste from the meat to stay longer in your bowel.
But the risk is much more serious than a failure to poop.
Long-term constipation with meat food can lead to inflammation and potentially cancer due to iron and carcinogens it contains. You want regular and swift bowel movements. For that, you need dietary fiber and a healthy microbiome.
Since fiber is food for your gut microbiota, eating only meat essentially starves your gut bacteria to extinction, creating dysbiosis in your gut microbiome.
Dysbiosis is a disbalance in the bacterial population, and it’s linked to all kinds of health problems, including IBD, high blood pressure, diabetes, allergies, depression, hormonal imbalances, and cancer.
So unless your goal is to deprive your body of essential nutrients, remove probiotic fiber-eating bacteria from your colon and replace it with some pathogens, and don’t mind supporting inflammation and cancer in your body, a carnivore diet might be for you. Otherwise, consider a more healthy way of eating.
I ate meat 1-2 times a day (among other foods) for two years, and my colon inflammation worsened. As soon as I cut it down to 1 time in 2 days, my inflammation and pain disappeared within 2 weeks.
If the idea of eating only meat is still attractive to you after reading those eight facts mentioned above, then give it a try and see what happens. Your body might be different, and perhaps a carnivore diet will be helpful to you.
I wouldn’t recommend a carnivore diet for the general population, though.
So what’s the best alternative to the carnivore diet?
If your goal is to simply starve your gut sugar-eating bacteria to death by eating only meat, you can probably do the same and better by fasting for a couple of days. If you have never tried it, then I highly recommend trying it. Just have a plan for how you will restart your digestion after 2-3 days of fasting because you will be craving the worst of foods, and that would ruin your fast.
The Keto diet is probably the best alternative to the carnivore diet if you are a natural fat gainer and want to cut sugars from your diet yet still eat all the nutrients your body needs.
I don’t recommend the keto diet to skinny people with a fast metabolism (although you should try it to know) because you will quickly lose weight, which is probably not desirable if you’re skinny. Your body needs carbohydrates to function optimally.
Everybody has a different metabolism, but most people’s bodies are used to burning carbs. When you switch to a carnivore diet, you will probably experience discomfort. Such a change in diet will likely cause an imbalance in homeostasis, meaning an imbalance in hormones, nutrients, and how your body works. You will be able to tell within days or weeks if it is right for you.
In my opinion, the best diet is a balanced, primarily plant-based diet that gives you all the macro and micro nutrients and fiber your body and microbiome need. Support it with probiotics in the form of fermented foods, and your body and microbiome will do the rest to keep you healthy, strong, and happy.