Dangers of the Carnivore Diet
The dark side no one told you about
I ate only meat and animal foods for 6 months in 2019, and by the end I was much less healthy than when I started.
Here are seven downsides that no one ever talks about.
This is about my experience as a 100% carnivore, meaning no fruit, vegetables, or plants of any kind. I did eat a small amount of honey throughout this period, but no milk or other carbs.
1. Gas and bloating
Everyone says that you’ll eliminate bloating if you don’t eat plants, because you’ll kill off the cellulose-digesting gut bacteria.
Little did you know, there are also bacteria that ferment protein.
When a large empire collapses, new powers take its place. Similarly, if you create a power vacuum by genociding one strain of bacteria, a new one will takeover and wreak a different kind of havoc.
The proper gut microbiome is balanced, not over-indexed on one particular strain (when that happens, it’s called gut dysbiosis).
For me, the protein fermenting bacteria took over, so eating a steak gave me painful gas as the protein fermenters went to work.
Carnivores are right in pointing out that we don’t digest fiber. This is true, but as Dr. Michael Eades put it, “you’re not eating fiber for you— but for your gut bacteria.”
2. Fragile digestive system
When you starve your fiber-digesting bacteria to death, you also shockingly lose your ability to digest plant matter.
If you think eating a tomato or lettuce and seeing it in the toilet after you poop (this happened to me) is emblematic of ideal health, then this might be the diet for you.
Carnivores love to say that those foods are unhealthy and you shouldn’t be eating them anyway.
But what are you going to do if the power goes out, or there is a supply chain shortage, or you are traveling, and can’t get 2k+ calories of pure beef per day? Having to run to the bathroom because you looked at a carrot (which people have been eating for thousands of years) means your body is fragile.
Fragility means weakness, and being weak should not be part of your health goals. Adaptability is the name of the game.
3. Floating poop
When you eat too much fat, it passes through you undigested, resulting in floating, chalky/pale colored poop, which smells funky and is difficult to pass.
This is exacerbated by…
4. Weak stomach acid
Stomach acid must be very strong to effectively break down food in your stomach, and trigger the release of the appropriate pancreatic enzymes.
I had all the classic symptoms of weak stomach acid on carnivore, from food sitting in my stomach for hours, to bloating, to undigested fecal matter. This was likely due to low salt and…
5. High stress
This applies to both keto and carnivore. Everyone knows that keto raises stress hormones.
A lack of carbs means food scarcity in an evolutionary setting (if you can’t get honey, berries, milk, fruit, etc., times are probably tough).
And while we can create enough glucose to survive via gluconeogenisis, it’s like running your house off your backup generator instead of the grid: inefficient, and not a good idea.
High stress makes sleep tough, lowers stomach acid, makes you lethargic, and kills your testosterone.
Before carnivore, I was able to wake up at 5:00am, head to crossfit, and work for the whole day without losing energy. That was impossible for me on carnivore (I don’t do crossfit anymore btw, but the point still stands).
There’s a reason why high-performance athletes continue to eat it.
6. Nutrient Deficiencies
Yes, animal foods have every nutrient we need as humans.
But that doesn’t mean they have them in the right amounts to heal prior and present stress from sources that tribes such as the Maasai don’t have to deal with.
Animal foods are low in magnesium and vitamin E, which are both very important for fighting stress and healing seed oil damage.
The stress + nutrient deficincies combined led to me…
7. Getting sick
I got violently ill a number of times while on carnivore, which hadn’t happened while on my prior diet of paleo + fermented foods.
Chronic stress destroys your immune system, which is my best guess as to its cause.
I had the worst stomach bug of my life (took me months to recover), to which I was susceptible likely because of my low stomach acid. And I got the regular flu multiple times.
There is still hope
All that being said, I don’t think meat is terrible. If you look carefully, you’ll notice only two causes of all the problems I mentioned:
keto (no sugar), and
no fiber
By adding fruit and other carb sources to a meat-intensive diet, you can prevent all of the negative side effects.
I still get a majority of my calories from animal foods, and it’s noteworthy that some of the most popular carnivore influencers, such as Paul Saladino and Liver King, all consume copious amounts of fruit nowadays.
Meat is great— satieting, nutrient dense, good for the environment. You just need to avoid an extreme ban on everything else, and you’ll be fine.
You used garlic and onion for condiments or monk fruit. Try carnivore without it. Impossible to have more gas eating less fiber, less fructans. Carnivore is the ultimate low FODMAP diet.