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What Are Your Thoughts on the Carnivore Diet?

A Dietitian's Perspective

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The Answer: The carnivore diet is a highly restrictive eating plan that consists exclusively of animal products.
Per the Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics: Meat-focused Diets (Paleo, Carnivore) emphasize animal-based foods and exclude most plant-based foods, including fruit and whole grains. Heart disease risk and digestive issues may be of concern.

The Evidence:

Diets that eliminate whole food groups are always a red flag in my book as a dietitian. At the core of having a healthy diet, you will constantly hear the term balanced. When multiple food groups are omitted, you have essentially taken the balance away. Many times when it comes to the shiny “new” fad diet, people are looking for answers and I sympathize with that. You’ve tried and tried to lose weight or achieve health through various methods only to come up empty or find that the methods that you once used are simply not working anymore. When looking at a high-protein diet like the carnivore diet, you may see a diet that you can follow because you were already a lover of meat. I’m not against meat at all, but I know that the other role players in your diet shouldn’t be omitted either. The Standard American Diet or “SAD” diet as we call it, was never low in meat; it was low in fiber, amongst other things. Fiber is important in digestion and providing healthy food for your gut microbes to feed on decreasing inflammation and your risk of chronic illnesses like colon cancer.

Here are my Top 3 reasons why I would NOT consume a carnivore diet (and yes for great remembering they will all begin with a “D” hehe:

  1. Deficiencies: As I mentioned earlier, when you try to incorporate a diet that is not balanced, you will miss out on the other essential nutrients that your body needs. (Carnivore dieters are typically going to be low in vitamin C, folate, iodine, calcium, and thiamin just to name a few).
  2. Digestion: Meat is missing out on the fiber component of your diet, which can result in a challenging bathroom experience when the gut won’t move properly. Reducing fiber will also reduce diversity in your gut microbes from omitting whole grains and fruit, which can increase your heart disease risk (the number one killer in the USA).
  3. Difficulty in implementation: This is diet is simply not sustainable long term. You may see results initially, but it will be a challenge to keep the results that you acheive without increasing your risks for other chronic diseases like heart disease, colon cancer and chronic kidney disease.

Sources:

  1. Lietz, A., Dapprich, J., & Fischer, T. (2026). Carnivore Diet: A Scoping Review of the Current Evidence, Potential Benefits and Risks. Nutrients, 18(2), 348.

  2. Ko, G. J., Rhee, C. M., Kalantar-Zadeh, K., & Joshi, S. (2020). The effects of high-protein diets on kidney health and longevity. Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, 31(8), 1667-1679.

  3. Schwingshackl, L., & Hoffmann, G. (2014). Comparison of high vs. normal/low protein diets on renal function in subjects without chronic kidney disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis. PloS one, 9(5), e97656.

  4. LeWine, H. E. (2024, May 8). What is the carnivore diet? Harvard Health Publishing. https://www.health.harvard.edu/diet-and-nutrition/what-is-the-carnivore-diet