Diets we support › Carnivore

How it works

You eat animal foods and nothing else: beef, pork, poultry, fish, eggs, and, for some people, cheese and butter, with no vegetables, fruit, grains, or sugar at all. Because it's so limited, a structured plan really earns its keep by keeping some variety and making sure you're getting enough.

Who it's a good fit for

People who want a strict elimination approach and have decided, ideally with their provider, that an all-animal pattern is right for them.

What the research shows

Carnivore is the hardest one to pin down, because formal research hasn't caught up to it. There aren't large, long-term trials, so most of the case rests on metabolic science, clinical experience, and the results people see for themselves. It has real advocates, including credentialed physicians and metabolic researchers, who argue that for some people, especially those with stubborn autoimmune or metabolic issues, stripping the diet down to animal foods calms symptoms that nothing else touched.

What's clear is that cutting all carbs and processed food tends to bring real short-term changes: weight loss, steadier blood sugar, and fewer cravings. Some people use it as a strict elimination diet and feel dramatically better. The honest limit is time. We don't have long-term studies showing how it plays out over years, so it's an approach to go into thoughtfully and with your labs watched, rather than one with decades of data behind it.

What to watch for

The biggest talking point is cholesterol. On an all-meat diet LDL usually goes up, and for most people the driver is the saturated fat rather than the cholesterol in the food itself. Saturated fat slows the liver down in pulling LDL back out of your blood, so it stays in circulation longer and the number on the lab slip climbs. A higher LDL is read as higher heart risk, and that is still how it will be treated when your labs are reviewed.

You will hear that this doesn't apply to people who are slim and metabolically healthy and eating very low carb, and that particle count matters more than the LDL number. There is something real in the particle part. ApoB counts the particles instead of the cholesterol inside them, and it picks up risk a normal-looking LDL can hide, which is why it gets ordered when those two might disagree. What has not held up is the idea that a high LDL is harmless in that group. When it was measured with scans, plaque went up over a year in most of the people followed.

So the sensible move is bloodwork before you start and again a few months in, with a provider who reads the trend rather than one number. If you have a genetic cholesterol condition, this needs closer watching than that.

A couple of other things. People worry about digestion on carnivore, but the constipation you hear about usually comes from eating too lean. With enough fat in the mix, most people don't run into it. Cutting out plants does drop some nutrients that come mostly from them, like vitamin C and folate, though how much that matters on a very-low-carb diet is itself debated. Two conditions are a hard no, though. If you have kidney disease, an all-meat diet puts far too much load on kidneys that are already struggling. And if you have gout, carnivore is about the highest-purine way you could possibly eat, which sets off flares. For either one, this isn't your diet, and we'd point you to a plan that fits instead.

Common questions