Social media diet urging excess meat eating a 'ticking timebomb' for the body

The 'Carnivore Diet' includes meat, poultry, eggs, seafood, water, and some dairy products.

A diet urging excess meat eating and claiming vegetables are toxic is hugely popular on social media but can lead to heart attacks or impotence, a leading nutritionist has warned.

The 'Carnivore Diet' has been tagged at least 91 million times on TikTok, while one Instagram influencer with almost four million followers has also promoted it. 

The diet includes meat, poultry, eggs, seafood, water, and some dairy products such as butter and yoghurt, but not milk or cheese. It excludes vegetables, fruit, grains, including bread products or pasta, beans, seeds, and nuts.

Dr Richie Kirwan, lecturer and researcher at Liverpool John Moores University and a renowned nutritionist, warned of the dangers.

“If you are only eating meat, you are also avoiding processed food. That has a number of benefits, a lot of them related to losing weight,” he said.

But a lot of people, when they go on the diet, report a very big increase in their cholesterol, and particularly their LDL cholesterol.

Cholesterol plaques form by a hardening of the arteries, and LDL, or bad cholesterol, is the raw material of cholesterol plaques that damage the arteries that carry blood from the heart to the rest of the body.

'Silent killer'

"It’s what we call a 'silent killer' because it takes literally decades for a plaque to get so big that it causes a problem," said Mr Kirwan.

This atherosclerosis can take years to show up, according to Mr Kirwan, who graduated from University College Cork.

It can result in stroke, erectile dysfunction, heart attack, or kidney failure, he said.

“Somebody might feel fantastic for 10 or 15 years on a carnivore-style diet but in the background, you’ve got this ticking timebomb.” 

Supporters of the Carnivore Diet claim vegetables are 'toxic', but Mr Kirwan said: 'If that was true then vegetarians would be dead after a few weeks.'

He urged young men to question what they see online.

“The carnivore diet has become very very popular in the last five years or so. And people really latched onto it, especially men,” he said.

“Influencers play to this concept that meat is masculine and you need to be eating meat to be masculine. 

Then they talk about how dangerous vegetables and fruit are.

Supporters claim vegetables are “toxic”, but Mr Kirwan said: “If that was true then vegetarians would be dead after a few weeks."

Red flags

On his own Instagram account, he shares ‘red flags’ people should avoid.

These include claims a particular diet is “species-specific” or that eating a certain way is "more manly” or claims a meat diet is beneficial because it’s the "way our ancestors ate”.

He also cautioned against influencers who make their diet their personality.

“They use words like 'toxic' about foods. They are always focusing on things to avoid instead of telling people how to have a healthier diet.” 

What's your view on this issue?

You can tell us here

Some people with food allergies or auto-immune conditions benefit from this diet but they are “very few and far between in terms of the whole population”.

As a registered nutritionist, he said there was a “whole process” around training for this.

“There are some dieticians who put out very poor information. And there is a problem in the UK and Ireland because you don’t need a degree to call yourself ‘a nutritionist’ — anybody can call themselves a nutritionist,” he said.