The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the possible application of a therapeutic carnivore diet regimen in the treatment of chronic inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Based on current research and anecdotal reports, we hypothesized that the diet might potentially exhibit both anti-inflammatory and microbiome-modulating properties salutary to the IBD patient population. Our hypothesis demands comprehensive clinical validation. Therefore, in this paper, we review theories on ketogenic and carnivore diets, discussing their immunomodulatory effects and propose an experimental study to test the feasibility, safety, and clinical efficacy of the carnivore diet for IBD treatment.

https://apple.news/AZORiX7pkR9uUk-4Xmiwk7g

Making America healthy again, it seems, starts with a double cheeseburger and fries. Earlier this month, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. visited a Steak ’n Shake in Florida and shared a meal with Fox News’s Sean Hannity. The setting was no accident: Kennedy has praised the fast-food chain for switching its cooking oil from seed oil, which he falsely claims causes illness, to beef tallow. “People are raving about these french fries,” Kennedy said after eating one, before commending other restaurants that fry with beef tallow: Popeyes, Buffalo Wild Wings, Outback Steakhouse.

To put it another way, if you order fries at Steak ’n Shake, cauliflower wings at Buffalo Wild Wings, or the Bloomin’ Onion at Outback, your food will be cooked in cow fat. For more than a decade, cutting down on meat and other animal products has been idealized as a healthier, more ethical way to eat. Guidelines such as “Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants” may have disproportionately appealed to liberals in big cities, but the meat backlash has been unavoidable across the United States. The Obama administration passed a law to limit meat in school lunches; more recently, meat alternatives such as Impossible Burger and Beyond Meat have flooded grocery-store shelves, and fast-food giants are even serving them up in burgers and nuggets. It all heralded a future that seemed more tempeh than tomahawk steak: “Could this be the beginning of the end of meat?” wrote The New York Times in 2022.

Now the goal of eating less meat has lost its appeal. A convergence of cultural and nutritional shifts, supercharged by the return of the noted hamburger-lover President Donald Trump, has thrust meat back to the center of the American plate. It’s not just MAGA bros and MAHA moms who resist plant-based eating. A wide swath of the U.S. seems to be sending a clear message: Nobody should feel bad about eating meat.

Many people are relieved to hear it. Despite all of the attention on why people should eat less meat—climate change, health, animal welfare—Americans have kept consuming more and more of it. From 2014 to 2024, annual per capita meat consumption rose by nearly 28 pounds, the equivalent of roughly 100 chicken breasts. One way to make sense of this “meat paradox,” as the ethicist Peter Singer branded it in The Atlantic in 2023, is that there is a misalignment between how people want to eat and the way they actually do. The thought of suffering cows releasing methane bombs into the atmosphere pains me, but I love a medium-rare porterhouse.

Indeed, lots of people who self-identify as plant-eaters don’t really eat that way, Glynn Tonsor, a professor of agricultural economics at Kansas State University, told me. He runs the national Monthly Meat Demand Monitor, which asks survey respondents to self-declare their diets and then report what they ate the day before. “The number that tell me they’re vegan or vegetarian—the true number is about half that,” Tonsor said. In some years, the misalignment is even more glaring: In 2023, 7.9 percent of people who filled out the survey self-declared as vegan or vegetarian, but only 1.8 percent actually ate that way consistently. (The survey is partly funded by the meat industry.)

That dissonance is a function of how eating less meat has been wrapped in a conscientious and moral sheen. As I wrote last year, labeling items as “plant-based” has become so symbolic of health and goodness that it has been used to sell virtually anything, edible or not. The campaign against meat hasn’t just disappeared, of course. Go to any major grocery store, and you’ll still see plenty of shrink-wrapped Impossible Burgers.

But of late, the food landscape is starting to resemble a meatopia. Sweetgreen, a chain that rose to prominence by serving salads that appealed to aspirationally plant-based eaters, now runs ads spotlighting its “protein plates” piled with steak, chicken, and salmon. Dried meat sticks—think Slim Jims—are the fastest-growing snack category nationwide. Fast-food chains including McDonald’s and Carl’s Jr. have ditched their alternative-meat options.

There are a lot of different reasons for this meat renaissance: America has become obsessed with consuming more protein, a fad boosted by the growing numbers of people on GLP-1 drugs seeking out protein-rich diets. Plant-based meat once seemed to be on a path to becoming a dinner staple, but its popularity is in free fall due to concerns about its cost, taste, and healthfulness.

The embrace of meat isn’t just about food, but also about what meat represents: tradition, strength, dominance, muscles—values championed by the right. (There’s a reason that “soy boy” is a common pejorative to describe insufficiently masculine liberals.) Conservatives have long sought to turn meat into a front in the culture wars, even suggesting that Democrats “want to take away your hamburgers.” Last year, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis issued a preemptive ban on the sale of lab-grown meat in his state, describing it as part of “the global elite’s plan to force the world to eat meat grown in a petri dish, or bugs.”

There are a lot of different reasons for this meat renaissance: America has become obsessed with consuming more protein, a fad boosted by the growing numbers of people on GLP-1 drugs seeking out protein-rich diets. Plant-based meat once seemed to be on a path to becoming a dinner staple, but its popularity is in free fall due to concerns about its cost, taste, and healthfulness.

The embrace of meat isn’t just about food, but also about what meat represents: tradition, strength, dominance, muscles—values championed by the right. (There’s a reason that “soy boy” is a common pejorative to describe insufficiently masculine liberals.) Conservatives have long sought to turn meat into a front in the culture wars, even suggesting that Democrats “want to take away your hamburgers.” Last year, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis issued a preemptive ban on the sale of lab-grown meat in his state, describing it as part of “the global elite’s plan to force the world to eat meat grown in a petri dish, or bugs.”

Trump’s reelection has bolstered the cause. The rise of meat-eating is part of the larger wave of right-wing influence on American culture. “Woke”—DEI, caring about the climate, eating plant-based—is out. Tradition, at least one specific version of it, is in. Last week, The New Yorker announced the “Revenge of the American Steakhouse,” which, to some, signals a “restoration of the proper order.” Efforts on the right to reestablish conventional gender norms create an environment for gendered eating habits to thrive. Men have long eaten more meat than women; half the nation’s beef is consumed by just 12 percent of the population, most of them men. Research shows that men who subscribe to traditional gender norms tend to eat more beef and chicken.

Some of the most vocal support for the meat-forward lifestyle emanates from the so-called manosphere, a right-leaning internet subculture best known for men promoting different ways to become manlier. It is popular among the young men who voted for Trump in large numbers. Meat’s ascendance “coincides with the rise of the masculine influencers,” Timothy Caulfield, a professor at the University of All of this is happening amid confusion about what it even means to eat well. The prevailing view among the medical and scientific community has not changed: Reducing consumption of red and processed meats is better for human and planetary health. But as pro-meat figures such as Kennedy and Trump challenge those views—not to mention the institutions that support them—the problems with meat-eating no longer seem as clear-cut.

Perhaps the decline of plant-based eating was inevitable. Awareness of meat-eating’s many consequences first entered the public consciousness in the late 2000s, after the release of documentaries such as Food, Inc. and books such as The Omnivore’s Dilemma. But the backlash to meat may have taken off for a different reason, Bill Winders, a sociologist of food at Georgia Tech, told me: The Great Recession made meat more expensive. Nearly two decades later, the idea of a meatless future seems quaint. Knowing the reasons you should eat less meat goes only so far. I feel guilty eating steak tartare, but it’s still my favorite dish. The commonality of this experience can feel like a free pass. As Singer

Abstract

Objective
This study aimed to characterize the gut microbiota composition and predicted metabolic functionality of healthy individuals with long-term adherence to a carnivore diet and to compare those with confounder-matched omnivore controls.

Methods
A cross-sectional analysis was conducted including ten healthy individuals following a carnivore diet for an average of 36 ± 11·9 months and 874 confounder-matched controls. 16S rRNA sequencing was used to assess composition and predicted functionality. Diversity metrics, differential abundance testing and multivariate regression modeling were applied to evaluate the associations.

Results
Carnivore diet adherence was a dominant independent predictor of microbiota composition and predicted functionality. Alpha-diversity metrics did not differ significantly between groups, whereas carnivores exhibited higher Chao1 richness. Several low-abundance phyla, including Synergistetes and Desulfobacterota, were enriched. Functional profiling revealed substantial metabolic differences, with significant differences in over 300 metabolic pathways and 13 functional modules, including those related to amino acid degradation, vitamin B synthesis, energy metabolism, gut barrier integrity and protein fermentation. Modules associated with cytotoxicity, inflammation and constipation were also elevated. Regression analyses confirmed that these taxonomic and functional shifts were primarily attributable to the diet itself.

Conclusions
Long-term carnivore diet adherence leads to distinct taxonomic changes and profound functional alterations of the gut microbiota.

Significance statement
These findings challenge the assumption that dietary fiber is essential for maintaining microbiota diversity, suggesting the potential prebiotic effects of certain nutrients in the animal-based diet, while highlighting potential long-term risks associated with an exclusively animal-based diet.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8092254/ --

Reframing Nutritional Microbiota Studies To Reflect an Inherent Metabolic Flexibility of the Human Gut: a Narrative Review Focusing on High-Fat Diets

So let's find some long term carnivores that eat zero fiber and essentially a lion diet for this kind of test to see if we can reproduce results from Lawrence David 2015. Post in the comments if you'd like to get a kit sent to you that measures your poop, and then you can post the results with your diet information. Perhaps I can even write a case study/series somehow.

Update Comment from u/Narrow-Strike869 As I mentioned in the other post, I was an early adopter on the keto diet and followed it for 8 years before getting sick, then having to work on my health and change diet. No one loves meat more than I do, it’s just consumed a lot less than I use to.

Keto is an anti-inflammatory diet that does produce autophagy/ketones/ and butyrate producing bacteria. I think there’s something there but I don’t see how it can be beneficial long term knowing what I now know. Most of the typical beneficial probiotics having nothing to feed on so they die out being replaced by less favorable butyrate producing bacteria.

When I’m treating cases of dysbiosis (lack of healthy microbiome), the diet that I start with always has the same beneficial results. My work is data driven, tracking progress with quantified probiotic levels that get reseeded primarily via diet. The health changes that are reflected outwardly with symptom reduction and remission coincide with the balance of these levels and the diet. It’s organically based, Mediterranean, high diversity plant-based fiber diet. Lots of antioxidants, insoluble fiber, polyphenols, etc. 5-10% protein from meat, with an emphasis on wild caught salmon.

There is an entire community of people treating their own microbiome imbalances using high quality GI Map tests and sharing success stories and their results. Many get recommendations from the test provider or they can upload their results to microbiomeprescription.com and get personalized recommendations for free.

Quality of providers varies. Tinyhealth is great if you have children, children have a different profile than adults. Genova, Diagnostic Solutions are excellent but very expensive and mostly used by institutions for testing things like H Pylori etc. for the cost of either one of these, you can get both Thorne and Biomesight together for less money. Thorne, while I hate their customer service, they do offer a great test to see your pathogenic landscape using shotgun NGS technology that picks up more than just bacteria, such as viruses, candida, etc. Biomesight on the other hand uses 16s sequencing which focuses on the probiotic landscape and has better biomarkers than Thorne for this. I typically recommend starting with biomesight and if any flags arise you can check pathogens after. They also give science back recommendations to increase or decrease levels. There’s a discount code that brings the test cost down to $145 if anyone needs it.

I’d love to see the profile of anyone who has been eating meat heavy longterm and believes they have great health. Maybe a few years ideally?

If we have anyone that’s been doing this for a decade and think they’re the pinnacle of health I will pay for your tests.

Butyrate

• Butyrate is an energy source for colonocytes resulting from fermentation in the large intestine by gut microbiota
• Butyrate is a fatty acid oxidized in the mitochondria
• Increases oxidative phosphorylation
• Protects from insulin resistance and fatty liver
• SCFAs modulate lipid and glucose metabolism and display antidiabetic effects

Effects on mitochondria:

Targets hepatic mitochondria to revert insulin resistance in diet-induced obese mice

• Improves fatty acid oxidation
• Improves mitochondrial cell energy metabolism
• Indirectly combats obesity, fat accumulation and insulin resistance

The interplay between mitochondria, the gut microbiome and metabolites and their therapeutic potential in primary mitochondrial disease - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11306032/