With so many new diets sprouting up, a lot of conflicting information about each one can be a pretty common issue. One diet that I get asked a lot about is the carnivore diet, and how it compares to the ketogenic diet.

There are a few key differences, and both have their own set of benefits and drawbacks.

Before we get into each, let’s assess what exactly the carnivore diet is, and why it’s becoming so popular particularly within the keto diet community.

What Is The Carnivore Diet?

The Carnivore diet is a restrictive type of diet that only allows for meat, fish, and other animal foods like eggs and certain types of dairy products.

There are a few different protocols of the carnivore diet, and some don’t allow fish, eggs, or dairy at all. This is partly because a lot of milks, cheeses, and other dairy products can contain certain types of sugars in the form of lactose.

The carnivore diet excludes all other foods generally, including fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, and seeds, and of course all pre-packaged goods that are high in carbohydrates.

As a subset of the keto diet, the objective of the carnivore diet is to consume 0 total carbohydrates each day, and focusing macronutrient efforts solely on fat and protein.

• Origin of the carnivore diet

The carnivore diet originated as a take on a very controversial belief that our human ancestor populations ate almost entirely meat and fish based foods, and that high carb diets are the root of most of today’s modern health problems like heart disease.

The carnivore diet is often confused with paleo, but it is quite different. Paleo still allows for a lot of carbohydrates to come from natural food sources, but the carnivore diet is much more strict in terms of macro ratios.

In the 1920s, a group of researchers who lived with Inuit communities discovered that they didn’t face any adverse health effects after eating like these tribes ate, subsisting off mostly seal and fish, with no access to fruits or vegetables.

This discovery was met with fervent contention, but it serves as the origin of the carnivore diet’s popularity in western society.

• Rules of the carnivore diet

The diet is fairly simple, it’s focused on getting the entirety of your calories from meat and general animal products/

There are different ways that people implement the carnivore diet. Some people don’t include fish in their carnivore diet protocols, some don’t include dairy, and some don’t include eggs. I’m personally of the opinion that fish, eggs, and dairy have too much value to avoid, especially when restricting the types of nutrients you’re getting from just meat.

A lot of people also add intermittent fasting to this diet, for a few specific reasons. However the biggest reason is because meat is very satiating, and after eating a lot of it, it’s likely that you wont be hungry again for hours on end, making meeting the restrictions of intermittent fasting windows a lot easier to achieve.

• Average meal on a carnivore diet

Some possible sample meals for the carnivore diet include:

Day of Eating One:

• • Breakfast: shrimp, eggs, served with a small glass of heavy cream
  • Lunch: salmon jerky, turkey burger patty, beef tips
  • Dinner: Filet mignon, crab, chicken liver
  • Snacks: small portions of parmesan cheese, jerky

Day of Eating Two:

• • Breakfast: eggs, salmon, turkey sausage
  • Lunch: beef tips, pork chops, mackerel
  • Dinner: turkey burger patty, a small amount of Parmesan cheese, bone marrow
  • Snacks: hard-boiled eggs, shrimp

If you’re looking for more inspiration and guidance when following the carnivore diet, I highly recommend you check out The Carnivore Diet Guide by Robb Wolf, it’s packed full of meal plans, nutrition tips, and has some inspiring success stories.

How Does the Carnivore Diet Work?

• Does it make keto easier?

It is true that the carnivore diet can be used to make the keto diet struggles a little bit easier. In fact, it’s actually one way to help people get back into ketosis faster.

Because you’re essentially following a 0 net carb diet, your body will be forced to burn fat for fuel even quicker than normal.

A lot of people will notice an even more dramatic and quick drop in water weight, but they’ll also get over that plateau and into ketosis quicker because the carnivore diet drastically helps reduce inflammation within the body.

However it does come with some pitfalls. Because you’re lacking even more essential electrolytes and nutrients that you would be by following a standard keto diet, the effects of the keto flu like nausea, irritability, and insomnia, can come on much stronger.

• Does it help you lose weight?

With the added help of a more efficient version of ketosis, it is generally referred to as a great way to kickstart weight loss. However as most people who’ve overcome great amounts of weight loss will know, real change takes a long term strategy, and the carnivore diet is a tough type of diet to stick to for months on end.

However if you’re looking to lose weight quickly, it is pretty powerful in that sense, as long as you’re making sure to get all of the nutrients you need, and are still aiming for a majority fat macronutrient ratio. You really won’t be helping your body burn fat for fuel if you’re eating a majority protein diet.

Animal fats are fortunately very nutritious, and there’s a ton of ways to get more fat into a keto diet while still sticking with the carnivore restrictions.

• How does it affect your hormones?

There’s unfortunately no long term data available to attest to how exactly following a carnivore diet will impact people’s hormones, but there are a lot of case studies starting to come to light for different types of people, and there’s a definite cause and effect like trend starting to appear in the data.

For these reasons, it’s extremely important to avoid the carnivore diet while pregnant, and there are some potential issues with inactive thyroid glands after following the diet for long periods of time.

However on the lighter side, like a keto diet, a carnivore diet can help affect the types of hormones that effect hunger and satiety, making it easier to stay fuller for longe periods of time.

• Can it help you build muscle?

A lot of people will claim that you absolutely need some base level of carbohydrate intake to help build muscle, and the muscle loss effects that are commonly attributed to the keto diet may support that to a certain degree.

But there is some conflicting evidence out there that following a carnivore diet might actually be able to help boost muscle growth and provide you with more energy and stamina to work even harder in the gym. There simply isn’t enough data available on it, but if you’re hoping to use this diet solely for building muscle, you may want to consult with a nutritionist for an expert opinion.

• Is it sustainable for the long term?

This is probably the most debatable aspect of the entire carnivore diet.

There are doctors that urge people not to consider using this diet in the long term (more than 6 months at a time), and even a lot of big proponents of the diet use it cyclically for about one to three months at a time. Unfortunately the effects of long term use simply aren’t available due to a lack of recent research.

The best way to follow the carnivore diet safely is to pay close attention to vitamin and nutrient deficiencies, to ensure that this diet is still doing more good than harm.

Foods to Avoid on the Carnivore Diet

The foods that you should avoid on the carnivore diet are fairly easy to keep track of.

In a nutshell, you should be avoiding any and all foods that do not come as animals when following the carnivore diet. You can think of it as the antithesis to the vegan diet entirely.

This includes all types of plants, sugars, and vegetables, but includes some other important types of foods that people often forget about when planning on making the transition from keto to carnivore.

The restricted foods include:

• • Fruits: apples, bananas, berries, oranges, melons, jackfruit, etc
  • Vegetables: squash, cauliflower, celery, sweet potatoes, green beans, peppers, etc
  • Legumes: peanuts, beans, lentils, etc
  • Nuts and seeds: almonds, macadamia nuts, pumpkin seeds, Brazil nuts, sunflower seeds, pistachios, etc
  • Grains: rice, wheat, couscous, bread pasta, quinoa, etc
  • Alcohol: beer, wine, liquor, etc
  • Sugars: table sugar, maple syrup, brown sugar, as well as a most types of sugar alternatives like aspartame, allulose, erythritol, dextrose, monk fruit, and maltodextrin.
  • All beverages aside from water: coffee, tea, soda, diet soda, fruit juices, energy drinks, etc

Some people are a little more flexible when it comes to zero carb beverages like coffee and tea, but that’s really up to you and how you’d like to conduct your carnivore diet.

As I mentioned above, there are a few different protocols for the carnivore diet that include restricting dairy products like cream cheese, butter, sour cream, cheese and milk, and others that restrict eggs as well. I wouldn’t recommend that however, and think that including the widest range of animal based foods as possible is the best way to reach your optimal health goals.

6 Health Benefits of the Carnivore Diet

• It’s simple and easy to follow

At a basic dieting level, the carnivore diet is about as simple as it gets. You don’t have to worry about calorie counting or macronutrient calculating, and if you stick to it consistently, you won’t have to worry about measuring ketosis or fearing ever getting kicked out of ketosis.

While it is incredibly restrictive, if you’re able to work within the framework of the carnivore diet, it doesn’t really leave a lot up to questions. Popular diets like Whole 30, Keto, and Paleo come with a lot of rules, and it’s hard to tells which foods and ingredients are always allowed, but with the carnivore diet it’s pretty cut and dry: meat!

• It can improve overall digestion

Cutting out plants for temporary periods of time has been associated with an improvement in health problems related to digestion.

This is because plants contain ‘antinutrients’ known as lectins, which cannot be digested properly, and actually threaten the growth of cells in humans when consumed in the diet.

Now generally the standard keto diet, along with a lot of other types of diets heralds fiber as an important way to improve health and digestion, but Carnivore poses the opposite view.

Recent research actually supports the notion that decreasing fiber intake to 0% can actually result in more regularity of bowel movements. This is highly disputed within the medical community, but the results speak for themselves.

One study from the World Journal of Gastoenterology found that a group of people who consumed zero fiber over the course of the study saw bloating and gas completely disappear, with 0% of that group reporting any digestive issues whatsoever.

• It can boost weight loss quickly

Carnivore in a sense piggybacks off of the benefits of the keto diet, because it automatically will put you in a state of ketosis. By entering a state of ketosis, you’ll be able to suppress your appetite, burn fat as fuel, and burn up to an extra 300 calories per day compared to those following the standard American diet.

The elimination of all carbohydrates takes the keto diet to a new level, allowing you to maintain an optimal level of fat burning that’s pretty hard to achieve outside of the restrictions of the carnivore diet.

• It can improve testosterone levels

High-fat, low-carb diets such as the keto diet and the carnivore diet have been linked to increases in testosterone levels.

One recent study discovered that men who took on a fiber of high fat and low fiber (and low total carbs altogether) for a period of two months yielded a 13% higher level of testosterone in their system.s Additionally, that same group yielded a 12-28% average lower level of estrogen than other participants who were following a strictly low fat and low calorie diet.

Testosterone improvement can be a huge benefit to men who are struggling with symptoms like erectile dysfunction, and can be leveraged by your body to help build and maintain muscle mass after working out.

• It can decrease inflammation

Inflammation is a pretty big issue for a lot of people following the keto diet. Technically, a lot of inflammatory foods are still keto-friendly by macronutrient standards, despite the fact that inflammatory foods can kick you out of ketosis.

When following a carnivore diet, you may be able to experience a pretty significant decrease in overall information.

One recent study supports this. It compared inflammation markers between groups following a low carb, high fat diet and a low fat, high carb diet over the course of twelve weeks.

The results of this study revealed that the group following the low carb, high fat diet resulted in lower systematic inflammation by the end of the project.

• It can cure leaky gut

Leaky gut is an issue that affects millions of Americans every year, and many of them don’t even realize they’re experiencing it.

Leaky gut is a condition of the digestive tract that’s characterized by an opening of the junctions of the small intestine, which allows proteins and dangerous toxins directly into the bloodstream.

This condition can present itself through a variety of symptoms including skin issues like eczema, acne, hives, and rashes, along with bloating, irritability, insomnia, and autoimmune issues.

The carnivore diet is a great way to fight off leaky gut because it significantly reduces inflammation in the body, which allows for the reversal of gut microbiome imbalances. It also removes food like plant anti-nutrients like Lectin and Gluten that open those tight junctions of the small intestine.

Drawbacks of the Carnivore Diet

• It lacks important fibers

Dietary and soluble fiber are extremely important for digestion, and I consider them to be essential components of the keto diet when it comes to regulating hunger and maintaining a steady blood glucose level.

While there is conflicting evidence that I detailed above about whether or not a ‘0% fiber diet’ can actually have the same effects on stool regularity and digestion as a high fiber diet, you’d probably want to err on the side of caution.

That’s why I wrote up a quick guide on how to get more fiber while on the keto diet, (or carnivore diet in this case) if you don’t want to add any total carbs to your meal plan.

• It may lack important vitamins and minerals

While there isn’t enough research out there yet to come to a fallible conclusion about the carnivore diet’s affects on vitamins and nutrients, we do know that by just sticking to meat, it does limit a lot of important vitamins and nutrients that you’d get from other types of foods.

There are cases to be made for different types of meats being sources of these vitamins that you need, but they’re often in such trace amounts, it’ll be difficult to know if you’re ever getting enough, or if you’re truly experiencing a deficiency.

The big thing to look out for is scurvy. It’s a fairly old pre-18th century disease that is very rare to see today, but if you don’t get enough vitamin C into your diet, it’s still possible to develop it. If you want to stick to carnivore but don’t want to fret about vitamin C, I’d recommend going for a Vitamin-C supplement, since you only need about 1000 milligrams per day for the recommended daily value.

• It may cause issues for your liver

One of the most frequently expressed criticisms of high protein diets is the association with increased amounts of liver and kidney damage.

When we consume protein, our bodies work to break down the nitrogen in meat and convert it into ammonia, which is then processed by the liver and the kidneys, as its prepared to be transferred through the urine.

However, in nearly a third of the population, there is a major risk of problems associated with ammonia pooling in the kidneys, which can turn toxic, and eventually lead to some serious conditions and diseases.

• It may turn on cancer pathways

One big concern worth noting is that there’s a decent amount of evidence that suggests following an all meat diet might turn on cancer pathways within the body, at least in certain types of people.

The carnivore diet turns on these cancer pathways in some people by increasing levels of the hormone insulin via Growth Factor One, or IGF-1. The increase in production of IGF-1 has been associated with increased growth in cancer cells.

Additionally, recent studies show that protein restriction actually is associated with reduced cases of diabetes, cancers, and overall mortality.

This isn’t meant to completely dissuade you from trying out carnivore, but it’s important to keep these statistics at the top of your mind when evaluating your diet choices.

Meat also lacks important phytonutrients that we get from plants, which have additional cancer fighting and preventing properties.

Ketosis vs the Carnivore Diet

As you can probably guess, there are a few key differences between the ketgenic and the carnivore diet, but which is better for weight loss?

Ultimately, I think they’re both great methods for weight loss because they both involve your body entering a state of ketosis.

As I mentioned up above, the carnivore diet does have some benefits when it comes to getting into ketosis faster, which in theory can help you speed up your overall weight loss timeline.

There are a few other benefits of following a zero carb diet for weight loss, namely in terms of keeping water weight off and optimizing the way that your body burns fat for fuel, but it still requires a majority fat macronutrient ratio to truly work.

Based on the numerous drawbacks of the carnivore diet however, I think that the ketogenic diet is much more sustainable for long term weight loss goals, whereas the carnivore diet might be a good way to kickstart your initial weight loss.

Is the Carnivore Diet Safe?

Now that we’ve had a chance to assess both the pros and cons of the carnivore diet, how safe is it to follow?

A question like this is tricky, because there’s still a lot of research that needs to be done. There are a variety of case studies and real world examples of people following carnivore diets not just for months, but for years, and being perfectly healthy specimens. However the approach to optimizing the carnivore diet is likely much more nuanced and involved than simply just eating meat every day.

There are important nutrients and minerals that are crucial to our health, and they cannot all be obtained by eating standard cuts of meat that you’d order at a market.

For the important nutrients like vitamin C, magnesium, manganese, calcium, and potassium, you’ll have to really consider what types of animal products can function as the best delivery systems.

You’ll want to consider eating organ tissue like livers, and consider making bone broth from scratch in order to really get to the nutrient dense parts of the animal.

Without these extra measures, you really run the risk of becoming deficient in a number of important nutrients.

Ultimately, everyone’s experiences with the carnivore will be different, because there’s a limited amount of data available, and because everyone’s bodies are different.

It’s important to note that if you do decide to embark on a diet like this, and choose to go long term with it rather than cycling between carnivore and normal keto, you will have to be responsible for monitoring your own potential mineral and vitamin deficiencies.

From here, I’ll get into a little more detail about how you can optimize the carnivore diet to help mitigate any risks you may be worried about.

How to Optimize a Carnivore Diet

• Take magnesium and potassium supplements

As I mentioned above, two of the most important nutrients that you might be missing on a carnivore diet are magnesium and potassium.

A recent study revealed that a majority of people who follow a “paleolithic ketogenic diet”, with at least 70% of their total calories coming from animal foods were observed to have poor levels of overall magnesium levels.

Those who follow a normal ketogenic diet are likely already aware that magnesium and potassium are hard to get through diet alone. In fact, I recently wrote guides on how to get more magnesium and how to get more potassium without having to rely on carbohydrates.

But taking vegetables, dairy, and fish out of the equation can make this even more challenging. Lacking these essential electrolytes can lead to dehydration fairly quickly, which is why I recommend getting both from an electrolyte blend like the Keto K1000 Electrolyte Powder, which I usually get on sale over at Amazon.com

• Supplement fiber if possible

While there is some evidence that following a 0% fiber diet can yield the same dietary benefits as those who supplement with fiber regularly, I personally vouch for the effects of fiber both on the digestive system and our bodies’ blood glucose levels, which are pretty important when following a keto diet.

Even if you’re eating zero carbs, not having regulated blood glucose levels can still risk inflammation and losing your overall state of ketosis.

There are a variety of ways to get more fiber on a keto or carnivore diet, and you can check out my full guide on it right here.

But if you’re looking for just one that I think is the most effective, it’s definitely the Metamucil Fiber Therapy supplement.

• Allow yourself seafood every once in a while

While seafood is often contested as to whether or not it’s fully allowed on a carnivore diet, I definitely swear by it if you’re trying to get all of the nutrients that your body needs.

Some of the best seafood options that are extremely nutrient dense include tuna, mussels, oysters, and wild sockeye salmon. All of these options are jam packed with Vitamin D, selenium, manganese, iodine, copper, and long-chained omega-3 fatty acids, which are a natural type of fish oil.

You can of course supplement a lot of those benefits with Fish Oil Supplements, but there’s definitely benefits to getting these nutrients through your diet as often as you can.

• Eat more cuts of liver

Liver definitely counts as an excellent source of animal protein when following a carnivore diet. Because of it’s vital role as an organ, it’s extremely rich in essential nutrients that you just won’t be able to get from traditional cuts of meat.

Liver is loaded up with vitamin A, coper, choline, folate, and iron, and honestly there’s no reason you shouldn’t be including liver in your diet. You can have liver of any animal, but fish liver also will yield you some bonus amounts of necessary vitamin D.

If you’re not fond of eating this tough piece of flesh, you may want to consider frozen liver tabs to be swallowed like pills, and it usually goes great sauteed with other types of meat, herbs, and spices.

If you are unable to get any pieces of liver from your local market or butcher, there are a few types of Liver Supplements that have a lot of these same nutrients too.

• Test out intermittent fasting

Lastly, implementing intermittent fasting protocols will help you maximize your muscle growth and keep your digestive system in check with all of that protein.

If you consume too much protein, you could easily kickstart a process known as gluconeogenesis, in which your body converts excess protein into glucose, which will kick you out of ketosis.

When following a carnivore diet, a good way to prevent this is with long fasts. There’s the traditional 16/8 intermittent fast, the OMAD (one meal a day) fast, and the Warrior Diet, among others to choose from.

Final Thoughts

As you can see, one of the biggest issues surrounding the carnivore diet is simply the lack of research and available information. The long term effects simply aren’t known, but at the same time, the success stories and proven benefits don’t have to be ignored.

The carnivore diet can be a great tool to help get you into ketosis, and can be used quite effectively for weight loss.