Everybody Has an Opinion Now

Something changed in the first two months of 2026. The carnivore diet stopped being something journalists write about with curiosity and became something they write about with urgency. The takes are flying from every direction, and if you're trying to make sense of the noise, it's exhausting.

So I did what I do. I read all of it. Every major article, every academic response, every Twitter thread. Here's the map of who's saying what and why it matters.

The Anti-Carnivore Camp

MIT Technology Review published a piece in February with the headline that the carnivore diet isn't recommended despite its high-profile endorsement. Their argument: the diet lacks long-term clinical evidence, removes foods with established health benefits (fiber, phytochemicals, antioxidants), and the people promoting it are social media influencers rather than credentialed researchers.

News-Medical ran a review in early February concluding that the carnivore diet's claimed benefits don't outweigh its health risks. They pointed to the Healthy Eating Index, where a carnivore diet scored 26.7 out of 100. That's the worst of any diet they evaluated.

IPB University in Indonesia published a piece calling carnivore "not sustainable" and detailing hidden health risks. Plant Based News ran multiple articles framing the carnivore trend as dangerous misinformation amplified by social media algorithms.

The pattern across all anti-carnivore coverage is consistent: insufficient evidence, missing nutrients, influencer-driven rather than science-driven, and potentially harmful long-term.

The Pro-Carnivore Camp

Fox News ran a piece with a researcher debunking eight common carnivore myths, including the claims about fiber necessity and saturated fat danger. Their framing: established nutrition science has been wrong before (remember when eggs were going to kill you?), and the carnivore diet deserves open-minded evaluation.

The new US dietary guidelines, while not endorsing carnivore specifically, moved dramatically toward pro-animal-food positions. More protein. Full-fat dairy. Cooking with butter and tallow. I wrote about what RFK's endorsement means for the movement, and the guidelines are part of that same shift.

Dr. Shawn Baker, Paul Saladino, and other carnivore-adjacent creators are producing more content than ever, with bigger audiences than ever. The community itself has grown significantly. Reddit subscriber counts for carnivore-related subreddits have increased noticeably over the past six months.

What's Actually Going On

Here's my honest read of the situation after watching this unfold.

The anti-carnivore arguments aren't wrong about the evidence gap. We genuinely don't have multi-year randomized controlled trials on exclusive meat diets. The mechanistic evidence is compelling. The anecdotal reports are overwhelming. But RCTs? Not yet. When critics say "the evidence is insufficient," they're technically correct, even if they're ignoring the evidence that does exist.

The pro-carnivore arguments aren't wrong about institutional bias. Nutrition science has been demonstrably wrong about saturated fat, dietary cholesterol, and the necessity of grains. The food pyramid was influenced by industry lobbying. When advocates say "they were wrong about eggs and butter, they could be wrong about this too," that's a legitimate point.

The problem is that both sides are talking past each other. The scientific establishment wants RCTs before making recommendations. The carnivore community points to thousands of individual success stories and says "what more do you need?" These are fundamentally different ways of evaluating evidence, and neither side is willing to acknowledge the other's framework.

The Influencer Problem

I need to be honest about something I've written about before. I covered why carnivore YouTube lies about results, and that piece is more relevant now than when I wrote it.

Some carnivore influencers are making irresponsible claims. "Meat cures everything." "Plants are poison." "You'll never need a doctor again." These statements get engagement, but they're not accurate, and they give critics easy ammunition to dismiss the entire community.

The mainstream media loves quoting the most extreme voices because extreme quotes make better headlines. When an influencer with 400,000 followers says the best thing you can do is eliminate everything except fatty meat, that's the quote that ends up in the MIT Technology Review piece. Not the measured voices. Not the people saying "this works for me and here's my bloodwork."

The community has a responsibility here. If we want to be taken seriously, we need to amplify the thoughtful voices, the people who cite research, acknowledge limitations, and recommend medical oversight. The "trust me bro" approach worked when carnivore was underground. It doesn't work when CNN is watching.

What I'm Telling People Who Ask

More people are asking me about carnivore now than at any point in the past three years. Friends, family, random people who found out I write about this stuff. Here's what I tell them.

The carnivore diet works remarkably well for a lot of people. The reports of improved energy, reduced inflammation, better mental clarity, and weight loss are too numerous and too consistent to dismiss. Something real is happening.

The carnivore diet is not proven to be safe or optimal long-term by the standards of clinical research. That doesn't mean it's unsafe. It means we don't know yet. There's a difference between "no evidence of harm" and "evidence of no harm."

If you're curious, try it for 30 days with medical supervision. Get bloodwork before and after. Track how you feel. Make decisions based on your own data, not someone else's Twitter thread. Sarah's work on reading your bloodwork is the best place to start if you want to understand what your numbers mean.

The debate will continue. The research will eventually catch up. In the meantime, the best thing any of us can do is be honest about what we know, honest about what we don't, and respectful enough to let people make their own choices.

2026 is the year carnivore entered the mainstream conversation. How we handle that attention will determine whether the conversation continues or whether the whole thing gets dismissed as another fad. I know which outcome I'm working toward.

I'm not a doctor. I'm just someone who's deep in the community and reads everything. Take all health stuff with a grain of salt (pun intended). I can tell you what people are trying and what's trending, but you've got to make your own calls. I'm here to give you the real tea, not medical advice.