In the BBC comedy, Gavin and Stacey, when Alison Steadman’s character Pam tries out a “low-carb” diet, she serves herself a dinner of three steaks – with the two extra ones replacing her usual chips and peas. The sketch may have been a caricature of low-carbing , but some people seem to be following Pam’s lead, with food-focused social media sites currently awash with advocates of the “ carnivore diet ”. This means all meals and snacks consisting entirely, or at least mostly, of meat – such as beef steaks, lamb chops or roast chicken.
The only other things on the plate tend to be sauces of butter, cheese or eggs – but plants are off the menu. This way of eating breaks all the rules in the medical textbooks – so what effects does it have on the body and why are people doing it? Heart attacks To get why some people are turning carnivore, it helps to understand why the less-extreme versions of low-carbing have also been gaining ground – and have even been accepted by some NHS doctors. The medical orthodoxy has long said that we should limit meat intake and fill up on starchy carbohydrates – found in foods like potatoes, bread, pasta and rice – as this is better than getting our calories from fat, which promotes weight gain.
And saturated fat, found mainly in meat and animal products, is supposed to raise cholesterol levels, which can cause heart attacks. The premise behind low-carbing is that instead, the driving force behind our food choices should be .
