“This is the fourth one I’ve seen today; you’re not special,” said my friend when I asked why she hates the carnivore-diet steak-and-eggs-on-cutting-board trend. Unlike her, I enjoy seeing people’s culinary feats on my feed, even if it’s the exact same food combo over and over again.
Even when repetitive, what people choose to eat — and, even further, post — offers me a small glimpse into their minds. But there are those in opposition, like my friend, who is sick of boys acting like they are the first to discover the combination of meat, avocado, and honey.
She has a fair point — the meals themselves are never very creative. They’re usually just some variations of red meat, eggs, fruit, and healthy fat like parmesan or avocado. The carnivore craze grew in popularity in 2018 when a former orthopedic surgeon wrote a book on the diet.
It has recently gained immense traction online as wellness influencers promote the diet as “ancestral” and “the way humans were meant to eat.” Social media handles like @santacruzmedicinals, @paulsaladino, and @joeysorts promote the diet as “healing” and “life-changing.” And a lot of people are convinced.
While I find this diet immensely intriguing and have no personal qualms with it, I do find the rate at which people have adopted the lifestyle strange. What’s the appeal of eating extremely rare meat or doing the OMAD (one meal a day) diet? Most importantly, why cutting boards? Why not plates?
There are obvious reasons why people are drawn to eating off slabs of wood. For one, it’s a trend, and the herd mentality is innate. Second, it’s practical. Eating off of the same surface that food was cut on decreases the dish load. Lastly, wooden cutting boards align with the diet’s parameters to reduce the use of plastic or other dishware sprayed with chemicals. But these are all choices one can make in private; there has to be another reason people derive so much gratification from boasting their meals on the internet.
Perhaps it’s the primal feelings that eating off a naturalistic surface elicits that drive this behavior. It’s ancestral. It’s anti-seed oils. It’s grass-fed and finished. It’s giving “I’m healing my hormones,” if you know what I mean. While all these takes are completely valid, there’s no secret that they carry a social media presence along with them — a presence to which younger audiences have quickly subscribed.
The carnivore diet trend, while a lifestyle for many, is like many other internet-fueled identities: a kind of subgenre of self. It’s not just about what you eat; it’s about who you are and how you brand yourself. It’s a lifestyle choice that has become aestheticized: a canon internet event that causes people to change their lives for an artificial sense of belonging.
It’s not necessarily harmful content, just annoying sometimes. Ultimately, social media is a place where we go to be inspired, entertained, and occasionally educated. People are searching for a sense of grounding in our digital world, and if that means eating steak with your hands in the grass, so be it. However, it’s important to step back and think about the reason why we feel drawn to mimic behaviors, even if it’s as harmless as swapping a plate for a board.
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