Eddy Burback Tries RFK Jr’s Carnivore Diet And It Sends His Cholesterol Soaring

Eddy Burback’s carnivore diet experiment began with a simple, if deeply unappetizing, question: What would happen if someone ate like Robert F Kennedy Jr for an entire month? To find out, the Illinois-born comedian and YouTuber committed himself to 30 days of meat, eggs, dairy and fermented foods, a restrictive routine that eventually left him weaker during exercise, disillusioned by its promised benefits and facing a serious warning about his cholesterol.

Burback, who has 2.26 million YouTube subscribers, is known for turning strange corners of American culture into funny, carefully observed video essays. This time, however, the joke required him to place his own body at the center of the story.

Read more: Over Half Of Men Perceive The Carnivore Diet As ‘Masculine’

The experiment was inspired by Kennedy’s public descriptions of his diet. Kennedy has said he eats only meat and fermented foods and follows a form of intermittent fasting. He has also credited the regimen with dramatic weight loss, improved mental clarity, and better word retrieval.

Burback decides to recreate that lifestyle as closely as possible. The diet he follows is based partly on Kennedy’s comments and partly on the “living carnivore” approach promoted by physician Sean O’Mara, which pairs animal products with fermented foods such as kimchi, sauerkraut and yogurt.

What begins as a comic investigation into online health culture soon becomes a cautionary account of restrictive eating, contradictory dietary advice and measurable changes to Burback’s health.

What Burback ate for a month

For more food experiments and hilarious video commentaries, check out Burback’s YouTube channel.

Burback begins the month weighing 191.6 pounds. He tries to follow Kennedy’s reported routine as closely as possible, eating only between noon and 6 or 7 p.m. and restricting himself to meat, animal products and fermented foods.

His meals quickly become repetitive. Breakfast, usually eaten at noon, often consists of bacon and five or six eggs. Other meals include steak cooked in beef tallow, salmon, burger patties, chicken breast, ground beef, cheese, Greek yogurt, kimchi and sauerkraut.

Eggs become a major part of the diet. Burback regularly prepares oversized omelets and scrambled eggs, sometimes eating six at once. By the end of the month, however, he says he has developed “the egg ick.”

The strictest version of the carnivore diet excludes anything derived from plants. That means Burback initially avoids garlic, onions, olive oil, herbs and most seasonings.

Even black pepper is excluded because peppercorns come from a plant.

As a result, much of his food is prepared plain or with salt alone. Eating at restaurants becomes difficult because meat may be cooked with plant oils, garlic, or seasoning. Burback therefore prepares most meals at home, creating what he describes as an apartment that constantly smells of meat.

The intermittent fasting window adds another complication. On days when he travels or has plans, he has to consume large amounts of calorie-dense food within a few hours.

Before a three-hour drive, Burback eats steak and yogurt, goes for a run to increase his appetite and then prepares salmon. He attempts to eat the salmon in traffic, realizes it is unsafe and pulls over to force down part of the bowl.

On another day, he brings ground beef to his brother’s apartment and later leaves it sitting in his car during a movie. By the time he returns, the smell is so bad that he has to throw it away at a gas station.

The carnivore rules do not add up

One of the central themes of Burback’s video is how difficult it is to determine what the diet actually allows.

Online carnivore communities often promote a complete rejection of plant foods. Kennedy’s version, however, includes fermented vegetables. O’Mara’s approach similarly combines meat with foods containing live cultures.

Burback buys O’Mara’s book in search of a clear meal plan, but finds recipes containing ingredients that appear to contradict the diet’s public rules.

The book mentions onions, garlic, blueberries, spinach, cauliflower rice, low-sugar berries and fermented rye crispbread. Lemon is excluded from one reference list but appears elsewhere in recipes.

This leaves Burback questioning why a vegetable is supposedly harmful when fresh but acceptable once fermented.

The contradictions are not limited to O’Mara’s recipes. After spending two weeks eating largely unseasoned meat, Burback finds footage of Kennedy participating in an ice cream event. Mint chocolate chip is described as Kennedy’s favorite flavor.

“I have never felt so betrayed in my life,” Burback says.

He then decides to allow himself black pepper again.

The joke highlights a wider problem with extreme diets promoted by public figures. The rules are often presented as simple and absolute, yet the people advocating for them may not appear to follow those rules consistently.

Burback also becomes increasingly frustrated by the conflicting health claims surrounding carnivore eating. Some online communities dismiss concerns about LDL cholesterol and encourage people to distrust doctors who challenge the diet.

Meanwhile, conventional medical guidance warns that high intakes of saturated fat can raise LDL cholesterol and increase cardiovascular risk.

In the video, Burback speaks with science communicator Hank Green about the claim that plant foods cause inflammation. Green says the sweeping rejection of plants is “literally just vibes.”

Green notes that people may have specific intolerances or allergies, but that does not mean all plant foods are harmful. He also points to the benefits of foods such as beans, lentils and leafy greens.

Less energy and no promised mental clarity

Burback initially finds the diet easier than expected. He does not experience severe digestive problems, and the early transition into ketosis does not leave him completely unable to function.

The promised mental clarity, however, never arrives.

“I’m not exactly seeing the mental clarity that RFK was talking about,” Burback says during one meal. “I’m still kind of dumb.”

His physical performance changes more noticeably. Burback says he has run every day for more than 10 years, which has given him a reliable sense of his normal energy and pace.

During the experiment, his runs become slower and more difficult. On one occasion, he records a pace around a minute and a half slower than his average.

“I felt like I was running through molasses,” he says.

Strength training also becomes harder. Burback attempts a workout he has followed regularly for more than a year but stops early because he feels weak and worries he could hurt himself. A second attempt ends in much the same way.

The restriction also begins affecting his relationship with food. Burback says he has developed a healthier attitude toward eating, exercise and body image in recent years, but the monthlong diet revives some old insecurities.

He describes dreaming that he accidentally ate a chocolate pie and then tried to make himself vomit before it could ruin the diet.

When he wakes, he questions whether the experiment has pushed him into disordered eating.

The diet also makes social occasions more difficult. At birthdays, brunches, concerts and gatherings, Burback repeatedly has to refuse food and drinks. Friends sometimes prepare unseasoned meat for him, but he says the diet removes some of the simple pleasure and connection associated with sharing food.

Read more: YouTuber Chris Williamson Quit Carnivore Because It ‘Annihilated’ His Cholesterol

Burback’s cholesterol rises sharply

After 30 days, Burback weighs himself again.

He expects a dramatic result after Kennedy’s claims of rapid weight loss. Instead, the scale reads 186 pounds, meaning Burback has lost a little more than 5 pounds.

He describes the result as roughly 6 pounds and says it feels underwhelming after a month of extreme restriction.

Weight loss was not his primary goal, but he also reports none of the other dramatic benefits attributed to the diet.

“I didn’t feel any extra mental clarity or this crazy word retrieval that he was talking about,” Burback says. “I just felt like me, except I had a bunch of meat for a full month.”

The most worrying result of Burback’s carnivore diet experiment arrives after he receives blood test results.

Burback has bloodwork done before returning to his usual diet. A few days later, a doctor messages him to say his “bad” cholesterol is “super high” for his age and overall risk profile.

The message strongly recommends cholesterol-lowering medication and warns about the need to reduce his risk of cardiovascular events such as heart attack and stroke. It also urges him to speak with his primary care doctor.

Burback says the warning frightens him.

“I don’t really care what somebody on the carnivore diet subreddit says about my cholesterol,” he says. “This is a doctor who seems freaked out for me.”

His experience does not prove that every person following a carnivore diet will receive the same results. It is a monthlong personal experiment rather than a controlled study.

Still, the outcome is stark. Burback loses only a few pounds, experiences weaker exercise performance, sees no remarkable improvement in mental clarity, and ends the month with cholesterol high enough to alarm a medical professional.

After completing the experiment, he makes himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Following 30 days of meat, eggs, and fermented vegetables, Burback says it may be one of the best things he has ever tasted.

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