Vegan strongman – who starred in The Game Changers – Patrik Baboumian has branded the fashionable carnivore diet ‘crazy and nonsensical’ in an exclusive interview with Plant Based News.
The diet, which involves only eating animal products, mainly large amounts of meat, has been in the spotlight recently, as podcaster Joe Rogan tried it out throughout January.
But Baboumian said people have to be careful when choosing metrics to judge a diet by – as weight loss alone does not mean a diet is healthy.
‘Crazy carnivore diet’
“I absolutely think you can have short term benefits with all kinds of crazy, nonsensical diets. Even with the carnivore one,” he said. “The question is, what is it going to do with you in the long term? And if you take weight loss as a metric for a diet as to whether it’s good or not, I think that’s a misleading metric.
“You can be on cocaine and a terrible diet, and you’re going to lose weight, and it’s not going to be good for you. So just because a diet makes you lose weight, that doesn’t mean anything, and even if it makes you feel good, you know, cocaine is going to make you feel good.
“You have to look at the diet long term, and the questions you ask have to be scientific and you have to look at it in a neutral way if you really want to find out what’s the best diet…I also look at the environmental effect and ethical considerations…this leads me to veganism.”
Thanks to X Squared Films for producing the video.