A Diet by Jordan Peterson All-Meat (2023)

"YOexpertiseThat sounds ridiculous," Mikhaila Peterson told me recently by phone after a whirlwind of attention gathered around the 26-year-old, who now offers her nutritional advice to people with illnesses. Or less nutritional advice than guidance on eating meat beef alone.

At first glance, Toronto-based Peterson might seem like one of many rising semi-celebrities with a miraculous story of self-healing: flaunting postpartum weight loss on Instagram in a bikini and selling something or other, a dietary supplement or a toner or book or compression garments. (Not by chance, she is the daughter offamous and controversialPop psychologist Jordan Peterson. More on that later). But Peterson is taking the trend in after-school health counseling to an extreme: He doesn't do sponsored posts for health products, but instead actively sells one-on-one consultations ($75for half an hour) for people who want to stop eating almost everything.

Peterson seems to reach out to people who are suffering despite a lack of education or qualifications in nutrition or medicine, and perhaps because of this distinction. His Instagram bio: "For information on treating weight loss, depression, and autoimmune diseases with diet, check out my blog or FB page!"The blog, which reads "Don't Eat That", states at the top that "many (if not most) health problems can be treated with diet alone." words "are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment."

I told him I was surprised people needed more advice since a beef diet is so simple.

"Most of all, they want to see that I'm not dead," she said. "Basically, what I do is say, 'Hey, look at all the things that have happened to me that have led me to where I am now. Isn't that weird?' And then let people draw their own conclusions."

Peterson described an adolescence associated with various debilitating medical diagnoses, beginning with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. Some unknown process had caused his body's immune system to attack his joints. Joint problems culminated in hip and ankle replacements in her youth, along with "extreme fatigue, depression and anxiety, brain fog and trouble sleeping." She was diagnosed with depression in fifth grade and later something calledidiopathic hypersomnia(which translates to English as "sleeping too much for no apparent reason", which further translates asSorry, we really don't know what's going on.).

Everything the doctors tried failed, and she did everything she was told, she told me. She bought into the system wholeheartedly and took large doses of the strongimmunosuppressive drugs such as methotrexate.*

Her story took a dramatic turn in 2015 when the underdog protagonist, nearing the end of her strength, discovered the truth for herself. It was about the food.

Peterson has taken a common approach to dieting: elimination. He began to eliminate foods from his diet and each time he felt better. she started withGluten, and kept throwing in more and more, not just gluten, dairy, soy, orlectinaso Artificial sweeteners o Non-artificial sweeteners, butall. By December 2017, all that was left was "meat, salt and water" and, he told me, "all my symptoms have resolved."

"And did you stop taking all your meds?"

„All.“

There it isA lot of evidence, extensive and extensive evidence collected over decades of work by scientists around the world, that most people benefit from eating fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans, and seeds. This appears to be largely because the fiber found in plants is important for the gut microbiome to thrive. I checked this out with a few experts just to make sure I didn't miss anything to suggest that a diet of meat and salt might be anything but a bad idea. I found out it was worse than I thought.

"Physiologically, that would be a tremendously bad idea," said Jack Gilbert, faculty director of the University of Chicago Microbiome Center and a professor of surgery, during a recent visit to his lab. "A terrible, terribly bad idea."

Gilbert has done extensive research on how the trillions of microbes in our gut digest food, and his expression was mildly amused when I told him about the all-beef diet. He began listing the expected effects: “Within six months, your body would exhibit severe dysregulation in most processes related to metabolism; You would not have short chain fatty acids in your cells; Most of the gastrointestinal polysaccharide fermentation byproducts would shut down, leaving you unable to regulate your hormone levels; You would get into heart problems due to changes in cell receptors; Your microbiota would be devastated”.

While much of the internet has followed this story in a somewhat dismissive way, Gilbert seemed genuinely concerned and saddened: "Unless I die of colon cancer or some other serious cardiometabolic disease, I can't imagine life."

There are few reports of people trying a diet based solely on beef, although whole meat, known as carnivores, is slightly more common. Earlier this month, inspired by media commentary on Peterson's approach, Alan Levinovitz, author ofThe Gluten Lie,AttemptsCarnivore that only eats meat for two weeks. He lost seven pounds, which he attributes to eating fewer calories overall because he finally got tired of just eating meat. He missed snacking at cafes, touring the local farmer's market and trying new restaurants in town, cooking with his family, and enjoying food in general.

"I was mentally exhausted," Levinovitz told me. When he went back to omnivore, he had regained the lost weight in four days.

Peterson told me it took several weeks for him to adjust to the all-beef approach, and the relief from his medical symptoms outweighed any feelings of lack of nutrition. If even a small amount of anything else gets into her mouth, she gets sick, she says. This happened when she tried to eat an organic olive and again when she was recently at a restaurant that she peppered her steak.

"I thought whatever, it's just pepper," he told me. She then had a reaction that lasted three weeks and included joint pain, acne, and anxiety.

Aside from having to exist in a world where the possibility of exposure to pepper looms large, the only other social drawback she notices is that she hates asking people to adjust their diet. So she usually eats before going to dinner, she told me, "but then I'm going to have a drink and enjoy the party."

"You drink water?"

"I can also, strangely, tolerate vodka and bourbon."

The notion that alcohol, one of the best-documented intoxicants, is one of the few things Peterson's body will tolerate may be instructive. It implies that when dieting, the inherent properties of the substances ingested may be less important than the consumer's conceptualizations of them, as tolerable or intolerable, good or bad. What is truly therapeutic may be the act of elimination itself.

For centuries, ascetics have found enlightenment through privation. As Levinovitz, Associate Professor of Religion at James Madison University, explained to me, the Taoist text is theZhuang Ziit describes "a spirit man" who lives in the mountains and rides dragons and lives only on air and dew. “There is an anti-authoritarian bias toward pop culture wisdom, and part of that involves dealing with food taboos that are passed on by the authorities,” Levinovitz said. “These are governments now, not religions. And because they are often wrong, or at least apparently wrong, this is a good place to start if you're trying to determine your own jurisdiction. If you only eat the 'wrong' foods and don't die, that's a ritualistic way of showing that you're going against conventional wisdom."

Peterson's narrative fits a classic archetype of an outsider who won the game and, against the odds and against the establishment's recommendations, healed himself. His story is his truth and cannot be explained; you have to believe And unlike the many studies that have been done to understand the diets of the longest-lived and healthiest people in history, or the randomized trials that are used to determine which health interventions are safe and effective for whom, your story is clear and dramatic. He's right there in the photos of him; He has a face and a name to prove that no chance is too long for any given person to beat.

The beneficial effects of a compelling personal narrative that helps to explain and order the world can be quite real from a physiological point of view. It is well documented that the immune system (and therefore autoimmune diseases) is modulated by our lifestyle, from how much we sleep and exercise to what we eat and how much we drink. More importantly, the immune system is also modulated by stress, which tends to be a byproduct of a perceived lack of control or order.

If strict dietary rules provide a sense of control and order, then Peterson's approach is emblematic of the trend toward extreme elimination diets: avoid everything. This borders on the realm of an eating disorder. The National Eating Disorders AssociationEscucharAmong the most common symptoms is "the refusal to eat certain foods, to the point of restricting entire categories of foods." In the early stages of eating disorders, such as bipolar disorder or alcoholism, a person may look and feel fine. They can thrive for months or even years. But that fades. Also, temporarily relieving anxiety may mean not looking for or addressing the source of the anxiety.

I asked Peterson about the possibility that he could help people with eating disorders. She said she would draw a line if a customer was underweight or vomit-inducing. Otherwise, “it is extremely disrespectful for people with diet-related health problems to be put in the same category as people with eating disorders. More of the same 'blame the patient' that doctors and health professionals are already doing.”

Tthe popularitymore of Peterson's narrative is explained than his timeless tropes; he was also bolstered by the fact that his father has occasionally featured his story. Jordan Peterson's Last BookTwelve rules for life., contains the history of your daughter's health tests. The elder Peterson, a psychologist at the University of Toronto, might at first seem an unlikely face for acceptance of personal and subjective truths, as he regularly professes the importance of speaking as purely as possible according to rigorous analysis of the law. of data. He held in a recentVideothat American universities are home to "ideologues who claim that all truth is subjective, that all gender differences are socially constructed, and that Western imperialism is the sole source of all Third World problems." In his book, he writes that academic institutions educate children to be "brainwashed" and that "the rigorous critical theorist has a moral obligation to correct them."

For example, based on his interpretation of earnings data, he has argued against the notion that a pay gap between men and women is unfair because it can be explained by biological factors associated with certain personality traits that are more valuable on the market. capitalist. Based on evidence from the social sciences, he has expressed uncertainty about the ability of lesbian couples to raise children without a male father figure. And it is academic evidence that leads him to write in his book that "so-called patriarchy" is "an arbitrary cultural artifact."

another julyAspectOn comedian Joe Rogan's podcast, Jordan Peterson explained how Mikhaila's experience convinced him to eliminate everything but meat and leafy greens from his diet, and that he had been eliminating meat and vegetables for the past two months. Since he changed his diet, his long list of illnesses has disappeared, he told Rogan. His lifelong depression, anxiety, acid reflux (and associated snoring), inability to wake up in the morning, psoriasis, gingivitis, floaters in his right eye, numbness on the sides of his legs, mood regulation issues: everything has disappeared. and he writes it to the diet.

"I'm certainly the best intellectually," he said. "I'm stronger, I can swim better, and my gum disease is gone. It's like, what the hell?

"Are you taking vitamins?" Rogan asked.

"No. No, I eat beef, salt and water. That's it. And I never cheat. Never. Not even a little."

"No soda, no wine?"

"I drink soft drinks."

"Well, that's still water."

“Well, if you're at that level, no, it's not, Joe. There's club soda that's really bubbly. There's Perrier, who's kind of bubbly. There is flat water and there is hot water. Those distinctions are starting to matter.”

Peterson reiterated that he doesn't provide diet advice, but said many participants on his recent speaking tour have approached him and said the diet is working for them. The bottom line for the audience is that it worked for Peterson, and therefore it can work for them. Rogan also clarified that while he's not an expert either, he's intrigued by the fact that he hasn't heard negative stories about people starting the all-meat diet.

"Well, I have a negative history," Peterson said. "Both Mikhaila and I noticed that when we restricted our diet and then ate something we shouldn't, the reaction was absolutely catastrophic." She gives the example of drinking some cider and then having one of her inflammatory responses for a month. he was disabled.

"Did you finish a month?"

"Oh yeah, it took a month. It was horrible..."

"Cider? What has he done to you?"

“It created an overwhelming sense of impending doom. I mean seriously amazing. There was no way she could have lived like this. But look, Mikhaila knew it would probably only take a month."

"A month? From the damn cider?"

“I haven't slept for 25 days this month. I haven't slept at all in 25 days."

"What? How is that possible?"

"I'll tell you how it's possible: you freeze for eight hours in something close to terror. And then you wake up.

The longest recorded insomnia in a human being is11 take, witnessed by a Stanford research team.

Wbut there isDespite debate in the scientific community about how much meat to include in the human diet, it is impossible for all, or even most, people to eat primarily meat. Beef production on the scale needed to feed billions of people, even at current levels of consumptionecologically unsustainable. It's not even evolutionarily healthy, Gilbert, a microbiome expert, told me. Carnivores must eat meat or die; people don't "The gastrointestinal tract of carnivores is completely different from the human gastrointestinal tract, which consists of a system designed to consume large amounts of complex fibers."

What the Petersons are selling is more of a sense of command and control. Science is about questions and self-help is about answers. A recurring idea in Jordan Peterson's book is that people need rules—his subtitle for it is "An Antidote to Chaos"—if only for rules' sake. Peterson discovered this through his own suffering as he searched the world for the best surgeon to give his young daughter a new hip. Explaining how he dealt with Mikhaila's illness, he writes that "existence and limitation are inextricably linked." He quotes Laozi:

Dietary rules set limits, good or bad, that help people define themselves. It's an enticing prospect, and anyone willing to enact such rules, dietary or otherwise, is sure to draw attention. Fox News recentlyexplainedPeterson "the left's public enemy number one" in a passage discussing with Tucker Carlson "why the left wants to silence conservative thought." Yet to have lived through the past year is to have lived in a world in which Peterson and his ideas have received almost constant reinforcement.

The lure of a strict food code, a way of dividing the world into good food and bad food, angels and demons, can be particularly strong at a time when order is lacking. In fact, any dietary advice or life precept has at least some benefit as long as a person believes in it and as long as it offers a code that makes a person and a cohort of like-minded followers feel good about following it. The challenge is to find a code that is as consistent as possible with the scientific evidence about what is good and bad and what is best for the world.

* Previously, this article incorrectly identified Peterson as the author of a guest post on her blog.