The Peterson’s “Lion Diet”
Introduction
Our globalized, post-modern society is gradually losing trust in the medical field, as shown by an increasing amount of lawsuits and litigations against health professionals (Choy & Ismail, 2017). This can be seen by a rising amount of people turning to complementary and alternative medicine to alleviate distress from ineffective medical treatments and to feel that they are in control of their disease (Ernst, 2001). Along with CAM, there has been a rise of vegetarian and vegan diets, and many other questionable diets (Riley, 2004). One of these diets, the carnivore diet, (aka the “lion diet”) is the polar opposite of veganism, where people only eat meat, eggs and small amounts of low-lactose dairy products and drastically avoid other foods, especially carbohydrates, fruits and vegetables (Streit, 2019). People who follow this diet often consider themselves “anti-fiber” and “cholesterol deniers”, claiming that LDL cholesterol levels do not increase the risk for cardiovascular diseases. The less extreme version of this diet is the popular ketogenetic diet, where people eat only meat and animal products high in fat, some vegetables and avoid carbohydrates at all costs. Proponents of the keto diet hinge on the fact that this diet puts the body in a state of ketosis, a metabolic process that burns fat because there are no carbohydrates to burn (Likhodii et al., 2005). There are also claims that it reduces the amount of seizures in epileptic individuals, which has been found to be true in randomized controlled trials in children (Neal et al., 2008).
One of the major proponents of the lion diet is Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson along with his daughter Mikhaila Peterson. Peterson is a famous and controversial psychologist with a huge online fanbase and is considered to be one of the most-read Canadian authors. Mikhaila, frontwoman for this fad, says she is in remission from juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and depression all thanks to the “lion diet”. She claims that “many (if not most) health problems are treatable with diet alone” on her blog called “Don’t Eat That” (Peterson, 2016). Jordan Peterson was trained as a clinical psychologist with Jungian and Nietzschean influences, but he often dabbles with philosophical and political claims. This led to a rise of fans who come from the alt-right who champion his arguably anti-politically correctness, sexist and transphobic remarks. As seen in today’s political climate, people on the extremes of the political compass, are very prone to partisan bias, advocating for everything their party stands for. This environment of political tribalism creates the perfect internet groupthink barrier protecting this pseudoscientific diet from any attacks.
The carnivore diet in the media
There is a lot more media coverage of this diet when compared to actual scientific reviews about it. While the science is little, there are multiple websites such as Healthline, Women’s Health, Daily Mail that indicate the diet’s anti-inflammatory properties, as well as their effects on weight loss, depression, anxiety, arthritis, diabetes and obesity (Streit, 2019). Very few of these news outlets cite articles from proper journals, and when they do, the interpretations of the findings are exaggerated or completely distorted. This can be seen in a Healthline article (Mammoser, 2013), where the author claims that the less extreme keto diet “had reduced both anxious and depressive behavior”. However, the paper they cite is a review of 15 studies which says: (a) studies were done on animals and therefore had limited generalizability, (b) there were issues of compliance of the rigid diet in humans, (c) small sample sizes, (d) no control groups for placebo effects, (e) adverse consequences such as kidney stones and (f) insufficient evidence that the diet had any effects on anxiety, depression, autism spectrum disorder, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (Bostock, Kirkby & Taylor, 2017). Interestingly, the carnivore diet is so far removed from the average person’s diet that only its name can be used as a click bait from websites. The word carnivore brings lots of pictures to mind such as images of predators, bloody steaks and of nature. This triggers our emotions kicking in our affect heuristic where consumers will either feel disgusted or intrigued by this diet, quickly coming to conclusions about it. The amount that media covers people who claim a meat-only diet changes their lives or cured their diseases is worrisome. However, as per the media paradox (Ruscio, 2000), the media loves to portray rare and attention grabbing stories, when in reality they are not as common as how often they are represented. It is important to note that a possible reason for the popularity and acceptance of extreme diets like these could be the advent of social media and people’s attack to their self-image, where they will take drastic measures to improve their appearance.
The Petersons
The role of the Peterson family in the promulgation of this diet is crucial. Due to Peterson’s very confined group of fans with interknitting ideals, any attempts to disconfirm this diet would be ineffective. This is because it is seen as a threat to their identity rather than just one of their own beliefs. An explanation for their exponential reaction to attacks can be explained by identity- protective cognition (Kahan et al., 2007), a form of motivated reasoning that protects pieces that comprise our identity. This also accounts for the “white male effect” (which happens to be the demographic of the majority of Peterson’s fans), where white males are more likely to perceive risk than females and minorities. This type of cognition alleviates the cognitive dissonance that would be felt if they were to challenge something that Peterson said. Accepting the ambiguousness of this diet would dismantle their vision of Peterson as an all-knowing agent and destroy their use of the confidence heuristic, as he would not be seen as being confidently correct about everything. This is part of their blind conformity to extreme ideals, where dissent is suppressed and their inherent morality is upheld. Another effect in action here is the “hostile media effect” (Vallone & Lepper, 1985), where partisans believe that media is biased against their side, when in reality they are not. Arguments for the carnivore diet
The carnivore diet worked very well with the Peterson’s; Jordan and Mikhaila both overcame depression solely thanks to their food. There are very few success stories like theirs and none of them have been corroborated by science. As per the law of small numbers, a small sample is not more representative than a larger sample (Tversky & Kahneman, 1971).
It is very hard to find medical articles praising the meat-only diet so in the next paragraph I will talk about benefits from the ketogenetic diet. Keto diets have been found to be very effective for rapid weight loss (Masood & Uppaluri, 2019), as an antiepileptic in randomized controlled trials (Neal et al., 2008) and as treatment for some inflammation-induced encephalopathies (Dupuis, Curatolo, Benoist & Auvin, 2015). Interestingly, it has been found that keto diets offer neuroprotection for Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in mice (Yang & Cheng, 2010). A lot of carnivore diet proponents say that humans are apex predators, meaning that we have always been primary consumers of meat. It has also been found that high- protein diets improve reaction time versus usual diets (Jakobsen et al., 2011). Archeology and evolutionary biology have shown that we have been eating meat for the past two million years, slowly adapting our genome and physiology to diets high in lean meat (Mann, 2000).
A very interesting study done by F. Leroy and colleagues showed the impact of media discourse on
the role of meat in the 21st century (Leroy, Brengman, Ryckbosch & Scholliers, 2018). They used
The Daily Mail as a case study and found that during moments of crisis (such as mad cow disease
or the avian flu) there were conflicting news items sometimes reassuring the public with the
benefits of a meat-rich diet for weight control. They also found that most of the narratives displayed
contradictions and the majority of the times meat’s positive connotations of strength, vitality and
fertility were often confirmed or disconfirmed through medicalization using studies. The discourse
was primarily controlled by dieticians, the food industry, vegetarian movements and celebrities.
This shows how easily the media can control the narrative in moments of crisis and when fad diets
appear.
There are various fallacies and biases that should be taken into account when looking at the
Peterson’s public involvement with the diet. Firstly, we must never diminish the veracity of an
argument because of the attributes of a person’s nature, this is known as the ad hominem fallacy. It
should not matter what we think about Jordan Peterson when assessing the veracity of his claims.
Secondly, we must not make the mistake to believe that the carnivore diet is associated with cardio
vascular diseases and cancer just because red meat is (Pan et al., 2012). When looking at this
without evidence this can lead us to misuse the representativeness heuristic. Even if the carnivore
diet did have harmful results, we must not make the logical fallacy of creating an argument from
adverse consequences.
Arguments against the carnivore diet
As mentioned before, red meat consumption is associated with cardiovascular diseases and cancer mortality (Pan et al., 2012). Studies have found that meat intake can interact with genetic susceptibility to colorectal cancer, increasing incidence from 0.15 to 0.48 (Ognjanovic, Yamamoto, Maskarinec & Marchand, 2006). The evidence for the adverse effect of excessive meat consumption is clear, maintaining a normal intake of meat along with a high consumption of vegetables, fruits and antioxidant foods seems to be the best for health and longevity (Trichopoulou & Vasilopoulou, 2000).
The claims that the Peterson’s make that their diet is what cured their pathologies needs more evidence to be convincing. This is in line with Hume’s Maxim: that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Their gullibility to their own claims, might be explained by naïve realism, where an individual believes that what they perceive corresponds to their accurate reality. Many diseases get better over time, as they regress back to the mean, without any outside intervention. Certain changes in mental health due to ineffective diets could also be explained by novelty effects, placebo effects and the need to justify all the effort needed to follow a diet.
Conclusion
Mikhaila Peterson’s claims that “many (if not most) health problems are treatable with diet alone” and that you can “heal yourself with diet” are pseudoscientific. Not only is the claim that many health problems are treatable with diets unfalsifiable because it is too broad, but it lacks any boundary conditions. Most carnivore diet emphasize “success stories”, or anecdotal evidence, disregarding any refuting evidence such as failure stories. These are all signs of pseudoscience. Pseudoscience can trick anyone, from bodybuilders to successful psychologists like Jordan Peterson. While it is one thing to partake in diets privately, it is another to promote detrimental diets that have not been corroborated by science to thousands of people. Nevertheless, we must never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity (Bloch, 1986).
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Sofia Wolfson
Emory University
University of Miami