food

I have so many... questions: Can we please talk about Jordan Peterson's beef-only diet.

Jordan Peterson is a best-selling author, clinical psychologist, academic, and podcaster. He also only eats beef. 

The 60-year-old is rarely mentioned in the media without being described as "controversial," due to his very public views on feminism, political correctness, white privilege, and gender identity. But just for a moment, I need to talk about the beef.

Oh, the man enjoys beef, you may be thinking. He chooses to have a lot of it in his diet. As part of his regular meals. 

But that's not what I said. 

In 2018, Peterson stopped eating everything apart from beef, salt and water. To clarify, he doesn't eat chicken or lamb or pork. He eats beef. Exclusively.

What about breakfast? Beef.

Morning tea? Beef. 

Lunch? ...Beef.

Afternoon snack? Beef.

Dinner? BEEF.

It's ruining the sanctity of the beef. Image: Getty.

ADVERTISEMENT

Dessert? Chocolate (lol just kidding - beef). 

It's a diet one professor of surgery, who spoke to The Atlantic, described as a "terribly, terribly bad idea."

So why is an educated, wealthy man, who presumably has access to the extensive body of medical research about the need for variety in a human diet, exclusively eating beef? And why do I - a woman who has never met him, and doesn't even directly follow him online - know about it?

It all started with Peterson's daughter, Mikhaila. The now 30-year-old grew up with a number of health conditions that she says severely affected her quality of life. On her website, Mikhaila writes that she was diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis when she was seven, and diagnosed with depression at 12. At 14, she experienced debilitating fatigue and at 17, had her hip and ankle joints replaced because of arthritis. 

ADVERTISEMENT

In 2015, she started an elimination diet. The idea of an elimination diet (as prescribed by a medical professional) is to remove foods that might be causing uncomfortable symptoms and slowly reintroduce them, therefore ruling out foods that aren't tolerated well. After removing "most foods" from her diet, Mikhaila found her fatigue and depression lifted. Going off her SSRI's (antidepressant medication), however, she had what she describes as "severe neurological withdrawal" over the next two years. 

It was only after having a baby that she started cutting out foods again. Four months into breastfeeding, she started eating just meat. She says she "knew meat didn’t make me react and give me arthritis," and over the next few months, her depression and anxiety lifted.

ADVERTISEMENT

Throughout this period, her well-known father had started an elimination diet after seeing the impact it had on Mikhaila. By April 2018, he went on the 'lion diet' (salt, water and meat), and found it cured his depression, anxiety, GERD, fatigue, psoriasis, floaters in his right eye, and gum disease.

In July of that year, Jordan Peterson appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience - a podcast that at the time had over 100 million downloads a month, and has continued to grow. Peterson explained how watching Mikhaila's health transformation had encouraged him to change his diet, ultimately leading him to cut out everything except meat. 

"I eat beef and salt and water. That’s it," he told Rogan. 

"And I never cheat. Ever. Not even a little bit."

Why but also how but also no one except your daughter thinks that's a good idea.

As Rogan pressed him on the details of his diet, Peterson explained that the distinctions between different types of water had started to become important. 

"There’s club soda, which is really bubbly. There’s Perrier, which is sort of bubbly. There’s flat water, and there’s hot water."

ADVERTISEMENT

Cool. 

@clarestephens1 How. Many. Ways. Can. You. Cook. Beef. #jordanpeterson ♬ original sound - Clare Stephens

While Peterson repeatedly assured Rogan he wasn't giving dietary advice, he was advocating for a strict diet on a platform with millions of listeners. A diet so strict, any deviation from it was "absolutely catastrophic". 

"Both Mikhaila and I noticed that when we restricted our diet and then ate something we weren’t supposed to, the reaction was absolutely catastrophic," Peterson said.

"We had some apple cider..." he continued, and "it took me out for a month."

Listen to Mamamia's comedy podcast Cancelled, about Jordan Peterson. Post continues after audio.


"It produced an overwhelming sense of impending doom. I seriously mean overwhelming. There’s no way I could’ve lived like that. But see, Mikhaila knew by then that it would probably only last a month."

How did Mikhaila know that.

On the podcast, Peterson claimed, "I didn’t sleep that month for 25 days. I didn’t sleep at all for 25 days."

When Rogan asked how that was possible, Peterson responded: "I’ll tell you how it’s possible: You lay in bed frozen in something approximating terror for eight hours. And then you get up."

DUDE. That sounds... horrible. 

According to the current body of research, the longest recorded time a human being has gone without sleep is 11 consecutive days. That's not to say Peterson didn't experience what he says he did. But it is to say it's unlikely it played out exactly how he says. 

ADVERTISEMENT

Speaking to The Atlantic in 2018, Mikhaila also recounted how extreme her medical symptoms become when she consumes anything that isn't beef, salt or water. She recalled that when a restaurant once put pepper on her steak; she experienced joint pain, acne and anxiety for three weeks.

What's strange, however, is that she can "tolerate vodka and bourbon". 

Turns out alcohol is completely fine xxx

ADVERTISEMENT

At the time of that interview, Mikhaila was selling one-on-one consultations for people wanting to adopt a meat-only diet for $75 USD per half an hour. 

But what do they talk about. It's incredibly straightforward. 

Jack Gilbert, a faculty director at the University of Chicago’s Microbiome Centre and a professor of surgery, told The Atlantic that an all-beef diet is without a doubt "physiologically... an immensely bad idea." 

He went into detail about the damage the diet would do to the human body, before reflecting on Mikhaila Peterson specifically. 

"If she does not die of colon cancer or some other severe cardio metabolic disease," he said, "...the life - I can’t imagine."

Right now, Mikhaila's website claims you "can get all the nutrients you need from ruminant meat, and the diet doesn’t irritate the gut". 

"This diet has been used periodically to heal people," Mikhaila writes. "But the mainstream medical system periodically forgets it exists."

In an FAQ section, Mikhaila explains that if you're on the lion diet and it isn't working, you need to ask whether you're only ingesting "ruminant meat, salt and water." 

"If not, you have to get to that for six weeks to accurately judge," she writes. "That means no coffee too. No medication."

ADVERTISEMENT

If you've been on psychiatric medication, you may need to extend that six-week timeframe to two years. 

I'm sorry. Two... years. Of just... beef.

If it still isn't working, Mikhaila writes you should investigate your sleep, then "make sure you're not incredibly stressed out about something." 

ADVERTISEMENT

What if you're stressed out because you've eaten pure beef for two years and you're not miraculously cured from all your ailments as promised? 

Then, if you can rule out all those factors, it could be that "you have an active infection or something promoting inflammation in your body that is not diet.

"Mold, contaminated water, a viral or bacterial infection, lead or other toxic compounds, etc."

Basically, by Mikhaila Peterson's rules, there's no way to prove the diet doesn't work. 

In response to a question about where to find "good carnivore research," Mikhaila writes, "unfortunately there is no carnivore diet study yet."

Of course there isn't.

ADVERTISEMENT

Ahh, yes. That's a shame. Probably because it's not ethical to ask people to not eat vegetables in the name of science.

Look. Ultimately, I just have a few questions for the Peterson family about the whole meat thing (that are really statements, hence the lack of question marks):  

- Is it a good idea to recommend that people go off their psychiatric medication, when you a) don't know them, and b) are not qualified to do so

- Do you think maybe any weight loss associated with the diet can be explained by the fact that you become so repulsed by meat that you simply can't eat anymore

- The environment: discuss

- Animal welfare: discuss

- Your colon: discuss

- Moo (sorry that was a question from one of many angry cows)

Must you eat me all day every day. Must you. Image: Getty. 

ADVERTISEMENT

- How does the extensive body of evidence about the health benefits of a vegan diet... fit. With all.... this *gestures at pile of meat*

I'd also like to ask about your poo but that feels personal. I do, however, imagine that it would be very dark and hard. 

The moral of this story is that it often takes batsh*t crazy ideas to get famous on the internet. 

And somehow, I think Jordan Peterson knows that better than anyone. 

For more from Clare Stephens, you can follow her on Instagram or TikTok

Want $100? Tell us about your body-changes and go in the running to win one of 3 $100 gift vouchers.