Food list

Everything on carnivore sorts into three tiers, plus a list of what is excluded. Stick to Tier 1 for the first month, add Tier 2 if you tolerate it, and treat Tier 3 as situational.

Tier 1 — Core

The foundation. Anyone doing any version of the diet eats from this list.

Ruminant meat

• Beef — steaks, mince, ribs, roasts, brisket
• Lamb — chops, shoulder, mince
• Bison, venison, game where available

Other meat

• Pork — belly, shoulder, chops, bacon (check for sugar in the cure)
• Chicken and duck — thighs and skin first, breast as a lean option
• Eggs — yolk is the nutrient density

Animal fats

• Tallow (rendered beef fat)
• Lard (rendered pork fat)
• Butter and ghee
• Bone marrow
• Schmaltz (rendered chicken fat)

Seasoning

• Salt. Any unrefined salt is fine. Iodised table salt also works.

Drinks

• Water. Some people add a pinch of salt to one glass per day during adaptation.

Tier 2 — Add if you tolerate it

Common additions. Most people add at least one. If you are using carnivore as a strict elimination protocol, hold off on these until day 30 and then add them one at a time to see what your body does.

Dairy

• Butter and ghee (already in Tier 1)
• Hard cheese — aged cheddar, parmesan, gouda
• Cream and sour cream
• Plain Greek yoghurt (unsweetened, full-fat)
• Milk — many people react to lactose; skip if uncertain

Seafood

• Salmon, mackerel, sardines, anchovies — fatty fish, high omega-3
• Tuna, snapper, barramundi — leaner, good rotation
• Prawns, scallops, oysters — oysters are nutrient-dense

Organ meats

• Liver — start with 50-100 g once a week, beef or lamb
• Heart, kidney — milder than liver, easier entry point
• Bone broth — collagen and gelatin, cheap to make from leftover bones

Tier 3 — Debated edge cases

These are not strictly animal foods but they show up frequently in carnivore-adjacent eating. Whether you include them depends on what you are running the experiment to test.

• Honey — animal-sourced but high in sugar. Excluded on Lion Diet, Strict and Carnivore + Dairy. Animal-Based includes it as a primary carbohydrate source.
• Black coffee and tea — plants but generally tolerated. Excluded on Lion Diet, allowed on the rest.
• Spices and herbs — plants. Some practitioners use a handful (black pepper, oregano). Lion Diet excludes all; strict elimination protocols of any kind tend to.
• Fermented dairy (kefir, aged cheese) — fine on Carnivore + Dairy and above. Some find lactose tolerance varies.
• Cured meats (salami, prosciutto, jerky) — check ingredients for sugar, plant additives, and seed oils.

What you exclude

All plant foods. The list is short because the principle is simple: if it grew from a seed or in dirt, it is excluded.

• Vegetables — all of them, including leafy greens, root vegetables, alliums, nightshades
• Fruit — including avocado, olives, tomatoes (technically fruit)
• Grains — wheat, rice, oats, corn
• Legumes — beans, lentils, peanuts, soy
• Nuts and seeds
• Seed and vegetable oils — canola, sunflower, soybean, olive oil
• Sugar in any form — cane, beet, agave, maple syrup
• Alcohol — wine, beer, spirits
• Plant-based protein powders, plant milks, "carnivore-friendly" packaged products with plant additives

Quality, in order of importance

If you can afford it, source quality goes here. If you cannot, regular supermarket meat is fine. Quality matters less than just doing the elimination.

• Grass-fed and grass-finished beef — better omega-3:6 ratio, more nutrients per gram
• Pasture-raised eggs — darker yolks, better fatty acid profile
• Wild-caught fish — fewer accumulated contaminants than farmed
• Heritage or pasture-raised pork — significantly different fat profile to factory pork

None of these are required. Plenty of people get the same outcomes from supermarket mince and eggs. Quality is an optimisation, not a prerequisite.

Where to go next

• Want to plan a week of meals? How to start
• Confused about which level to pick? Variations of the diet