You’ve probably seen them. Scroll through Instagram or TikTok long enough and you’ll find someone biting into a slab of uncooked beef liver or even a greyish, "high meat" concoction that’s been fermenting in a jar for months. It looks visceral. It looks primal. To most people, it looks like a one-way ticket to a hospital bed. But for the growing community of people who eat raw meat, it’s a lifestyle choice rooted in a belief that modern cooking has stripped our food of its soul—and its nutrients.
It’s weirdly polarizing.
People get angry about it. Why? Because we’ve been told since kindergarten that raw chicken equals salmonella and raw beef is a gamble you only take at high-end sushi spots or French bistros serving steak tartare. Yet, here we are in 2026, and the "raw carnivore" movement isn't dying out. If anything, it’s getting more specific. You have the "Liver King" types—though we know how that story went with the steroids—and then you have the quiet, intense practitioners who swear their brain fog disappeared the second they stopped searing their ribeyes.
Is it dangerous? Yeah, it can be. Is it a cult? Maybe a little. But there’s a biological and historical rabbit hole here that most people completely ignore because they’re too busy being grossed out.
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Why people who eat raw meat are ditching the stove
The logic usually starts with "bioavailability."
If you talk to someone like Derek Nance—who has famously eaten a raw meat diet for over a decade—they’ll tell you that cooking changes the chemical structure of food. And they aren't entirely wrong. Heat does denature proteins. It can reduce certain heat-sensitive vitamins like Vitamin C (yes, there is Vitamin C in fresh, raw organ meats) and B vitamins. For the hardcore crowd, the goal is to consume the "living enzymes" they believe are destroyed the moment meat hits a hot pan.
They want the "raw energy."
It’s a rejection of the industrial food complex. Most people who eat raw meat aren't buying shrink-wrapped supermarket beef. They’re sourcing from regenerative farms. They’re buying whole cows. They’re looking for animals that lived a life under the sun because, in their view, the quality of the fat and the absence of antibiotics are the only things standing between a "superfood" and a "biohazard."
But let’s be real for a second.
The human brain actually grew because we started cooking. Harvard anthropologist Richard Wrangham argued in his book Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human that cooking is what allowed us to pre-digest calories, freeing up energy to grow our massive, energy-hungry brains. So, the "ancestral" argument is a bit of a double-edged sword. Our ancestors did eat raw meat, sure, but they also leaped at the chance to cook it because it meant they didn't have to spend six hours a day chewing.
The "High Meat" obsession and fermentation
There is a subculture within this subculture that is even more intense: the fermenters.
They eat "high meat." This is meat that has been left to rot—technically "air-age" or ferment—in a controlled environment for weeks or months. It develops a pungent, ammonia-like smell and a soft, spreadable texture. The claim? It acts as a potent probiotic and creates a "natural high" or euphoria upon consumption.
Honestly, it’s a hard sell for the average person.
The science on "high meat" is thin, mostly relying on anecdotal reports of improved digestion and mood. Critics, and most microbiologists, point out that you’re essentially playing Russian roulette with Staphylococcus aureus or Salmonella. But for those deep in the "Primal Diet" community—a philosophy popularized by the late Aajonus Vonderplanitz—this isn't rot. It’s "predigestion." They believe the bacteria are doing the work your gut is too weak to do.
The real risks: It’s not just an upset stomach
We have to talk about the pathogens because they are real and they don't care about your "primal" vibes.
- Campylobacter: Common in poultry, which is why even the most hardcore raw eaters usually stay away from raw chicken.
- E. coli (STEC): This is the big one for beef. It lives on the surface.
- Tapeworms: Taenia saginata (beef tapeworm) can happen if the animal was infected.
- Listeria: It loves cold, damp environments.
When you look at the data from the CDC or the European Food Safety Authority, the warnings are clear. Raw meat is a primary vector for foodborne illness. However, the raw community argues that these statistics are skewed by "industrial meat" where cross-contamination is rampant. They believe that if you kill the animal yourself or know the farmer, the risk drops to near zero.
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That’s a big "if."
Even "clean" meat can carry bacteria. The difference is often the "infectious dose." A healthy person with high stomach acid might handle a small amount of bacteria that would put an immunocompromised person in the ICU. It’s a game of internal chemistry.
What do the experts actually say?
If you ask a mainstream dietician, they’ll tell you to get out of the kitchen and go buy a thermometer. But some nutritional researchers are more nuanced. They acknowledge that raw organ meats, particularly liver and heart, are incredibly nutrient-dense.
The nuance is in the type of meat.
Raw beef is generally considered "safer" than raw pork or poultry because of the way the muscle fibers are structured and the specific parasites associated with those animals. Trichinosis in pork used to be a massive deal, though it's largely been bred out of commercial pork in the US. Still, nobody is out here advocating for raw pork chops. Even the raw meat influencers usually draw the line there.
The Vitamin C mystery
One of the weirdest facts about people who eat raw meat is that they don't get scurvy.
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According to standard nutritional labels, meat has zero Vitamin C. But those labels are based on cooked meat. Fresh, raw meat—especially liver and adrenal glands—contains enough Vitamin C to prevent scurvy. This was noted as far back as the 1920s when Arctic explorers like Vilhjalmur Stefansson lived on an all-meat diet with the Inuit. When they ate the meat raw or very rare, they stayed healthy. When they tried to eat only cooked, lean meat, they got sick.
How to navigate the raw meat space safely (if you must)
If you’re curious about this and want to try it without ending up in a "What I Eat in a Day" horror story, there are some non-negotiables.
- Surface area is everything. Bacteria lives on the outside of the meat. This is why a "blue" steak (seared on the outside, raw in the middle) is infinitely safer than raw ground beef. When you grind meat, you mix the surface bacteria through the whole batch. Never, ever eat raw grocery store ground beef.
- Sourcing is the only safety net. You need to know when the animal was slaughtered. You need to know the cold chain wasn't broken. If the meat has been sitting in a display case for three days, it’s a no-go.
- Start with "Gateway" raw foods. Most people start with high-quality beef carpaccio or steak tartare at a reputable restaurant. These are prepared with specific safety protocols and high-grade cuts.
- Freezing helps, but isn't a cure-all. Freezing meat at -4°F (-20°C) for several days can kill most parasites (like tapeworms), but it won't do much to stop bacteria like E. coli.
- Listen to your nose. Humans evolved a very strong "aversion response" to the smell of putrefaction for a reason. If the meat smells like "death" rather than "iron" or "earth," don't eat it. The "high meat" people are the exception, but they've spent years "training" their systems.
The Verdict on the Raw Trend
Eating raw meat isn't a magic pill. It won't give you superpowers overnight, and for many, the digestive distress of introducing raw muscle fiber is enough to end the experiment early. But the movement has forced a conversation about food quality and the loss of nutrients in ultra-processed diets.
Most people who eat raw meat are simply looking for a way to feel "human" again in a world of synthetic ingredients. Whether they need to risk a parasitic infection to achieve that is the $10,000 question.
If you're going to dive in, do it with your eyes open. Don't follow a trend because a guy with six-pack abs on TikTok told you to. Research your local farmers, understand the anatomy of the animal, and maybe keep a bottle of activated charcoal in the cabinet—just in case.
Actionable Next Steps:
- Audit your source: If you want to try raw beef, find a local butcher who does "whole animal" butchery and ask about their slaughter dates.
- Test your acidity: Low stomach acid makes raw meat consumption much riskier. Consider a betaine HCL test if you find you don't digest proteins well.
- Go "Blue" first: Try searing a high-quality steak for only 30 seconds per side. It provides many of the touted benefits of raw meat with a much lower risk profile.
- Focus on Organs: If nutrients are your goal, a small piece of raw, frozen-then-thawed grass-fed liver is a more potent "supplement" than a massive raw steak.