Vegan influencer on a carnivore diet isn’t really the match made in heaven that you’d expect from life, but 2019’s thrown out some weirder trends so are we really all that shocked?
Everyone’s a vegan influencer these days, aren’t they? All it takes is taking a birds-eye view picture of a sunshine bowl, whatever that is, with some shabby-chic, rustic wood or some greenery in the background, throw a few hashtags in there and there you have it, 1,345 likes.
But now that a vegan influencer on a carnivore diet is a thing, so I guess nothing makes sense anymore. Alyse Parker’s the influencer on question, who gained her fair share of popularity and cyber-love from her lifestyle, but now a complete U-turn has resulted in an equal share of criticism and hate.
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Talking about the dramatic shift in her diet, Parker said:
“Being vegan for almost five years, I know what it’s like to lose myself in the identity of a diet culture and lose true open-mindedness.
“I’m a firm believer in experiencing things first hand + getting a real feel for what something is all about before I form a personal opinion on it.
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“The Carnivore Diet first came into my awareness when a close friend shared with me all of the benefits that he was experiencing by eating this way.
“Coming from being vegan 4.5 years, I was hellla resistant to the concept of eating ONLY animal foods (aka only meat, seafood, + eggs)
“But oddly enough, I started to hear story after story from my fellow vegan friends jumping ship, testing out the carnivore diet and experiencing amazing health transformations.
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“I was so confused.”
With that, Parker tried it out and subsequently admitted that she was feeling a lot healthier as a result; more mentally focused, clear and generally wholesome – more-so than she ever had as a vegan for the past four and a half years.
She went on to say:
“I knew I needed to make decisions based on what was in the best interest for my health.
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“This past year of my life has been a journey of remembering who I am separate from what I eat.
“In hopes of challenging others to step out of their current perspective ~ I documented my newest challenge of eating only meat for 30 days.”
Alyse admitted that this was a hard pill to swallow as her whole identity was based on the idea that she stayed away from meat and animal products, but her health eventually took priority.
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The YouTube video where she shared her new journey received a lot of criticism, with the like-ratio reflecting that pretty conspicuously, sitting at 5.3k likes compared to 8.1k dislikes.
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On a personal note; for a start I don’t care what this person eats, but I do wonder why it has to be one extreme or another. I like to think I’m reasonably healthy, food-wise, and that’s because I maintain a fairly balanced diet. In the interest of environmental protection, I’m cutting beef out entirely in the new year (I’m really going to miss that) and I’ll cut down on meat and dairy, but I can’t see myself ever going full vegetarian or vegan unless the substitutes really pick up their game.
The comments on the YouTube video either reflected that sentiment or had a go at Parker for abandoning the people who have been her fans since day one.
I will also say that 30 days can’t yield any real results. It more or less seems like she has a new manager bounce, like United last season.
Images via Instagram, YouTube