This article is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice.
Thousands of people have adopted an animal based diet and seen improvements in weight loss, gut health, autoimmune symptoms, and energy levels.
Are you curious about the animal based diet but not sure where to start?
No matter your reason for wanting to try an animal based diet, this guide walks through why it works, what to eat, what to avoid, and how to build your plate without tracking a single calorie.
Key Takeaways
- An animal based diet is a way of eating built on nutrient-dense whole foods: meat, organs, eggs, seafood, fruit, honey, and dairy.
- It avoids processed foods like seed oils, refined grains, and refined sugar, along with plant foods many people struggle to digest, such as beans, nuts, seeds, and leafy greens.
- Many people come to an animal based diet while dealing with gut issues, autoimmune symptoms, or stubborn weight, and stay because of how it makes them feel.
Table of Contents
What Is an Animal Based Diet?
An animal based diet centers on the most nutrient-dense foods on the planet.
It is built around 7 core food groups:
- Meat: Muscle meat from ruminant animals like beef, bone broth, lamb, and bison.
- Organs: Liver, heart, kidney, and other organ meats, which carry nutrients muscle meat does not.
- Seafood: Wild-caught salmon, shrimp, and oysters, in particular, for omega-3s, zinc, and other minerals harder to get elsewhere.
- Eggs: A complete, nutrient-dense protein source when sourced well.
- Fruit: Ripe, whole fruit as a primary carbohydrate source.
- Natural Sugars: Raw honey, pure maple syrup, and coconut sugar as clean, minimally processed sugar sources.
- Dairy: Raw or minimally processed dairy, for those who tolerate it.
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How Is This Different From Carnivore?
The carnivore diet is a stricter version of this approach: animal foods only. Some people use a short-term carnivore or ketogenic phase to reset their system before transitioning into a fuller animal based diet that includes fruit and honey.
An animal based diet keeps the same foundation of meat and organs, then includes the lowest-toxicity carbohydrates your body can use well.
Why Do People Choose an Animal Based Diet?
Many people who adopt an animal based diet are working through a specific health struggle. The most common reasons include:
- Gut issues: Bloating, irregular digestion, or general gut discomfort that did not resolve with a standard diet.
- Autoimmune symptoms: Joint pain, skin flare-ups, and fatigue that seem to track with certain foods.
- Weight: Difficulty losing weight or maintaining it.
- Low energy and brain fog: A sense that the body simply is not running well.
An animal based diet removes the foods most likely to be driving these struggles, seed oils, refined sugar, and irritating plant compounds, while flooding the body with the nutrients it needs to function. For many people, that combination is what finally moves the needle.
The Foundation: Meat and Organs
Meat and organs sit at the center of an animal based diet for a simple reason: they are the most nutrient-dense, bioavailable foods available to humans.
Which Meat Is Best on an Animal Based Diet?
Ruminant animals: cattle, bison, lamb, goat, and deer, are the best foundation for an animal based diet.
Ruminants have 4 stomachs and unique gut microbes that convert polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs) into healthy saturated fat, so their meat naturally carries very little PUFA.
Monogastric animals: pigs, chicken, turkey, and duck, only have 1 stomach and cannot do this conversion. Just like humans, they store excess PUFA directly in their fat. That means the quality of a monogastric animal’s meat depends entirely on what it was fed.
If you choose to eat pork, chicken, or turkey, look for animals raised without corn, soy, or other high-PUFA feed. A local farmer who can tell you exactly what the animals ate is your best resource here.
Seafood
Seafood earns its place as a core food group, with wild-caught salmon and oysters other shellfish as the standouts. Salmon delivers omega-3 fats that are hard to get in the same concentration elsewhere, and oysters carry zinc and other trace minerals at levels few other foods can match.
When it comes to seafood, be selective. Many fish and shellfish carry high levels of PFAS and heavy metals like mercury, so choose wild-caught options and keep higher-mercury fish like tuna to twice a week or less.
The Importance of Organs
If meat is the foundation of an animal based diet, organs are what complete it. Muscle meat alone leaves real gaps: nutrients like copper, retinol, and B12 exist in organs at levels muscle meat simply cannot match (1).
A diet built on muscle meat alone, no matter how much of it you eat, will not deliver the same nutrient density as a diet that includes liver, heart, kidney, and other organs.
This is exactly why organs mattered so much to our ancestors, and why they matter now. The unique nutrients found in liver, heart, cartilage, bone marrow, kidney, and spleen are not replaceable with a bigger steak.
The catch is practical: fresh organs are not always easy to find, prepare, or enjoy. Taste and texture turn many people away before they get the benefit.
That gap is exactly what Beef Organs was built to close. Freeze-dried grass-fed liver, heart, pancreas, kidney, and spleen in capsule form give you the nutrient density of organs without needing to cook or source them yourself.
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Learn more: Beef Liver Supplements: Benefits, Dosage, & How to Choose the Best
Can You Eat Carbs on an Animal Based Diet?
Carbohydrates are not only included in an animal based diet, they are encouraged.
Carbohydrates support several essential functions, including healthy kidney function, electrolyte balance, muscle glycogen, and sleep quality. The goal is to get those carbohydrates from the sources your body handles best.
- Fruit: Choose ripe, organic, in-season fruit whenever possible. This is the primary carbohydrate source on an animal based diet.
- Natural Sugars: Raw, unfiltered honey, pure maple syrup, molasses, and coconut sugar are clean, minimally processed sugar sources that fit well into an animal based diet.
- Dairy: Raw or organic milk, cheese, yogurt, butter, and ghee are nutrient-dense options for those who do well with dairy. A2 milk can be a great option if you’re sensitive to regular dairy. If you’re allergic to dairy, consider Bone Matrix to support your calcium intake.
What Does an Animal Based Diet Avoid?
Two categories are avoided on an animal based diet: processed foods and hard-to-digest plant foods.
Processed Foods
Seed oils, refined grains, and refined sugar make up the bulk of what people remove when they start an animal based diet, and for most people, that removal alone changes how they feel within weeks.
Seed oils, corn, safflower, sunflower, soybean, canola, and similar oils, are high in linoleic acid, a polyunsaturated fat that the body struggles to process and clear.
If you need fat for cooking, animal fats like tallow, butter, and ghee, or minimally processed options like coconut oil, are the better swap.
Refined grains and refined sugar create a similar problem: fast-digesting carbohydrates with almost none of the nutrients found in whole foods. It is incredibly easy to over-consume calories when eating refined grains and refined sugar, since they digest quickly and rarely leave you feeling satisfied.
To be clear, these foods are not inherently dangerous or not meant to never be consumed. They simply are not part of an animal based diet, because they take up space on your plate that could otherwise go toward foods that nourish you better.
Hard-to-Digest Plant Foods
Beans, nuts, seeds, and leafy greens are often marketed as health foods, but many people have a genuinely difficult time digesting them. The reason comes down to plant defense chemicals, compounds like oxalates, lectins, and phytates that plants produce to discourage animals from eating them (2).
These compounds are not automatically dangerous in small amounts. The issue is dose and preparation: eaten raw, in excess, or without proper preparation, they can cause digestive discomfort, joint pain, or skin issues in people who are sensitive to them.
This is why an animal based diet emphasizes easy-to-digest carbohydrate sources like ripe fruit and honey instead of leaning on beans, grains, nuts, and seeds to fill the carbohydrate gap.
How Much Should You Eat on an Animal Based Diet?
An animal based diet does not require tracking calories or macronutrients, and that is by design.
A full macronutrient profile of protein, fat, and carbohydrates is vital for your health. Each macronutrient plays an important role in helping your body function and thrive. Rather than handing you numbers to hit, this approach emphasizes building a strong foundation with a whole-food diet, free from the need to track calories or macros.
By prioritizing protein and eating to satiety, you can develop an intuitive approach to nourishing your body. Start your plate with protein, meat and organs, add fat as needed for satiety, and round it out with fruit, honey, or dairy for carbohydrates.
If you are not seeing the results you hoped for after 3 to 6 months of eating this way, do not hesitate to reach out to our health guides at [email protected]. We are happy to help you troubleshoot.
Follow Heart & Soil on Instagram for meal ideas, recipes, and more!
Building Your Plate: A Simple Framework
Start with protein, then build around it:
- Pick a protein: Beef, lamb, dairy, organ meat, bone broth, salmon, oysters, eggs, etc.
- Pick a carb: Fruit, raw honey, maple syrup, or a tolerated starch like sweet potato or white rice.
- Add fat: Tallow, butter, ghee, bone marrow, egg yolks, dairy, or a fattier cut of meat.
A day of eating on an animal based diet might look like this:
- Breakfast: Eggs, raw cheese, and orange juice
- Snack: Yogurt and fruit smoothie with Animal-Based Protein powder
- Lunch: A grass-fed beef burger with cheese and sweet potato fries.
- Dinner: A ribeye, rice cooked with bone broth, and cucumber/olive/feta salad
- Snack: Milk with honey
Repeat it with different proteins, fruits, and fats until it becomes second nature.
| Protein | Carbohydrate | Fat |
| Beef Eggs Yogurt Bone Broth Fish Shellfish Cheese Milk Pasture-raised poultry Pasture-raised pork | Fresh fruit Raw honey Maple syrup Juice White rice Dried fruit Sweet potato Squash Cucumber | Tallow GheeAvocado Butter Bone marrow Egg yolks Full-fat dairy Fatty cuts of meat Olives |
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Pair It With an Ancestrally Aligned Lifestyle
Diet is one piece of the puzzle. An animal based diet works best alongside daily habits that match how humans actually evolved to live:
- Walking daily, especially outdoors
- Strength training a few times a week
- Getting sunlight, particularly early and late in the day
- Spending time outdoors and in nature
- Prioritizing sleep and a consistent bedtime
- Building real social connection and community
- Managing stress through activities you enjoy
- Sauna sessions or other heat exposure
- Cold exposure, when appropriate for you
None of these need to be perfect to matter. Small, consistent habits compound alongside the food on your plate.
This Diet Should Serve You, Not the Other Way Around
An animal based diet is a tool, not a religion. It exists to help you feel good, think clearly, and have the energy to live your life, not to become a source of stress or restriction in itself.
Most people find success with an 80/20 or 90/10 approach: eating nutrient-dense, animal based meals most of the time, while leaving room for a birthday cake, a holiday meal, or dinner out with people you love.
Flexibility is not a failure; it’s what makes this way of eating sustainable for years, not weeks.
Being overly rigid with any diet carries real risk. Extreme food restriction can contribute to disordered eating patterns like orthorexia or anorexia, where “eating right” starts to crowd out everything else in life.
If food rules ever feel more stressful than helpful, that is a sign to loosen your grip, not tighten it.
FAQ: Animal Based Diet
What is an animal based diet?
A way of eating built around meat, organs, seafood, eggs, fruit, natural sugars, and dairy, while avoiding processed foods and plant foods that can be hard to digest.
Is an animal based diet the same as carnivore?
No. Carnivore is animal foods only. An animal based diet keeps the same foundation of meat and organs but reintroduces fruit and natural sugars like honey.
Why do organs matter so much on an animal based diet?
Organs carry nutrients, like copper, retinol, and B12, at levels muscle meat cannot match, filling gaps the rest of the diet does not.
What foods does an animal based diet avoid?
Processed foods such as seed oils, refined grains, and refined sugar, along with plant foods many people struggle to digest, including beans, nuts, seeds, and leafy greens.
Do I need to track calories or macros on an animal based diet?
No. The focus is on whole foods and eating to satiety. Start with protein, add fat as needed, and round out your plate with carbohydrates from fruit or natural sugars.
How long does it take to see results on an animal based diet?
Most people notice changes within a few weeks. We suggest giving it 3 to 6 months for a full assessment, and reaching out to [email protected] if you are not seeing the results you hoped for.
Related Reading
- The Complete List Of Seed Oils To Avoid
- The Ultimate Animal-Based Diet Food List (PDF Included!)
- 6 Dangers Of Eating Liver: What You Need To Know
- Key Differences Between Organic And Conventional Foods
The Bottom Line
You do not have to be convinced before you try this. You just have to try it!
Give your body a few weeks of real, nutrient-dense food and pay attention to what changes: your energy, your sleep, your gut, your mood, your skin. Thousands of people have made this same shift and come out the other side feeling like a different person, not because of willpower, but because their body finally got what it had been missing.
This is not about perfection or permanent restriction. It is about giving your body what it needs to run the way it was designed to run
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