I’ve never actually cooked a steak, but happily a friend offers to come and cook for me.

When I get back to my desk I discover that my boss saw me and took a photo. I go for a sit-down on a couch in the office and immediately fall asleep. During my foray into the world of beef, salt and water, I never heard a rebuttal to the science, although one carnivore-focused Facebook group I joined – there are many – talked about “brainwashing forced upon us on all levels by doctors, dietitians, governments, schools, media, corporations and religious and spiritual organisations … and vegans … that keep people from their true potential of health and happiness”.Īn hour after eating, fatigue washes back over me. So I don’t normally eat a lot of red meat. Some years ago the UK government warned people – based on evidence from the independent Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition – not to eat more than 500g (about a pound) of red meat a week, to limit the risk of bowel cancer.

Then I lie down and feel my heart beating quickly in my chest I cook my biggest steak, filling the kitchen with smoke. I want only the steak, so I ask for a discount. The steak normally comes with a peppercorn sauce, according to the menu, along with “stuffed potato, bacon, broccoli and diamond cheddar”. It’s not a very nice bar, but they do do steak. A new bar has just opened round the corner from work. I didn’t have time to cook any beef this morning, so I had three beef sticks instead.Īt 11.30am I head out for lunch. I’m wallowing at my desk, struggling to concentrate. My struggling bowels aren’t the only side effect. But what if the early explorers had simply stopped, I ask her. I return to my desk and tell a colleague what has happened. Unluckily for an innocent man who uses the facilities shortly after I’ve finished, there is no window in the cubicle. There is only one cubicle in the bathroom at work. It takes 24 hours for Mikhaila’s warning to come to pass. She orders oysters and clams, and has two glasses of wine. She takes us to an oyster bar, which seems inconsiderate, but they do steak tartare. Nina suggests we go for something to eat. I tell her it’s common to get the shits for the first six weeks. She doesn’t think it sounds very healthy. I have a sparkling water, and she has a beer while I explain the diet. There’s no time to cook any more, however, because I have to meet my friend Nina. It looks like the fridge of a man with a grudge against cattle. I buy 12.Īt home, I load the beef into the fridge. They seem to be dried-out hot dogs, grass-fed, vacuum-sealed, and marketed at kombucha drinkers. I go looking for beef jerky, but the store doesn’t have it. I buy some beef ribs, some steak and some ground beef. “Otherwise I don’t get enough fat in the ground beef,” she said. She cooks the ribs, keeps the fat, then uses that fat to cook the ground beef. But Mikhaila says she kept costs down by buying beef ribs and plenty of ground beef. When I thought of an all-beef diet, a steady stream of steak had come to mind. I can remember a whole bunch.”Īfter Mikhaila and I chat, I kick things off with a trip to the supermarket. “If someone told me a phone number, say seven digits, I couldn’t repeat back to them,” Mikhaila told me. So did unrelated pain in her wrist, big toe and knees.Īfter a month and a half, she said, she started to notice her anxiety had lifted, and she saw improvements in short-term memory. When she had started on the only-beef regimen, her arthritic pain had gone within two weeks, she said. Mikhaila put her father on the same diet in April. ‘I go looking for beef jerky, but the store doesn’t have it.’ Photograph: Max Burkhalter/The Guardian A period of self-experimentation followed before Mikhaila settled on a zero-carb diet – just greens and meat. She began by cutting out gluten, then going on an “elimination diet”, which removes foods people are commonly allergic to before adding them back in. She’s not a medical professional, but she tried self-healing by adjusting her diet. Mikhaila is a 26-year-old who suffered badly with arthritis as a youngster. I’ve called her up, on the morning of my first beef day, to get some tips for my new diet. “I had digestive problems,” says Mikhaila Peterson. Weight loss? Improved mood? No side-effects? It sounded too good to be true. What’s more, his anxiety and depression had lifted. He’d been put on to the diet by his daughter, Mikhaila, and lost 60lb.

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