Imagine how ridiculous it would be to come across a group claiming that drinking two liters of cherry-flavored soda was one of the best ways to treat gastritis, thanks to its combination of carbonation and acidulants. Almost anyone reading that would immediately recognize the absurdity. It would be equally ridiculous to imagine someone arguing: “Don’t eat vegetables, seeds, or nuts! These foods won’t improve your health and contain “antinutrients” that inhibit nutrient absorption in humans.”
Unlike the soda example, a well-known proponent of the carnivore diet made that claim. Instead of dismissing it, his followers began to wonder which other foods they should avoid. One specific comment made me look at the situation from a different angle:
“Dr, I love your site, and I listen to you lot. I've become a lot more beef-friendly. I eat a lot of beef these days, much more like a carnivore than anything else. However, are you telling me I shouldn't eat pumpkin seeds? Seeds are supposed to be really good for you. They contribute to your testosterone, and they have a ton of magnesium, so you're saying I shouldn't eat them.”
The comment contains obvious logical flaws, such as the notion that a single food could boost testosterone. Even so, what stands out is the follower's willingness to abandon a habit they considered healthy simply because it contradicted one person's opinion. Of course, people can change their minds when presented with new information. The problem arises when that shift occurs because a perceived authority figure overrides what the evidence indicates.
Much of today’s online nutritional landscape operates like competing schools of thought. Each has its own beliefs about what constitutes healthy living, along with a community ready to defend those views with considerable fervor. At first glance, this seems no different from any other community built on shared interests and identity.
However, when that identity evolves from a mere shared interest into a definition of absolute truth, when the word of an authority figure supersedes available evidence and an individual's own judgments, and when questioning the group consensus is viewed as an act of betrayal, some researchers use a different term to describe this pattern: a cult.
When a Diet Becomes a Doctrine
The term has a long history and is often used pejoratively, partly due to its association with extreme cases of abuse and violence. Most nutritional communities bear little resemblance to the cases that made the word "cult" notorious. The comparison is more useful in another sense: certain psychological and social mechanisms observed in those extreme cases can also appear, to a much lesser degree, in nutrition communities.
In Food Cults: How Fads, Dogma, and Doctrine Influence Diet, researchers argue that food-focused communities can take on characteristics of highly cohesive groups, including a sense of belonging, authority, dogmatism, and a rigid boundary between insiders and outsiders. These groups serve as a kind of microculture and refuge, offering order and individuals viewed as particularly trustworthy sources of truth, within a larger culture defined by an excess of choices.
The concept, however, is far from universally accepted. In a review of the book, Jon Verriet argues that it is often unclear how or why these cults form and persist - a radical diet and charismatic influencer are insufficient to create a cult; one must understand the mechanisms that lead individuals to join, stay, and gradually begin to interpret the world according to the group's norms.
Why Certainty Is So Seductive
Few cases illustrate this process as well as the one described in When Prophecy Fails. The authors studied the "Seekers," a Chicago-based group that claimed to receive messages from extraterrestrials about a cataclysm predicted for December 21, 1954. When the world did not end, the group reinterpreted the failure as a victory, believing their faith had been sufficient to save the planet.
Once a person has invested in a worldview, admitting it is wrong can be psychologically more difficult than finding a way to preserve it. When faced with an inconsistency between beliefs and facts, the resulting discomfort (cognitive dissonance) can be reduced not by abandoning the belief, but by reinterpreting reality.
What draws someone to such a group in the first place?
A study of 31 former cult members found that the factors facilitating entry were often related to a search for personal growth, life dissatisfaction, or a spiritual quest. More than 80% left the group of their own accord, while the main obstacles to leaving were romantic or family relationships within the cult.
These results suggest that joining does not necessarily begin with a radical belief. People may turn to these groups seeking answers, belonging, or order during times of uncertainty. Once inside, other mechanisms can make it harder to question the system they have encountered.
The Comfort of Black and White
One such mechanism is the need for “cognitive closure,” an answer that ends uncertainty. An article published in the Journal of Religion and Health found that members of new religious movements preferred relatively definitive answers when faced with ambiguous questions. This is particularly relevant in nutrition, a field characterized by few certainties and many contradictory answers. Fat was once the villain; then came carbohydrates, gluten, lectins, and vegetable oils.
A diet that divides the world into good and bad foods, without the "it depends on the context" nuances that characterize real science, can be appealing precisely because it offers the certainty that complexity denies. Instead of ambiguity, the individual gets simple guidance for organizing the world.
The more an identity is built around a specific diet, the harder it may be to admit that a significant part of it is flawed. Changing one's diet ceases to be merely a behavioral shift and can begin to feel like a threat to one's very identity.
From this perspective, the follower mentioned earlier wasn't merely giving up pumpkin seeds; he was buying cognitive closure. In an information landscape flooded with contradictory advice, trading a minor pleasure to an authority figure who promises absolute clarity is an easy deal.
Perhaps this is where the comparison to dietary orthodoxy mirrors cult dynamics. When charismatic authority, black-and-white dogma, and identity fusion converge. Can the internet act as an accelerant?
When Food Becomes Identity
A 2026 article sought a theoretical scaffold by comparing two extreme cases: carnivore and vegan communities on Reddit, Facebook, and YouTube. It aimed to examine communities that exhibit cult-like characteristics and fuse dietary practice with identity.
In carnivore communities, plants were demonized due to lectins and oxalates, while cholesterol and triglycerides were dismissed as irrelevant. Side effects such as diarrhea and malaise were reinterpreted as "oxalate dumping." The discourse combined certainty with hostility toward opponents, framing the diet as enlightened resistance to conventional medicine.
Moral superiority, however, is not exclusive to the carnivore community. Comments analyzed in the vegan community also reveal antagonism toward meat-eaters. "Freelee the BananaGirl" exemplifies this tone by championing the "Raw Till 4" diet [1] and framing deviations as moral failings.
Bella Ma, known as "Steak and Butter Gal," illustrates authority through a personal journey, describing how she resolved chronic health issues and lost weight after switching from veganism to a strict carnivore diet. Paul Saladino, the "Carnivore MD," leverages professional credentials and cites studies and biochemical pathways to advocate positions that go beyond the consensus within his field.
Platforms themselves reinforce this process through engaging content that reaches larger audiences, with followers propagating narratives and, of course, the algorithm. However, the researcher cautions that this should not be reduced to algorithmic radicalization alone; user agency and digital structure mutually influence each other.
Are These Real Cults?
Using the study to classify entire dietary communities as cults is premature. The study looked at two extremes, and there is no established definition of a "food cult." Even so, this is an interesting lens on nutrition misinformation because it shifts the question from "Why are these people so naive?" to “What the community offers that nutritional science alone does not.” For me, the answer is that these communities offer belonging, simplicity, and clarity.
This changes how we engage with those already inside the group. Confrontation can reinforce the group's identity and drive members deeper into their rhetoric. It may be more productive to listen and present alternatives without judgment. While this rarely changes minds on the spot, it can plant a seed of doubt that might eventually take root.
Finally, we must not confuse the sociological analysis of a community with a scientific evaluation of the diet it advocates. The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics considers a well-planned vegan diet nutritionally adequate, though it requires attention to nutrients such as vitamin B12. Conversely, excessive saturated fat consumption, common in the carnivore diet, is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Cochrane reviews show that replacing saturated fats with polyunsaturated fats consistently reduces the incidence of cardiovascular events.
The real danger begins when a diet stops being something you do and becomes something you are. Nutrition science is messy, conditional, and forever subject to revision; dietary tribes offer something far more emotionally gratifying: certainty, belonging, and a clear line between believers and everyone else. Perhaps the most dangerous characteristic of a food-based cult is not that members eat a certain way, but that, little by little, questioning the diet comes to mean questioning who they are.
[1] A plant-based diet in which you eat only raw foods until 4 p.m. and have a carbohydrate-rich cooked meal for dinner.
