I am 30ish and I’ve never been “on a diet.” Instead, I’ve always practiced balance in my eating, and in fact am amongst the rare few that crave lettuce and salads on occasion; but I must admit, carbs are my weakness.

It’s not the sugary snacks or beverages, cookies or cakes; no, I succumb to the bread left on the restaurant table dipped in butter or a lavish oil blend, that homemade pasta at the Italian place on the corner, and that freshly baked sandwich bread that encompasses my tomato, meat and lettuce.

Since I’m not a fan of fleeting diets, I recently decided to start just being more mindful of the carbs I consume, becoming what I’m calling carb conscious. I suppose it’s the way that some of my millennial peers decide to become meat conscious for “health reasons” or so they say. But if you haven’t noticed, something’s different now. There’s this thing called KETO and now it’s okay to eat meat, and lots of it.

Now, I want to set the record straight, I’m not strictly following a KETO diet, because if I want bread (or some other carb) I’ll eat it; that’s why I say I’m carb conscious, because I’m just cutting out the over consumption of some carbs that I had grown accustomed to. I will say however, my body feels a lot better consuming less carbs, and guess what, I haven’t limited my meat consumption. This “new” phenomenon is probably what many of us have known for years, but the general population is just catching up.

If there’s one thing I’ve heard and seen over the last couple of years amongst all the proteins is that we don’t do a good enough job touting our nutrition benefits. In fact, I just spent the last day and half at the Chicken Marketing Summit and I heard Nielsen confirm that meat’s protein perception is still waning. The number of consumers that correctly think beef, pork and chicken are high in protein should be alarming to us; 55%, 36% and 42% respectively.

Consumers are still interested in health and we’re letting alternative proteins romance them away to the point where even chicken— the epitome of health from the protein standpoint — must now defend its share of the health halo.

I’m writing this today, not to say that we should just slap a KETO or protein sticker on a package of meat and call it good. What I am saying is that we need more of us talking about the positive health benefits we see from eating more meat and less of something else. When you Google KETO, the first thing that pops up is about the diet being low-carb, not the part of the diet that is about being high protein.

So, let’s fix that and more of us start talking about how meat is high protein and re-claim that health halo. I recognize that everyone’s body type is different, but for me being carb conscious and meat heavy is working.

Let me know are you trying KETO. Are your friends trying it? What have the results been?

Carb conscious: the meat industry should grab this health halo

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