Apparently, animal flesh is manly.
That is what a new poll from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and Morning Consult suggests. More than half of US men surveyed, 53%, said they viewed the carnivore diet as masculine. Only 10% said the same about a plant-based diet. Almost half said meat was masculine. More than a third associated soya products with femininity. Imagine being so committed to masculinity that beans threaten you.
This would be funny if it were not so dangerous. Men are being sold a version of strength that looks suspiciously like higher risk of heart disease, erectile dysfunction, reduced fertility, diabetes and cancer. The manosphere has done what it always does: found a real insecurity, wrapped it in rage, added a product, and called it truth.
Now we have “meatfluencers” telling men that animal flesh, dairy and an almost total rejection of fruits, vegetables, grains and beans is some kind of return to power. As if masculinity lives in a steak. As if arteries hardening is a personality. As if needing to prove your manhood through dinner is not already embarrassing.
The carnivore diet is not ancient wisdom. It is modern branding. It is restriction dressed up as rebellion. It tells men they are thinking for themselves while handing them the most boring script imaginable: real men eat meat, soy makes you weak, vegetables are for women, and anything based on actual public health evidence is part of a conspiracy.
Conveniently, this message does not just come from angry men with microphones. It is also supported by a much older, wealthier machine.
A recent meta-research review in Obesity Reviews looked at 500 studies on meat consumption and health published between 2014 and 2023. Around 15.6% had some kind of meat industry involvement, including funding, author affiliation or declared conflicts of interest.
The results were not subtle.
Studies with meat industry ties were 16 times more likely to reach favourable conclusions about meat. Industry-funded studies reported favourable outcomes 75% of the time. Only one industry-funded study reported an unfavourable association. Independent studies, by contrast, overwhelmingly leaned the other way: 61% found unfavourable health outcomes and only 10% reported favourable conclusions.
Even more damning, every single study authored by someone affiliated with the meat industry reached favourable conclusions. Sixteen out of sixteen. Perfect score. What a remarkable coincidence.
The issue is not always that researchers are simply fabricating data. The more useful trick is often subtler. Choose a narrower question. Choose a more convenient comparison. Report some findings more loudly than others. Put the nicest possible interpretation in the conclusion. Let the abstract do the spin. Then wait for media outlets to turn it into a headline.
The industry does not need to win the science. It only needs to keep the public confused.
One study says red and processed meat are linked to serious health risks. Another headline says meat can be part of a healthy diet. Someone on a podcast says doctors are lying to you. A trade body funds research through a respectable-looking programme. A man already worried about his status hears that steak equals strength. The fog thickens. Sales continue.
That is the game.
And it is not usually a meat company’s logo slapped across the front. The funding often comes through trade associations, levy-funded bodies and industry-friendly organisations: Beef Checkoff, Pork Checkoff, Meat and Livestock Australia, the Danish Agriculture and Food Council, the UK Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board. This creates distance. It makes industry involvement look less like marketing and more like neutral research.
The soya panic is a perfect example of how badly misinformation works on men. In the poll, 24% of men thought both dairy and soya products contain estrogens. Dairy does contain mammalian estrogens, especially when cows are milked while pregnant, which is standard in dairy production. Soya contains phytoestrogens, plant compounds with different biological effects. A review of 38 clinical studies found no measurable effect of soya consumption on testosterone or estrogen levels in men.
So the food men are told will make them feminine does not do what they fear. Meanwhile, the animal products sold to them as masculine are linked with several of the health problems men are supposed to care about.
This is not really about biology. It is about hierarchy.
Animal consumption has always been wrapped in domination. The hunt. The grill. The steak. The “real man” who uses animals, mocks compassion, fears softness and sees restraint as weakness. The victim disappears behind the performance. A cow becomes protein. A chicken becomes gains. A pig becomes breakfast. An entire system of reproductive control, confinement, killing and commodification becomes “man food.” That is the ugliest part.
This conversation is often reduced to men’s health, but it cannot end there. Animal flesh is not just a risk factor. It is someone’s body. Milk is not just a hormone story. It comes from reproductive exploitation. The problem is not only that men are being lied to. It is that animals are being turned into props in a human identity crisis.
There is nothing strong about needing another individual’s body to feel powerful. There is nothing masculine about swallowing industry propaganda because a man online told you vegetables are weak. There is nothing impressive about treating compassion as a threat.
If your masculinity collapses at the sight of tofu, it was never masculinity. It was marketing.