Healthy & Awake Podcast · Mike Vera, Board-Certified Health Coach

Carnivore Diet w/ Dr. Shawn Baker [Ep. 57]

·56 min·3 clips

Baker says plant-based diets have more funding than carnivore research, but thousands of patients improved anyway.

Mike Vera starts from a straightforward complaint: the plant-based moment has been overpromised. He points to fake meat companies like Beyond Meat and Impossible Burger, along with lab-meat hype, as examples of a costly story that is not landing well with buyers. The guest is presented as someone Vera respects and wants to hear from directly. Vera also says he has recently been doing the carnivore diet himself because of long-running health and gut issues. That personal shift gives the discussion its emotional center. The episode keeps returning to the gap between official food messaging and lived experience. Vera frames the conversation around skepticism and asks listeners to think for themselves. The guest argues that meatless products can look attractive to investors because they are cheaper to make, easier to store, and more profitable at scale. He contrasts that with beef and steak, which take real time, land, feed, and money to produce. The comparison is blunt and meant to make the economics feel plain. From there, the episode turns to the size of the meat market. Vera and the guest talk about meatless Mondays as a small share of a massive industry with huge upside for anyone who can shift consumer habits. The argument is not subtle: if even one day a week can be captured, the money adds up fast. The guest uses that point to suggest that some of the pressure around meat is driven by financial interest, not just public health concern. Vera does not try to soften that suspicion. Instead, he keeps the tone personal and practical. He says he does not care whether listeners believe he has credibility. He says he is not being paid to push carnivore and would rather see people get healthier on their own terms. He ties that hope to a broader wish for a healthier society and fewer mental health problems overall. That widens the episode beyond one diet claim and turns it into a reflection on what kind of health culture people are building. The conversation also circles around Vera's own temperament. He describes himself as skeptical and conservative in thought, which fits the way the episode is structured. Rather than selling carnivore as a miracle, the show treats it as a response to failed answers and ongoing frustration. The last stretch shifts back toward the practical side of the show, with Vera pointing listeners to his websites and consultation links. The episode closes with the usual call to stay healthy and stay awake, but the main thread is clear: food choices, profit motives, and health outcomes are tangled together, and the host wants listeners to notice the tangle.

As heard by us

A blunt carnivore conversation about gut health, food money, and why processed substitutes keep drawing suspicion.

The episode treats carnivore eating as a question of incentives as much as taste, tying gut trouble, plant-based branding, fake meat, and food-company profit motives into one straight line.

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Why you'd press play

For when your gut, your food beliefs, and your skepticism all need a reset.

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