Diet as Secular Religion: Keto (Low Carb)

In an age which some might describe as post-religious, the fact that many people exhibit religious fervour in secular pursuits such as politics or environmentalism makes it evident that religion fulfils visceral psychological needs for many.

Diet is yet another area where this phenomenon can be observed. I know that this sort of dietary fervour can be seen among clean eaters, vegans or even those who engage in calorie counting, but for a while I had a front seat view of the behavior of people on the keto diet and am best able to relate it (a few people on self-described low carb diets exhibited some of this behavior, but it was a lot more evident in those identifying as following the keto diet).

It was interesting observing their behavior.

Adherence to the doctrine was promoted as a way to be "healthy", and the more strict you were the more you were applauded. Indeed, it wasn't just viewed as a "diet", but marketed as a "way of eating", which is more transformative and permanent than a "diet".

Contrasts were drawn between adherents' old lives - a fallen state to which they would now never return - and their new ones - enlightened and superior. For example one used this very revealing language: "ketosis can change a person "forever!" I was given a second chance!" This curiously parallels Born Again Christians' testimonies of their lives before and after developing a relationship with Jesus, and the narrative of redemption.

There were all sorts of unscientific claims pushed about the benefits of keto. Many people claimed they didn't fall sick after adopting the diet. One person even went so far as to claim: "I thought keto is healthy eating as well. We are supposed to throw away all our medicines and prescriptions and not take any antibiotics/painkillers".

People kept asking if particular foods or products were "keto approved" (somehow they weren't able to think for themselves and follow simple rules, but felt the need to consult others, especially acknowledged authorities), and authorities would swoop down and make pronouncements, often with little or no logic (and they didn't react well to being contradicted).

Heretics (those who didn't fully adhere to the gospel) were more despised than infidels (those who ate normally) and got chided and mocked, even if infidels were looked down on as benighted; you were not supposed to have cheat days or even meals, since that would supposedly screw up your body and nullify your progress. And heretics who dared to openly challenge dubious claims were treated even more harshly.

There was an obsession with purity. People were obsessed with scrutinising food labels - even if there was 0g of sugar in a product, if they saw trace amounts of sugar in it, they would proclaim it to be forbidden. Given that even the strictest versions of keto allow you up to 20g of carbohydrates a day, it was clear that this was a secular version of religious purity laws - to Jews and Muslims, it doesn't matter how little pork is in a food product, since to them any amount contaminates the whole. One person was sick for a long time, and was angsting about how he was depressed about not recovering because that meant he would need to take cough syrup (which would have sugar in it). Another claimed that he didn't want to eat sugar anymore because it was too sweet - but would happily eat keto-approved sweetened foods.

Beyond sugar, some people went even further and counted fibre in their daily carb allowance (when the body doesn't digest it), since they wanted to get their carb intake as close to 0 as possible. To one particular individual, food couldn't even be cooked in the same container as carbohydrates: "If you are on a strict KETO diet, you don't just skip... you totally omit it.. the starch / carbo of the carrots already blend into the curry when cook, how to skip??" (again, note the parallel with Jewish and Muslim dietary purity laws).

There was an obsession with simplistic rules. Sugar as mentioned above is one of them, but in one low carb group someone was claiming that all vegetables that grew below ground were forbidden, and those that grew above ground were okay. I pointed out that jicama grew below ground but was very low in carbs, and a mod group proclaimed that no one was allowed to point that out since this would "confuse" people.

The list of bad foods which could prevent you from attaining purity was not limited to sugar or even food containing carbohydrates. For some reason lots of people had a vicious hatred of soy products and most vegetable oil (with the exception of coconut and often olive [I believe I saw some people claiming olive oil wasn't good either]). It was as if the more foods that could be thrown out of one's life, the better (as one would be even more pure).

Evangelism was part of the mentality. You were supposed to introduce keto to others so they could see its benefits. Some people even forced it on others, like their kids. One outstanding individual even put his dogs on keto, even though we know it is bad for them (New FDA Warning Cautions Against Grain-Free Dog Food - The Atlantic).


Related:

Diets Are a Lot Like Religion

"The more Levinovitz looked into it, the more parallels he discovered between religious and dietary beliefs, going as far back as the ancient Chinese texts that are his scholarly specialty. “Two thousand years ago, there were these Daoist monks who decided that if you avoided these five grains — and these were the staple crops of China, what the everyday person subsisted on — you’d live forever, you wouldn’t get any diseases,” Levinovitz said. These monks also came up with intricate recipes for nutritional supplements, which they then distributed with similarly spectacular promises of immortality. “I’m looking at this and I’m thinking, You know, this sounds a lot like the kinds of promises that modern, secular so-called diet gurus make to their followers”...

“When it came to diet and health, people were prone to irrationality and they were susceptible to promises that in other contexts perhaps they’d be more critical [of]”...

There’s something comforting about picking a plan out of the chaos and sticking with it.

Religion helps people make sense of a chaotic world: Suddenly, there is order, and there are instructions. All you have to do is follow them. “You have a certainty about the choices you make,” Levinovitz said. “That gives you a way to make decisions, and it makes for a comforting world.” Likewise, nutrition science is a chaotic discipline. Eggs are bad for you until they’re not; MSG is a dangerous food additive until it’s not. It’s understandable why people would pick a way of eating and then stick to their guns; it gives them some solid ground to stand on amid ever-shifting recommendations.

But what about when diets aren’t comforting? Many of them, after all, suggest worlds in which modern life is overflowing with toxins, even in safe-seeming foods — shouldn’t these beliefs be aversive rather than attractive? Not so, said Levinovitz. He used the Food Babe, the very popular food blogger who sees terrifying chemicals everywhere — and who is frequently wrong in her doomsaying — as an example. “One thing I realized — why would you want to live in a world filled with toxins? Why would you follow the Food Babe — isn’t that a terrifying world to live in?” Levinovitz said. You could easily make the same statement about religion: Why would you want to believe in a world where humans are inherently sinful creatures? The idea sounds upsetting from a nonreligious perspective. “But it’s not. It’s a comforting one … The only thing scarier than a world full of toxins is a world in which you don’t know what the toxins are.” If the choice is a nuanced, complicated understanding of the world that contains some uncertainty or a more clear-cut and sharply defined approach, the latter vision is often going to win out.

The idea that “past is paradise” is an alluring one.

Think of one of the most famous Biblical stories, the Garden of Eden. “We were all extremely happy and healthy — well, all two of us — and then we ate the wrong food … and we fell from grace,” Levinovitz said. The Eden story provides an apt narrative structure for “demonizing foods of modernity”... The narrative is easily applied to some of the major objections many people have about genetically engineered foods, too — the idea that using modern technology to alter the foods we eat is new and, subsequently, unnatural or something to be feared...

The vocabulary we use for food has strong undertones of morality.

Think of the words we use to talk about the things we eat: guilt, sinful, “cheat” days, designating foods as “good” or “bad” for you... Many people, he said, wrote about cheating or confessing in anguished terms. “I would literally see the word redeem,” he said. “It’s like, no, your diet is not your spouse — you don’t have to confess that you cheated on your diet. But I see people who come to believe that what you eat is so ethically charged, that they are like committing terrible sins” if they mess up. “It’s this idea that if you sin once it’s the end”...

Aligning yourself with a popular way of eating gives you a sense of belonging...

But there might be a straightforward way to untangle faith from fact when it comes to food...

The answer, appropriately, is itself inspired by a healthy-eating trend: It’s time to detox. “Don’t read anything about nutrition or health for 30 days,” Levinovitz suggested. Don’t visit the blogs, don’t click the headlines, don’t even read food labels. Instead, focus on preparing foods for yourself that make you feel good and that you enjoy. “People like to say that sugar is addictive — well, maybe health information is also addictive, in a very broad sense of the word.”"