Alyse Parker just uploaded a video “I tried the Carnivore Diet for 30 days (ex-vegan)”. So, today we are going to talk about this dangerous and unlawful video posted by Alyse parker. For those of you who don’t know this plant-based poser's history, and association with veganism, then check out my two previous videos on Alyse. In them I expose her tendency to lie compulsively. Here is Part 1 and Part 2. Here is the video I am referring to in this blog post.
Okay, let's get into this carnviore video. The video is not only deficient in science (and fibre), but also actual content. It starts with this repetitive mainstream commercial beat that is designed to stick in your head, to help information retention. Within the first 5 seconds I could tell it was filmed by a professional camera crew. Alyse slaps down this huge slab of factory farmed animal flesh, and because she is a frugivore, not a carvnivore, she starts off by salting the meat intensely to disguise the taste of decomposing flesh. She then whacks it on the bbq as every natural carnivore does. We then see the beginning of her fraudulent behaviour as she starts to eat a different cut of meat from what was cooked on the BBQ. She puts one piece of flesh in her mouth, and that is it. This is the LAST time we see her cook or even begin to eat any meat. That’s because she didn’t do the challenge and I'll get to that later.
Firstly though, I want to point out the fact that Alyse is just a paid actress in a commercial brought to you by this unethical company: Butcherbox. A company whose CEO has made 30 million dollars in just two years furthering animal exploitation in the world. A company that has an abysmal reputation and alarming reviews on yelp which we will get to later. In one year they also paid out over 1 million dollars in commissions to affiliates like Alyse.
But what is of must relevance here is that the company and Alyse are breaking FTC influencer advertising laws and potentially consumer rights laws within this video. And if she doesn’t take it down then her and butcherbox risk being sued by not only the Federal Trading Commission but also individuals or groups who have taken on the challenge. That’s right. The FTC is going after US influencers in a big way. These laws are in place to protect consumers from people like Alyse and companies like Butcherbox who use deceptive misleading marketing techniques to promote dangerous products and services to the public for money. Butcherbox already pulled up for deceptive advertising and a dishonest subscription service (class action details) and now, it seems, they are at it again.
Recently the FTC released updated guidelines outlining rules around paid sponsorships and as we know Alyse doesn’t research anything therefore she is not complying with those rules. The FTC is very clear about what is required of influencers and the importance of not misleading or withholding information from viewers. It is not enough to state that you are being sponsored for the video by just slipping it into the description box, you need to state within the first 30 seconds that the video is sponsored by the company and ideally state that you are receiving money from the company. The goal here is that the viewer must be fully aware they are viewing an AD.
About half-way through the video Alyse finally begins to advertise the company but in a deceptive way. She doesn’t disclose being paid by them but rather says, “so I teamed up with butcherbox” as if disclosing the fact that she was paid for this video. No. “Teaming up” is not disclosing to your audience that you are being paid to make this video and promote this product to them and it is breaking the FTC rules. So, if she doesn’t remove the video then she is going to have big problems which brings us to the next point which ties in with the potential litigation issues she faces.
Alyse makes a number of unverified claims throughout the video like “It (the carnivore diet) has been shown to help relieve the symptoms of from many illnesses such as auto immunity, fatigue, obesity, inflammatory diseases, and more”. This is a bald-faced lie, and she cites no reputable sources to support the claim. She shows infographics without citing any scientific references. There's no scientific research to support that an all-meat diet would benefit your health in any way at all but there is a plethora of research confirming a high intake of meat increases one’s risk for a range of diseases and premature death. So, under the payment of ButcherBox. Alyse is promoting a challenge that is dangerous and can potentially kill a consumer.
For example, lets take consumer, Jane for instance. Jane has a pre-existing heart condition, she watches Alyse’s video and decides to take on this ‘carnivore’ challenge. Jane buys and eats the amount of meat necessary to sustain herself on this challenge (from butcherbox) say at least 2100 calories a day for a woman for 30 days which would make it around 60.000 calories or more from meat. Alyse said she consumed 80% from butcherbox during the time so say that would be around 50.000 calories from animal flesh from the company. Which is an extremely dangerous amount of saturated animal fat and protein for a start. Half-way through the challenge Jane has a heart attack and dies (which is highly possible) then Jane’s family can quite reasonably sue Alyse, and the company, for omitting important warnings about the dangers of an all meat diet and making false claims. These fallacious unverified statements may increase potential sales of the product. Not only the family, but the FTC, or the attorney general.
Alyse awkwardly compares this challenge to not washing her hair for a month or going off social media for 30 days. No Alyse it is not the same. You are quite literally endangering peoples lives and furthering animal exploitation and encouraging the rapid depletion of the planets resources with your recommendations. This is NOT the same as going poo-free.
Some risks Alyse omitted in her video for example, from the cancer council: Science has confirmed the consumption of 700 grams or more (raw weight) of red meat a week increases your risk of bowel cancer. That the risk of developing bowel cancer goes up 1.18 times for every 50 grams of processed meat eaten per day. Alyse is promoting bacon and other cured meat in the video, a class one carcinogen.
The World Health Organization has classified processed meats including ham, bacon, salami and frankfurts as a Group 1 carcinogen (known to cause cancer). Eating processed meat increases your risk of bowel and stomach cancer. Red meat, such as beef, lamb and pork, has been classified as a Group 2A carcinogen which means it probably causes cancer.
The legal issue here is that these unverified statements are not only false, and potentially damaging to the public, but they increase potential sales of the product in a deceptive way. This in turn increases profits for the company.
Here is a break down of Alyse’s unlawful behaviour:
- She didn’t disclose that she was being paid for the video within the actual video (first 30 seconds) which by law she has to.
- She didn’t tick the ‘paid promotion’ box on youtube.
- She acted in a deceptive way by claiming to be giving viewers a special ‘gift’ from her to entice them to buy the product when it was just a discount from the company which she actually receives as a kick back from every purchase of these torture box. Here is her affiliate marketing page.
- Butcherbox states in their affiliate marketing TOS, “Disclosures should be made in the same medium as the claim (e.g., video, text)”. Alyse did not disclose in the video that she was being paid. Only in the description.
- She omitted important information in the video warning the viewer or consumer of the potential dangers of undertaking a diet like this.
- She misled viewers by claiming false benefits of a health product/ service that is not backed by scientific evidence
- As for the Youtube TOS goes she is also promoting a phoney cure.
SO, Alyse films a ‘day 1’ where she supposably gives away all her high fibre foods. She even looks sad as she gives away fruit. She then says she is setting clear guidelines and proceeds to buy meats cured in plants. The beef and bison cured meats have dried cherries, cranberries, plants, plants, carbs. The wild smoked salmon from ducktrap is prepared with cane sugar, more plants, more carbs. So, yeh, she claimed the challenge she was doing had zero carbs but again she is lying.
Alyse then explains why she will be including some ‘comforts’ into this challenge. Hang on, this is meant to be a carnivore challenge she said at the start. There you have it. Before the challenge even starts Alyse fails and has plant stimulants (macha and coffee) and we know why right? Because no carbs = no energy = addicted to caffeine.
She then suddenly jumps from day 1 to day 10 where she starts talking to the camera with a heavy filter on. Day 10, Hang on, not one bit of footage from the whole ten days? We didn’t see this carnivore eat one piece of meat. Therefore, the first supposed 5 days she was also eating dairy, and if Alyse cared to research she would have discovered that dairy contains lactose which is a sugar, which is a carbohydrate. So she was eating carbs all along if she actually even did 5 days.
Alyse then leads into her introduction of butcherbox by pretending to care about animals and the environment by speaking about the horrors of factory farming. This ironically is coming from a girl supposedly eating animals for 30 days straight. ALYSE, please stop pretending to give a fuck about animals, your covers been blown, we know you don't.
So, this Butcherbox company is highly suspect. They claim to source ‘grass-fed grass-finished’ beef and make ambiguous claims like 'high quality, humanely raised, no antibiotics or hormones ever' but when you look on their website they provide no evidence of this. Their beef does not have any certification from anyone, not even certified organic, nothing. And what raises my suspicions even more about their grass-finished claims is that they declare the beef they source is from Australia. Where I live. For one, this is a way to avoid any scrutiny by the USDA about their grass fed claims. Although the USDA largely doesn’t even verify grass fed claims and instead lets farms “self-certify” their own beef. Which of course is ridiculous as it is unregulated. And the government no longer has an official definition of the term 'grass-fed,' or ‘grass finished’ which means it’s a free for all and anyone can call their cattle grass fed and grass finished and don’t have to provide any evidence of this at all.
And If it is true that the Butcherbox meat is from Australia then the air miles are another contradiction to their ‘sustainable’ local claims. Butchberbox continues to make vague claims on the site like “Besides being delicious, the health benefits of eating grass-fed, grass-finished meat are abundant.” And then of course they list no health benefits anywhere. Because there aren't any.
So im calling bullshit on the grass-finished claims. I believe it’s factory farmed just like over 99% of food animals in the USA... But, even if it was true, these poor exploited animals still end up in the house of slaughter at a fraction of their life span so uneducated puppets like Alyse can line their pockets with blood-money.
We then suddenly jump to day 23! This girl appears to have no conscience, she doesn’t give two shits about lying to her long term viewers if it means she makes the cash. She boasts about having abs due to starving herself through intermittent fasting. Not impressive Alyse. It's just water loss which you will gain back. I have abs and have done for over a decade. I’m averaging 2500 calories a day from a high carb vegan diet, no starvation, no coffee comforts, no animal exploitation.
Then, from day 23 we are swiftly on day 30. Look, this is a scam. She didn’t show one piece of meat the entire time and now the challenge is supposedly over. Alyse says she lost around 2lbs in the 30 days. Actually the scales say 1.5 lbs. I'm immediately drawn to her toe nails right now as her nail polish looks very similar to day 1, same colour, scuffed, just looks a little too similar to me.
Alyse then shows this strange before and after comparison where she looks exactly the same, but she stood further away in the after, what to appear smaller? This is one of the strangest before and afters I’ve seen. My bet is she didn’t want to display side by side because it will show that she looks exactly the same because this wasn’t filmed over 30 days it was filmed more like over 2 days and possibly 5 at the most. Think about it, do you think Alyse is going to look EXACTLY the same after 30 days eating ONLY steaks, bacon, eggs, salmon and cured meats? Of course not.
She then goes onto lie about the benefits and claims to having better focus without supposedly any carbs when the brain requires 25% of the body’s glucose for fuel. More fuel than the rest of the body. She then talks to this Mikhaila Peterson of The Lion Diet who pushes this rebranded version of the carnivore diet. She forgets to mention that Mikhaila's mum is apparently dying of kidney disease connected with this dreadful carnivore diet.
Alyse then says this at the end “as always I will keep you updated on my diet after this challenge is over”… hang on a second but the challenge is already over, isn’t it Alyse?? If we back up a few moments she said the challenge was already over. Busted Alyse.
So, it’s pretty obvious she just filmed this on the same day with the camera crew. She didn’t do this challenge; no footage of her cooking, eating or anything, virtually no weight change, looks exactly the same, suspicious nail polish, kitchen looks the same. Nope. BUSTED.
Watch my video here for the full run down.
If you want to make a complaint about deceptive advertising then I recommend doing it here: https://www.truthinadvertising.org/alert-us/
Since I released my video it has been featured in interviews with mainstream online media outlets. You can read some here from news.com.au and the NZ Herald and Yahoo News.
