Eva eats steak, pork brains, beef heart and solid fat – all uncooked.
A 56-year-old former vegan has revealed the secret behind her amazing physique – saying she has the “body of a 25-year-old” thanks to a diet of “raw meat and organs,” which has made her “healthier than ever.”
Wedding officiant Eva LaRoche – who admits to trying food fads from veganism to caveman diets in the past – also says since becoming a “raw carnivore” two years ago she has cured her “lifelong constipation” and now has bowel movements as regular as clockwork.
Mum-of-two Eva of Chicago, Illinois, USA, who compares the taste of raw brains to “custard without the sugar,” said: “I feel better so much fitter and stronger now, and I have the body I had when I was 25.”
She continued: “Straight away I saw an overall improvement to my health and I went from having boulder-hard poo to soft and regular bowel movements every day. On top of that, I haven’t got sick once.”
Eva, who is married to Bryan, 52, a training director, has a son, Liam, 27, who works in finance, and a daughter Ilona, 23, who is a tennis manager, claims that within days of becoming a raw carnivore, she went from being constipated for weeks to having daily bowel movements.
She explained: “My whole life I had tried everything to fix this problem – which has been so bad at times that going to the toilet felt like giving birth – but nothing worked.”
Blaming her problem on having an underactive thyroid – the gland which produces hormones to regulate how the body processes food – Eva spent years trialling different diets, desperate for a cure.
First she went low-fat in her early 20s, stringently avoiding greasy treats, then she became a vegetarian aged 32 – going even further by becoming vegan, shunning all animal products entirely, four years later.
“For me, it was never about the ethics or the animals. I just wanted to do whatever was best for my body and I would do whatever it took to be as fit and healthy as possible,” explained Eva, who brought up her children as vegans, although her husband, Bryan, continued to eat a normal diet.
After six years of veganism, Eva said her digestive problems did not improve and her general health deteriorated.
She continued: “I really didn’t notice much improvement and I remember my older sister Susan saying to me, ‘How come you’re ill so much even though you eat so healthily?’
“It was true, I had a cold every month, flu once a year, and after a few years of being vegan my hair started to fall out and my skin became really dry.”
Deciding enough was enough, in 2002, Eva gave the food fads a rest for a while and started eating a balanced diet again, allowing her children to do the same.
But when she came across the ‘paleolithic diet’ in 2007 – so named as it refers to a diet based on foods presumed to have been available to humans hundreds of thousands of years ago – Eva adopted another strict dietary plan, consuming only meat, fruit, vegetables and nuts.
Claiming her constipation became even worse, with bowel movements only once every eight to 14 days, she recalled: “I was getting quite despairing and just wanted to find the key to fix this problem that had been there forever.”
She continued: “Then one day I was scrolling through a Facebook group for paleolithic dieters and I saw someone talking about raw meat eating being really beneficial for your health.
“I thought, ‘What have I got to lose?'”
Starting slowly with raw beef steaks, which she would eat with suet – hard, uncooked beef fat – Eva soon graduated to more gory meals, sourcing pork brains and kidney, beef livers and heart from nearby farmers and local butchers.
“As soon as I discovered raw carnivorism, within days, my constipation was cured,” she said.
“It’s really done wonders for my health more generally, too. I never get colds any more, I’ve got much more energy and my body is fitter than it has ever been.”
Eating a daily fare of steak and offal – including brains, liver and kidneys – all uncooked – Eva also regularly garnishes her meaty meals with chunks of animal fat.
She claims going without carbohydrates has made her body more efficient at burning fat for energy.
But, while she never tires of eating meat for each of her two daily meals, Eva admits that her extreme dietary plan means she rarely eats out, as most restaurants refuse to serve raw meat.
Eva, who, won’t eat raw chicken due to the health risks, added: “This way of eating is still very new and little understood.”
Eva continued: “My family also think I’m pretty crazy eating the way I do, but they have got used to it now and know that I do it because it makes me feel better.
“They say that eating raw pork can be dangerous, but I have never had a problem and I’m always very careful to source the animals I eat and only get them from responsible farmers.
“I’ve spent a lifetime struggling with my health and now that I have found something that works for me, I’m not going to stop just because it seems strange to other people.”
Daniel O’Shaughnessy, a nutritionist for The Naked Nutritionist clinic in Harley Street, London, warned of the risks of eating raw meat.
He said: “While there can be benefits to consuming organ meats – such as providing a good source of vitamin A and iron, it’s not safe to say that this is OK to eat raw due to the possible risk of food poisoning. Even consuming steak tartare is not recommended.
“A raw meat diet is very restricted and additionally increases the risk of nutritional deficiencies as the diet is lacking in vitamins and minerals.”
