Former Bachelorette Elly Miles Has Been Slammed For Promoting A Controversial Diet

Another day, another influencer controversy. This time it’s surrounding former Bachelorette, Elly Miles, and a diet she’s promoting to her 206k followers.

Over the weekend, Elly uploaded an Instagram Story about the carnivore diet — a meat, fish and animal product diet that she follows — where she posted a chart divided into “least” and “most” toxic foods. From the get-go, this doesn’t sound good and reeks of diet culture.

The controversy largely came from the section that lists the “most toxic” foods, which included: leafy greens, onions, “nightshades” (tomatoes, eggplants, potatoes and capsicums), broccoli, grains and seeds.

So yep, basically everything that most people not only consider health foods, but foods that should be eaten daily to maintain a balanced diet.

The post was heavily panned and after being shared in the So Dramatic! Facebook group, several commenters were outraged that such a thing could be posted by someone unqualified to offer such advice. “Dietitian here. This is absolute garbage. This message is toxic, the foods aren’t. Dietary advice should come from professionals. End of story,” one user wrote. Another added, “It should be illegal to share posts like this!!!! Why isn’t it flagged as false information????”

It should be noted that the diet that Elly is endorsing is extremely controversial and there’s very little data around its effectiveness or side-effects for your health. The diet eliminates entire food groups — including certain vegetables and carbohydrates — which is in stark opposition to the Australian Dietary Guidelines.

While people might lose weight from the diet at first, it’s not something that many dieticians recommend as a longterm lifestyle choice. “Frankly, this diet is neither desirable nor fun,” dietary nutritionist Sandy Younan Brikho told Forbes. “Ultimately, I think if it works it’s because there are very limited options to eat, thus reducing the likelihood that people will overeat.”

Elly has since removed the Instagram Story.