The scales of trends always seem to seek balance. As more Americans than ever are leaning their diets in a more plant-based direction, inevitably, so the carnivore diet rises.

A recent feature in Discover explored the pros and cons of existing solely on animal products — and raised the eternal questions around the wisdom of intensely restrictive diets. For everyone who's grown up with — and struggled with — the tyranny of food pyramid and the notion that abundant, expensive variety is the key to good health, could whittling your grocery list way down instead be a better option?

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The carnivore diet is exactly like it sounds — just meat, fish, poultry, dairy and eggs. You can, in some cases, jazz things up with certain spices, but that's it. Kind of makes Whole 30 look like the Golden Corral.

It's just the latest restrictive diet in a history of wellness trends that's taken us from cabbage soup to grapefruit to raw food to fruitarianism to weight loss shakes and juice cleanses. And like its predecessors, there may be at least some short term benefits. As Christopher Gardner, director of nutrition studies at the Stanford Prevention Research Center, told Discover, "One of the main things they’re doing on that carnivore diet is they’re getting rid of all their added sugar and refined grain. That is 40 percent of the American diet, and getting rid of that has got to do good things for your health." And I'll admit that when a friend of mine told me not long ago that she'd embarked on a carnivore diet, I was intrigued by her glowing energy and enthusiasm. I also somehow wanted to beg her to eat an orange.

For the omnivorous among us — and the Catholic school survivors — the thought of putting anything off limits immediately makes it........

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