People are Eating Rotten, Raw Meat to 'Get High' in Dangerous Online Trend

Of all the bizarre and dangerous trends to gain traction on social media, a practice known as eating "high meat" might be the all-time grossest and most nauseating.

According to IFLScience, the appalling diet trend encourages people to let raw meat rot for several months or even a year before eating it. Once adequately rancid, the decomposed raw meat (aka "high meat") is consumed, and a supposedly euphoric, "high" feeling soon overtakes the person eating.

While some reportedly eat high meat for its alleged mind-altering effects, others actually say they prefer the taste of the rotten flesh, which IFLScience says "is often described as cheesy and more acidic than your average steak."

It's important to note that raw and fermented meat is eaten all around the world and has been for centuries—cured meats like salami are a perfect example—but those examples are not at all similar to the uncontrolled rot featured in so-called "high meat."

The concept of "high meat" is not entirely new—as Vice reports, the trend has been lurking on Reddit and other internet enclaves for years. In 2017, for example, this anti-vegan YouTuber posted a video of himself eating meat that had been rotting for a full year. Meanwhile, a two-year-old Reddit post in r/carnivores asks how one might "transition into eating...rotten meat."

However, online discussion about high meat has surged since a series of viral tweets brought newfound attention to the little-known practice.

Last week, Twitter user @superloafcat shared screenshots of recent pro-high meat tweets alongside the simple caption, "Losing my mind over this." Soon, others started researching the practice and were equally horrified by the results.

"Went down a rabbit hole today of people who leave meat out and eat it raw and honestly the pictures just constantly have me on the verge of vomiting," wrote another Twitter user. "It might just be because food photography is hard, but...damn. I'm not converted to the 'high meat' movement."

Despite the anecdotal claims of high meat advocates, experts are resounding in their opposition to the trend, noting that eating rancid, raw meat can cause severe illness.

As Naras Lapsys, a Singapore-based consultant dietitian, told Vice, it's possible that "a whole range" of bacteria present in rotten meat could be behind the reported "high, or hallucination, or a feeling of euphoria."

However, it's simply a matter of luck as to whether or not the high meat will make the person eating it violently ill. "There's all sorts of bacteria—salmonella, shigella, E. coli—all of these things that our human body might really struggle with breaking down," Lapsys said.

In addition to food poisoning, Vice notes that the consumption of high meat has the potential to cause uncontrollable bowel movements, large intestinal damage, vomiting, dehydration, and even botulism.