If your diet doesn’t get at least 10 milligrams of vitamin C every day, you could develop scurvy after a few weeks. Symptoms of scurvy include depression, anemia, fatigue, and inflammation. Your body needs vitamin C to make collagen and to ward off free radicals that can damage your cells. Vitamin C also helps absorb iron from your food. You get vitamin C mainly from fruits and vegetables, which are abandoned on a carnivore diet. The vitamin C and other nutrients in these foods work together to help lower your risk for some cancers, cardiovascular disease, and age-related macular degeneration, according to the National Institutes of Health.
Vitamin E might also be tough to get on a carnivore diet unless you eat snails and fish eggs, such as roe. Vitamin E is another antioxidant that also supports your immune system and prevents blood clots. You need 15 milligrams of vitamin E a day, and a 4-ounce uncooked flank steak provides just 0.34 milligrams. Chicken liver only provides a little more vitamin E with 0.79 milligrams, but 100 grams of sockeye salmon will give you 0.83 milligrams. Meanwhile, if you eat 100 grams of roe, you’ll get almost half your recommended amount of vitamin E. Snails will give you one-third of your vitamin E for the day.