Stick around long enough on your Reels or TikTok, and you’ll likely run into the trend known as “boy kibble”—the masculine gymbro antithesis to “girl dinner” that became popular a couple of years ago. And when I first saw the food people were humorously labeling boy kibble, I got hit with a little, tiny wave of shame. Because I knew what boy kibble was in my heart. Every now and then, I cook it for myself in the quest to scarf down as much protein as I can in a single day, all without going crazy.
You see, boy kibble is simple (and ridiculously so): it’s ground beef and rice, designed to be cooked fast and easy to meal-prep.
I personally put in a good amount of spices. I prefer oregano and sometimes cumin to make it taste Mexican or Middle Eastern, and I’ll even alternate between sriracha and truffle mayo. Sometimes you mix in a couple of eggs. All of this, to create a meal that should be around 30 to 40 grams of protein in a way that’s as clean (read: fewest calories) as possible.
Is there any dignity in boy kibble?
Of course, when I first heard of the ground beef and rice meal, it wasn’t marketed as “boy kibble.”
It was just an unironically clean meal designed to minmaxx protein, carbs, and calories for the active individual trying to shed fat while saving their muscles and energy. But I understand the dog food comparisons. In a way, when your appetite isn’t trained to water at the sight of a lot of protein in one meal, the whole thing could look boring and sometimes undignified. “People really eat like this?” you might ask.
And well, the truth is, they do. Cutting weight and torching all that fat requires food that is intentionally designed to reduce collateral damage, and anything indulgent and plain appetizing just doesn’t serve the goals of one trying to improve their aesthetics.
When we set out on a quest to lose weight and burn fat, we knew exactly what we signed up for: the absence of dignity in what is essentially a subsistence meal. You can feel bad or pity, but don’t be—because the boy kibble phase almost always isn’t forever. (Or else we’ll go crazy.)
READ: Eat and exercise like no one is watching
Is boy kibble an eating disorder?
A month ago, I wrote about a possible (and yet unratified) eating disorder known as orthorexia, or the ironically unhealthy obsession with eating clean and keeping track of macro and micronutrients.
On the surface, boy kibble looks like it’s made for the orthorexic—with its insistence of barebones protein, carbs, and calories, and the possible lack of flavor. Like many other healthy foods and meals, I don’t believe that ground beef and rice by itself is a bad thing, and I’m not saying that just because I prepare the dish every now and then.
I think a habit of eating nothing but boy kibble, without switching it up to something more satisfying and dopamine-giving, is the disorder. Sometimes, boy kibble isn’t a matter of being there because it’s clean and healthy; for me, sometimes it’s because it’s easiest to cook by boiling rice, frying ground beef and eggs, and throwing on some powders and sauces.
In the same manner that a sparse girl dinner is acceptable because normal, ordinary girls have it when they’re feeling some type of way, boy kibble should be okay because it is at least a matter of nutrition. Like most food, we’re probably only going to have a problem when a guy offers it to someone else who doesn’t want it and isn’t chasing muscle-building and/or fat-burning goals.
With other dishes taking a lot more executive function to prepare and food delivery being expensive to do on a regular basis, let the guys have their boy kibble. And while you definitely should not knock it until you try it, I also don’t recommend having it for every meal every day—unless you have strict fitness goals.
Because even then, there are also better, more flavorful ways to hit your macros while keeping the calories down.