After a health scare involving benign polyps in his colon, content creator Patrick Kong made a conscious decision to overhaul his diet. While his profession involves crafting delicious, often indulgent food like doughnuts, burgers, and rich meat dishes, he adopted a much stricter, more disciplined eating style in his personal life.
His signature meal, a simple one-pan dish of rice and vegetables, often topped with ground beef, results in a somewhat unappetizing ‘kibble’ or ‘slop.’ Kong embraces this concept, explaining, ‘It’s about preparing all your week’s nutrients in one go, then consuming it consistently.’
This utilitarian meal, dubbed ‘boy kibble’ online, is favored by male fitness enthusiasts focused on shedding body fat while preserving muscle. At 28, Kong successfully lost 20 pounds in six months by adhering to this diet.
Kong would cook a substantial amount, divide it into meal-prep containers, and eat it twice daily. To combat the repetitive nature, he’d occasionally introduce various yogurt-based sauces. He noted, ‘This approach helped me meet most of my protein, fiber, and micronutrient targets while maintaining a calorie deficit, allowing for some small snacks.’
Often called ‘human kibble’ because it’s not exclusively for men, this meal is a highly efficient, male-coded counterpoint to the improvisational ‘girl dinner.’ While ‘girl dinner’ on TikTok refers to a casual assortment of snacks women gather without much thought for culinary harmony, ‘boy kibble’ is meticulously designed around nutritional goals—a precise blend of carbohydrates, protein, and fiber aimed at achieving specific body composition or fitness objectives. Flavor and visual appeal are secondary concerns.
Men are certainly no strangers to various dietary approaches; many have explored the meat-focused carnivore diet, intermittent fasting, or become deeply invested in maximizing protein intake, a trend currently known as ‘protein-maxxing.’
Emily Contois, an associate professor of media studies at the University of Tulsa and author of ‘Diners, Dudes and Diets: How Gender and Power Collide in Food Media and Culture,’ notes that such restrictive eating habits were previously limited to specialized fitness communities, like professional athletes or competitive bodybuilders. She posits that the term ‘boy kibble’ serves to normalize these niche practices as they gain wider acceptance.
According to Contois, the word ‘boy’ helps to ‘soften behaviors that might otherwise be seen as toxically masculine.’ This reframing is particularly pertinent during a period where many men are seeking to reassert traditional masculine authority.
Figures like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, with his fitness mandates, and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., with his controversial nutritional advice, illustrate how food and health are increasingly used to symbolize and even politicize masculinity. Moreover, a thriving network of health and longevity podcasters has successfully re-marketed diet culture, traditionally aimed at women, to a male audience.
For many, boy kibble aligns with a broader cultural drive to simplify life, viewing it as another ‘life hack.’ Cameron Cardenas, a Los Angeles-based barista and content creator, admits, ‘I’ve always been lazy in the kitchen and prioritised convenience.’ As a committed runner, he incorporates boy kibble into his diet several times a week to maintain leanness and muscle mass.
He appreciates its affordability and minimal preparation time, stating, ‘It’s an easy and quick way to hit my macros.’ Cardenas finds the ‘boy kibble’ moniker accurate and even amusing in its slightly self-deprecating tone.
The phenomenon has garnered a following online, with the preparation often humorously dubbed ‘ground beef o’clock.’ Social media profiles suggest that consumers are primarily American Gen Z and millennial men. Content creator Josh Rosen jokingly characterized them as ‘post-grad guys, fraternity alumni, living with male roommates in New York.’ Rosen, who is gay, admitted to eating boy kibble during college, when he lived with straight male housemates, acknowledging it’s not strictly a ‘straight male phenomenon.’
He clarified, ‘I don’t think it’s disgusting, but they ate it every single night.’
Regin Mantuano, another user, pictures the typical boy kibble consumer as a corporate professional, often sporting tech pants, a fleece, or a puffer jacket. However, Mantuano himself shared his approach to boy kibble as a ‘girl-dinner-trying-to-add-protein-to-my-meal way,’ distancing it from a more ‘scary-villainous-bro’ persona.
Adrienne Bitar, a Cornell University professor specializing in the cultural impact of food and health, suggests that this trend enables men to avoid the ‘feminine’ associations of dieting. ‘What might be perceived as vain, frivolous, or superficial,’ she explains, ‘men can reframe as optimization and a quantifiable path to becoming their best selves, rather than being solely about appearance.’
Bitar also points to a historical quest for ‘optimal nutritional substances,’ citing examples like Soylent, a popular tech-world fascination from the mid-2010s. She further notes that the term ‘boy’ in ‘boy kibble’ might carry infantilizing connotations.
She contrasts it with ‘girl dinner,’ which is ‘fun, whimsical, and creative,’ while boy kibble lacks focus on ‘flavor or joy,’ prioritizing ‘efficiency and results’ above all else.
Currently, boy kibble remains a niche dietary choice. However, with GLP-1 medications transforming food relationships and social media amplifying results-focused fitness advice, its popularity is on the rise. Kong confirmed that his boy kibble video was a top performer last year, and he continues to receive messages from followers who credit it with their weight loss.
Cardenas observed a distinct difference in how he and his female friends approach food, noting, ‘They’re much more patient with what they consume, not just for health, but also for taste.’ He believes the ‘masculine edge’ of boy kibble lies in its sheer simplicity and the fact that ‘it’s kind of gross the longer you eat it,’ highlighting its purely functional purpose.