What about a subtler zombie pathogen that merely rewires your brain to make you allergic to everything but meat. It would have longer to spread, and the increase in consumption would probably cause a general environmental collapse.
You’d have aspects of cannibalism, societal collapse, and dramatic infection deceit scenes and nobody would ever look like a zombie.
People would have to publicly eat plants to prove they’re not zombies to enter secure areas. Remember the time Arby’s made a fake carrot that was made of meat? They called it a megetable. That’s real. What if the infected wormed their way into the food industry and started mislabeling things to muddy the waters due to social stigma?
Scientific zombies wouldn’t necessarily look dead, and a real version would be way less overt.
I think you’re reading some things into what I said to make it magical, but it’s not important. I’m just ideating because you got me excited about an idea.