5 months ago my income halved and I had to make some hard decisions. Unbelievably (because I so so so didn’t want to) I quit smoking after 45+ years of quite heavy smoking, and I quit carnivore. I also cost cut everywhere else I could and food-wise I have been pretty much living on cheese and luncheon sandwiches with cheap margarine, hot n spicy 2 minute noodles, oats and yoghurt, with milk made from milk powder in my cups of tea and coffee - all bought when on very good specials.
Roll on 5 months. I’ve gained about 5kg of the 19 I lost on carnivore, which I expected but aren’t happy about. But pain-wise - oh boy!! I had a normal C reactve protein result for the 1st time in my life when on carni, and now inflammation rules again. The arthritis in my knees is so bad I can barely walk some days, and all my other buggered joints and busy singing the song of their people too. Fibromyalgia pain is also a lot worse.
One thing I stupidly did when on carni was I weaned myself off my anti-depressant. My mood dipped from my usual low to very low, then completely tanked. The tanking began while I was still on carni but got to a critical point soon after I started eating a lot of bread and some highly processed foods. I went back on the anti-depressant in late November and am thankfully back to my usual low mood. I wish anti-depressants did more than keep me out of crisis but at least they do something
On the 24th of Feb this year I restarted carnivore. I’d grabbed my credit card a few days earlier and gone to our budget supermarket to stock my freezer with about a month’s worth of the cheapest meat there - ground beef, pork shoulder chops and a few kg of rump steak. Chicken is cheaper per kg but I don’t find it at all filling. I’m not 100% sure how the hell I’m going to do this financially, but I just can’t handle the pain -and gaining weight is going to make it worse.
I lost 2.5kg after a week, which I expected. Goodbye carbs = goodbye all the water cells need to use carbs. Plus a bit of it would also have been legit weight loss, as I wasn’t as hungry so ate less. I had a very hungry day yesterday and I think today will be another. This was common when I was doing carni - hungry days, not so hungry days - and I’m going to do what I did then - listen to my body and eat more meat on hungry days, especially during the early healing phases.
Pain-wise I’m better. Taking my dogs out for a run is going to be very painful for a while. I’m expecting that to slowly settle tho, and taking them out will go back to somewhat painful.
I lost my beautiful Grace to cancer in November 2022 and in August last year I got a new pup as a buddy for Lulu, my 2 year old “mini” rottie. Sophi is another “mini”. I think God is looking after me in giving me dogs that end up smaller than their breeds indicate lol. She’s half amstaff, quarter english mastiff, quarter rottie - but only 25ish kg at 11 months old. Lulu, a supposed pure bred rottie, is 30kg. I haven’t had a staffy before and boy oh boy, does Sophi act like a lot of staffy owners describe. Lulu is very biddable, Sophi is very “hmmm dunno if I want to do that Mum, let me think about it for a minute or 2”. Also super excited every time she sees people she knows, including Ruby who lives here! She goes from 0 to 10 in a split second. The rest of the time she is very cruisy. Her life motto seems to be “Why stand or sit when you can lay down”.
This can be the challenge… how to do carni on a budget. I am going to retire soon, so my income will go down a lot too very soon, and I have thought about this a bit. My planned strategies are:
Eat a lot of eggs. In my part of the world, I can get a dozen free range eggs for about A$5 (US$3). Now that sounds cheap to me, and I reckon I am gonna do a lot of egg dishes!
The cheapest source of steak near me is Aldi, who do rump steaks for about A$18/kg (US$6/lb). That looks like the type of steak I could afford, not sure I could do anything more expensive.
Ground beef is A$10/kg (US$3.50/lb), and that looks likely to be a staple.
There are frequently lamb and pork deals at the supermarket, and I can get those for approx A$8/kg (US2.50/lb), and my plan is to buy BIG when these deals come up, as that is likely to be the cheapest real meat I can buy.
Bacon tends to be expensive, so I am thinking that may turn into a treat food for me.
Butter will need to be bought in bulk, and the cheapest I can find, and I will just have to buy cream as and when I need it.
Dining out will become a pretty rare treat: at the moment, I do about 2 meals a week at a cafe, but that is going to drop to 2 a month or less. Eating out is expensive.
I will be becoming an expert at using up leftovers. At the moment, I am an amateur at this (I try, but I’m not that good), but this will become a focus.
I am going to start making my own condiments. I have tried this in the past, and it was not easy… it was pretty time consuming. But as a retiree, I think I will have plenty of time to do this job well.
Cheese will also become a condiment, and not a frequent purchase.
I make my own carni mayo using cream cheese and sour cream… this will continue, both fairly cheap inputs.
I currently spend a bit on Redmond’s Real Salt… but it is expensive. I am going to have to use basic cheap salt from the supermarket.
I already save a lot of meat fat from roasts, store them up, but I am hopeless at using them… I probably only use 10% of what I save and store, and regularly have to throw it away. Need to get better at using that as a free ingredient.
Additional beef ideas: I am going to use corned beef, but soak it first, and that gets rid of the salt, and cooks OK, and is much cheaper. Also there are usually good deals on stewing steak: takes a bit of cooking, but tastes OK when done well.
Hope I have triggered some ideas that you might be able to use.
Take care.
Alec
Hey Alec, that’s a great list. Sounds like you’ve given your up-coming change in finances a lot of thought. I did my previous 14 months carni on a pretty tight budget but thankfully my favourite red meats happen to be the least expensive ones - beef mince at $14-15 per kg, pork shoulder chops or roast at around $11 per kg when on a very good special, and the cheapest non-special rump steak I can get my hands on is around $21 per kg. I checked around every week for these 3 to be on a good special somewhere and bought up large when they were. My low interest credit card comes in handy for this. Chicken drums are often on a special somewhere or other for $5-6 per kg but I just don’t find chicken filling. Your eggs are crazy cheap over the ditch (I’m in NZ). They’re a shocking price here but that’s ok, I don’t find them at all filling either so rarely buy them.
I laughed reading what you said about leftovers, trying to figure out what a leftover is when eating carni. To me it’s just some meat to eat cold the next day, if I do a roast.
Thankfully I rarely get tired of eating the same thing week in week out, so am quite content living on beef mince, fatty pork, some rump steak here and there, a bit of cheese and my fav super low carb greek yoghurt. But it’s quite a bit more expensive than the really not-good-for-me stuff I’ve been eating the past 5 months. I’m going to use up the powdered milk I have even tho it’s a bit carby, tho not carby enough to stop the instant water loss I had on the scales one week in. When it’s gone I’ll probably go back to having cream in my coffee, tho cream here isn’t cheap. A bridge to cross when I get there.
I don’t dine out and I can cross butter, carni mayo, condiments and redmonds salt off your list as costs because I don’t eat them. What condiments do you use that you’re going to try making?
I enjoyed and got a lot of encouragement from reading your journey when I last frequented the boards. Thanks for replying. Did you watch the T 20s and the 1st test match over here? Dang your cricket team is good at the moment. The 2nd test is in a few days. Hoping we do better!
Carnivore is my cheapest woe this far I think (and I need that)… I could go lower on non-carni but it wouldn’t be nice. Okay, part of it is that carbs just make me hungry so they wouldn’t help, in the contrary but I truly am experienced and thought about these things a lot (not just out of necessity, I don’t even eat where I “should”, I mean, I still drink coffee and that is a waste of money in my case… no, it’s interesting to calculate what food is worth it when one really can’t spend more than strictly necessary. cheese is way too expensive, I couldn’t afford that if I was super poor. carbs would be out except legumes, those are way better… but I digress).
It’s harder if one is sensitive or there is food availability problems so the cheaper but still good options I use are out. But there are options, almost always. One can do it better, usually…
I wonder if it helps how I eat on carnivore. And how I would eat if I didn’t have $5-$6 for food per day (that is plenty enough to keep all my fat well, fat is very cheap… protein usually isn’t… and I eat 130-180g protein on most days… it could be way cheaper with less without sacrifices. yep, I need OMAD if possible, I am a bad one to spend this much sorry, it’s my personal problem)…
Even if I live in Hungary.
I can’t afford beef, of course. I eat pork (good it’s my fav and I love even cheap supermarket pork), turkey, sometimes chicken liver (I used to eat much more, I like it. but it’s too nutritious so 500g for 2 weeks should be enough. it’s one meal in this household if I use butter… that is expensive but I don’t use much and it’s WONDERFUL), eggs… And all kind of dairy I like and can get on sale. I buy almost everything on sale, I enjoy so much that the carnivore items I eat regularly go on sale
I focus on protein, fat is cheap and I shouldn’t spend a lot of money on dairy fat when it’s way cheaper if I just buy fattier meat (that I prefer). As I want to lose fat, I should avoid low-protein dairy anyway as they don’t satiate me and I should eat as lean as I comfortably can but that’s my personal situation. I love fat too much and I need high protein as I wrote.
Sometimes I wonder why people say eggs are expensive. But they say the same about meat. Meat can be really cheap especially for the value. If I want to spend as little as I comfortably can on food, I must choose meat over eggs - but SOME eggs are needed and it’s fine. Eggs can’t satiate me so well, that is part of the picture. But eggs are so versatile, they add variety too… Useful allies! My number two food now, after meat.
If I want a bit affordable luxury, I buy pork chuck for $6/kg. That is a big pricy for my budget (as I can’t stop with the eggs/dairy/tea/other extras. if I could eat only meat, it would be fine) but it’s not like I make a whole meal of it so often. I almost never go higher than that.
But IDK about the OP.
My normal meat is around $3.5/kg, organs and chicken may be way lower, even around $2.
Yep but we have smoked pork belly instead A bit similar, nice variety. I can’t imagine basing my diet on processed meat so it hasn’t a big impact on my food costs though. I still don’t buy the twice as much bacon frequently… But if one feels less miserable if they afford it (I am fine without bacon myself. I love smoked pork from the farmer’s market just a tad pricy but it’s very much worth it. price/value is the best. it’s not like I eat much of it… but those moments are blissful)…
We can’t just keep to the cheapest items, sometimes we need some little luxury We should choose them well if the money is low. And I never want to be one who just have NO room for such things, ever.
I don’t need butter in bulk (I can’t buy much anyway, it spoils too quickly for that) as there are great prices all the time, I just need to go to the right supermarket. But if one is really food, butter isn’t affordable. I could live without butter but it’s my needed little luxury so I use it but little if I can resist. Fat is cheap, I don’t spend much on added fat. I just buy fatty meat and I get lard.
Yeah, it’s once per decade for me. Not a big loss, thankfully. I never was into it, only did it on travels, holidays. That was nice, I never forget the wonderful (and surprisingly cheap) octopus tentacle in vinegar… It wasn’t a main dish but with soup and dessert I got satiated Octopus is as expensive here that I wouldn’t buy it with any income out of principle. Even more expensive than ribeye and I never will be able to justify to try that out…
Oh. We just eat them, most of the time Or I put it into the freezer for times when we will appreciate it. But I do have a few ideas, yep. It’s mostly when I have lean pork leftovers. Some nice sauce and they get much better. I put them into my fancy scrambled eggs too, it has sausage and smoked pork and dairy items if I like.
But pork chuck roast is awesome on the 5th day too… Maybe I am lucky.
Obviously one doesn’t throw away food when poor. Or when a decent person, usually, I do understand a few extreme/special cases but it’s usually easy to avoid making too much. At least for us. I can’t throw away food at all so I had to figure out how to eat everything. Not so hard. (I have cats too, useful on carnivore though I like my carni food. Still, I don’t like some parts they do and it’s good to have an option when I decide I really don’t like the leftovers of this batch of pork liver. pork liver is hit and miss).
I don’t need many but yes, I started that too. Some condiments are needed but they have sugar. Beyond the plant matter. Ew.
Tell me if you figure out how to make tasty, smooth mustard! I only can make an inferior one only good to mix into dishes in smaller amounts. Not something for my boiled eggs or sausages. Not even my deviled eggs I think, I never risked it.
I never liked mayo but this sounds interesting (And not a mayo in my eyes, mayo has one vital ingredients, yolk. I use lard when I happen to make it but it’s not an every year occurrence.)
I never saw that so IDK but we use so little salt, why does that matter? Okay, I buy my Himalayan Pink from the cheapest source too And it’s cheap everywhere.
But if one eats a very varied carni diet with eggs, dairy and processed meat and without a high sodium need like me… Well, not much added salt is needed.
Ouch. Can’t you even feed it to birds or other animals?
I understand you can’t do much with the fat, I only need very little lard but as I can’t throw out food, I simply buy meat accordingly. I am low on lard, I buy some fatty meat, I have plenty and I give up at making scratchings very soon. I am fine with my neutral meats in this regard, I mean, the ones not needing or providing any lard So balance is easy. I can imagine circumstances where it isn’t the case, though. And it’s painful even to hear about thrown out food (I really wonder if there is a way to save it somehow…) but at least it’s just fat, not good meat or yolk. People tend to throw out even that. Even fancy-smancy luxury meat when it becomes leftovers. Japanese people throws out meat that spent weeks in the freezer for some reason I heard… I just try to forget about it again.
I never thrown out a piece of dry bread… Not like my SO leaves ANY bread, ever. I look at the low-key rock (the bread isn’t super soft the begin with and we like that) but he says it’s perfectly fine for him. Okay.
Unless you use it galore and it isn’t triggering, I don’t see anything wrong with that. I eat plenty of sugar from dairy on carnivore (well I do try to limit my dairy intake so it’s not so bad, rarely way over 20g) and I feel if it was a 3g carb day. It’s VERY different with plant carbs. Interesting.
I just bought milk and whey powder (ouch, 70% sugar for the latter… whatever. I didn’t plan to eat it up in the near future, I was just curious, never had any before) and I use them in tiny amounts until I experiment with them and probably will just stop afterwards. I haven’t found a use for them on carnivore yet. I thought they may be my carnivore sweetener if I happen to feel the need. But probably not. They are powders, they don’t spoil easily, the amount is small too, they will be used up eventually.
Wow, price differences… It’s more like $4/kg when on sale but I don’t like it so much and it’s still triggering and if I am not careful I overeat like crazy…
Oh NZ, I heard it has crazy meat prices there!
I am with you regarding chicken drumsticks, I do get tempted due to the low price (they dropped it lately! now it’s simply the cheapest meat, on par with pure meat from chicken frame - of course we need to make the work to get the meat off the zillion bones - , only when on sale though. no one puts chicken frame on sale as it costs about nothing) but 1. it’s not very tasty - of it is, it costs 4 times more 2. as you sad, not so good for satiation. I still can use it paired with some better meat, I wonder if you can do that. It seems it’s fine then. I have the same problem with all fowl but I love turkey so I eat it, merely don’t neglect my red meat intake on that day.
I am curious, how much carbs it has? We normally have one kind of Greek yogurt here, that’s carby and I can’t use it in tiny amounts, lucky I don’t care about my carb intake on carnivore as my body doesn’t mind. But I am curious about yours!
I understand (and try to remember I need to quit coffee for multiple reasons… I eat too much cream even now - though I manage 200ml per week at this point. and much milk, yeah but not too bad…). IDK about you but my coffees are quite fine with just a tiny bit of cream If you don’t drink many coffees a day, it can be really fine especially if it gives you as much joy as to me… But if you can’t buy little enough amounts… But I actually froze cream before… I don’t like to do it but it works well enough.
I suppose it’s not common to go that far. Our ketosis carb limit may be way higher than 20g (I experienced mine being between 40g and 50g) and one probably needs my love towards dairy to go high. It is possible if one has a low limit, though.
IMO, dogs are the best antidepressant. They are a happy diversion to every day.
I’m sorry about your current financial situation. Can you stock up on lower cost items like eggs, hf hamburger, chicken legs/thighs, some cuts of pork, tougher cuts of beef, etc.? Those seem to be more economical selections and have the highest percentages of fat, at least where I am.
Hi @gingersmommy, thanks for your well wishes. I should have listed what I bought in my opening post and have edited it to include this. My go-to carni meats are thankfully the cheaper ones - ground beef, pork shoulder and rump steak when on special. I can happily eat these week in week out. Chicken is cheaper but I don’t find it at all filling. Eggs here are quite expensive here and I don’t find them at all filling, so I don’t buy them often. But even buying the cheapest meat is going to be hard going financially. I’ll check around every week for specials like I did when last on carni too.
I drink a fair bit of tea and coffee throughout the day so the milk adds up and there’s no way I’m not using up the couple of bags of it in the cupboard. Cream in coffee is delicious. I’ll need to use less per cup than last time tho if I decide to switch over. Prices have gone crazy here!! They’ve gone crazy pretty much everywhere.
The greek yoghurt is 1.5 grams of carb (lactose) per 100 grams. It’s thick, creamy and delicious! I buy it when on special and thankfully it’s one of the 2 cheapest brands.
I’m not aiming for ketosis. I gave up last time. I ended up in very very low ketosis last time on because all I ate was meat, the very low carb full-fat greek yoghurt, cheese (less than 1 gram carb per 100 grams), and cream in my coffee. But I eat too much meat to achieve a “decent” ketone level. I don’t need to though. I successfully lost weight and hugely reduced inflammation on carni - which were and are my main reasons for eating this way. Hmm I’ve just realised there is a 3rd reason. My appetite is much better under control when I eat beef and to some degree pork. It’s not just that I am not spiking my blood sugar with carbs then wanting to eat again when it falls, it’s because beef is very satiating for me. I’ve been an overeater all my life and eating beef really helps me with that. Whereas eating chicken and eggs and fish just don’t. I could stuff myself with them and feel full, but in no way satiated.
@MeganNZ have you tried a high fat version of carnivore? You might find higher fat:protein ratio is cheaper to eat - and produces higher ketone levels which may help lower autoimmune inflammation even more than you previously experienced with the lighter ketosis. For me, this effect is quite pronounced on my RA (and mood, too, I think.) Also, more fat helps me with the satiation/overeating issue - which I also share - so I’m eating a more reasonable amount, as measured in dollars and in lbs of meat. Everyone’s different, but maybe worth an experiment?
Sounds like food prices are pretty different in NZ vs US. (Or Hungary @Shinita! My husband’s grandfather emigrated from Hungary to the US on purpose to eat meat every day!) With my large family, budget is a big concern of mine as well. No grassfed ribeyes here. My staples are as follows… (@Alecmcq I want to find lamb for $2.50 sometime - will keep an eye out!
20 lb beef shoulder, called “chuck roll”, for $5/lb and cut it into thick, fatty steaks: my splurge.
10 lb roll of 73/27 ground beef for $2.84/lb to freeze into big patties: satiation staple.
Pork shoulder with a lovely thick fat cap for $1.34/lb on sale: the most delicious.
Eggs, especially yolks, scrambled with leftover fat from cooking meat. Leftover fat is good to make mayo/sauces too!
Also: bulk frozen chicken wings (as a beef side dish), bulk butter, organs, pork rinds, canned seafood. Optionally, homemade yogurt cream and hard cheese so a little goes a long way - exactly as @Alecmcq said, a condiment.
@MeganNZ, you are so very much to be commended on taking control of your health. So many people sink into a sort of helplessness and don’t take on that personal responsibility. You’re doing the good, important, hard work to take care of yourself properly.
In US, Aldi sells lamb breast plate, which is sort of like ribs but a … confused cut, for $3.29 per lb (not on sale, that’s their regular price.) It’s extremely fatty, but I love lamb! I slow roast and can pour off enough rendered fat that it’s my go-to cooking fat for a few weeks.
Wow, mine is way carbier indeed but I eat a (big) cup per month (it lasts for a few days at most). Creamy and good indeed, that’s fatty enough dairy for you! We almost only have the 10% fat, 5% sugar version here, good enough for me And it is always on sale somewhere If it’s not, I rather buy sour cream but I use that every day anyway. But Greek yogurt is even creamier and just mine, it’s my dessert.
Okay I never understood this. If I eat below 40g net carbs, it’s keto to me. But it’s not my goal either, I just want to stay healthy and feel well. And I need carnivore or close to that. I don’t believe in important differences between ketosis levels anyway. Ketosis is ketosis, there is a switch and that’s it. I used to feel a very little difference between ketosis and non-ketosis under certain circumstances, I didn’t eat meat then though… But carnivore is way better so I don’t care, really. But as I eat little carbs and I probably am fat adapted (my hunger feels like fat adapted hunger… but carnivore makes it even more subtle and I don’t even know if I ever had carnivore without fat adaptation), my body uses ketones, how couldn’t it? So it’s ketosis to me and I don’t even care about the science here, it doesn’t matter to me, I just try do what feels best for my individual body. I did my thinking in writing again, sorry.
It’s true for most of us I very rarely eat ruminants as they are expensive, hard to get and I prefer pork but whenever I do, yep, maybe even more effective than the most satiating pork. But pork is still great unless it’s too fatty. Some people don’t find it substantial at all, just like chicken. Interesting. Some people can’t eat beef due to some sensitivity but I never heard that anyone couldn’t get satiated by a decent amount of it. Once I ate 600g (and a yolk) and I was very, very satiated for a day! Impressive feat if the one in question is me.
I have this with all ruminants.
Yes, just eating low-carb isn’t enough for all of us. We may need really satiating food. It’s quite possible overeating on keto and even on carnivore, at least for some of us using certain not substantial or triggering items. But it’s less easy to find one as we go lower with carbs. Still, some conscious choices may be needed.
As I read, I see more and more similarities between us… I somewhat stopped 13(?) years ago when I went low-carb but I still have many overeating days. Less on keto, even less on carnivore. But it seems certain things stayed with me, I just can’t change enough to become some easily modestly eating person. Carnivore brought the biggest, quite positive changes this far, it was refreshing. Carbs messed with me, my hunger, appetite, control… Even on keto.
Chicken and fish are common non-substantial carnivore items. Maybe even eggs to a lesser extent? Eggs help me (they were my top satiating item on vegetarian keto) but of course I can’t get satiated by them as I get bored after 10-12 at most and that’s very little food for me (meat is a better choice for many reasons). Never ate a ton of fish either but it doesn’t feel substantial. Cheese neither, it’s accent, flavoring, joy, crunchy snack, not normal food I can depend on.
So my base must be red meat, maybe paired with some fowl or fish for variety.
I want to find mutton/lamb, period. I can’t find any since months And I searched in the only place, a hypermarket with a huge meat department where they have it sometimes. Just a bit so people probably bought it all before I arrived mid-Saturday. I had to visit other places first.
The cheapest mutton is deer priced here, a bit below the cheapest beef (organs don’t count). I would LOVE finding some. $8.22/kg for ruminant meat? Very tempting, I see it, I buy some.
Oh so that’s why it is considered kind of cheap. We don’t have such a low price here but we have little beef to begin with… Ground meat isn’t any cheaper than slabs on sale, not for pork, not for beef if I remember correctly. It would make perfect sense to be cheaper - but isn’t.
But we have lovely “scrap meat” at least. 70/30, long thinner pieces from various cuts. Useful.
Once, ages ago when I still barely ever ate meat (fish is meat to me), there was “scrap salmon meat” for almost nothing, really. 1/10th of price of salmon? And they were big, nice thin pieces, mostly, with skin! Oh that was amazing. I could use that now, I must say… If there wasn’t enough, I even accepted some heads, it still had some decent cheek meat and for that price? Still good even if I had to throw away most of the head.
And why you get those prices and not us? Pork shoulder is cheap but not THAT cheap here (on sale, of course)! And I don’t like it so much. I like pork chuck. That’s more than twice as much than your pork shoulder… Still not an expensive food, of course, just for poor people, like families where the income is $200 per person per month (I know there are way more poor ones, I just don’t what to think about them, you know). Meat prices matter there a lot on carnivore.
I must stop thinking about prices. Not healthy for my already damaged spirit.
But I still can eat. Enough. Good food. It’s better than what I deserve.
Chicken wings are too expensive considering they look like cat food with all those bones Never understood the hype, I am a firmly thigh person If they are unusually cheap (nope, we get awesome thigh sales all the time, below $2/kg lately… almost never wing sales) and the small end is missing, maybe it’s okay. If one likes wings and can make the skin right as I can’t. I want it crunchy. It doesn’t cooperate in my oven.
Meat in bulk in a hypermarket with good sales, yeah, that’s great. AND a lot of meat comes with just as much plastic as it strictly needs. Not stupid huge thick boxes with 2-3 thin slices of meat inside (okay, that’s the extreme. I hate those boxes when half-filled and that’s about as much as it gets), it’s painful to me. It can’t even thrown out selectively, not like it could make it good enough but still, it’s another kick.
I am too asocial (probably not the right word) to buy stuff at a meat counter if I can buy it without interacting with people but that is the best garbage wise especially that I can ask for a huge amount, as much as fits the normally big plastic bad, making it as good as I can.
Sometimes I decide I am too poor or ate turkey too long ago so I accept a box but I can’t just do it every month… I wonder if these things will change in the somewhat near future. They should.
Is it affordable in other countries? It’s INSANELY expensive - and it has more sunflower oil than lard. It’s better to make our own scratchings, I obviously can’t and don’t want to make those dry thingies. Okay, they may be useful if one wants to “bread” stuff (oh my it looks horrid, we use the word “coat” in Hungarian), I don’t.
I never saw lamb in Aldi but once (before the holidays I think) there was some in LIDL. I only saw it in the paper, not irl but I wouldn’t have been tempted anyway. Maybe for $30/kg? $35? Yeah, sure. That’s ribeye price, maybe even a fancier kind. Don’t look at those very closely, it’s not healthy for me.
While there is mutton for proper price as I wrote. Sometimes. A tiny bit so people buy it up. It’s almost like chicken liver for $1.4/kg (ALDI did it lately). Impossible to find. No problem, it’s cheap for twice as much too and my monthly food cost wouldn’t have been affected very much but it would have been fun…
For that price, I want mostly meat. Fat is cheap. I strongly dislike tallow anyway, I mean, when it’s not with the meat. It’s good with the meat, in moderation.
I always have this price problem with most fatty meats. Just the fat tissue is cheap. Pork fat tissue is $2.2/kg in bulk at the hypermarket I love so much since I tried out carnivore the first time. Never would buy it as what could I do with fat? The tiny lard I need I get from the “scrap meat”, maybe pork shoulder when I can’t resist the price and it is quite edible just not the best tasting for me. But can’t everything be pork chuck or turkey. (I have a turkey phase and the local supermarket has a turkey thigh filet on sale phase, we are good together. And my SO wants either that or chicken breast sometimes, the price is the same so turkey it is, yay!)
And making my own lard comes with the benefit of getting wonderful scratchings I never buy scratchings, mine are better anyway, fresh and crunchy and always a tiny bit meaty!
$3.29 per pound is about $7.25 per kg. I think that’s super cheap for lamb, I don’t think I’ve seen it for less than $9 a pound anywhere else. Since that’s cheaper than good butter, my other cooking fat, I consider it a win even if it’s not pure meat.
Oh I didn’t mean it isn’t worth it for you, just that how I look at things due to my circumstances and tastes. I actually do the same just with pork (and for a smaller price), I buy “too fatty” pork and get some cooking fat from it. Works wonderfully. It would be unnecessarily expensive and unnecessarily huge amount to buy lard. I did it before. Then the pig farm prices went up (I don’t touch supermarket lard) but I realized I need little cooking fat and later that I really, really, really like scratchings
I don’t even pay $9 for a kilogram of butter (now that price went down)… I am quite fine with the cheapest, it’s still so tempting and tasty… But it’s still expensive compared to the lard I make as that barely has any extra cost, I simply buy some fattier pork for less than my normal meat on average. I don’t like to cook with butter anyway, I am afraid it will burn. BUT my buttery chicken liver made in the oven was quite great last time. And it needed just a little butter! I plan to use to make it like that from now on and accept that 500g liver is one meal (and then a lot of waiting so I don’t overeat nutrients. it was hard enough when my liver wasn’t that tasty but I still want it to be delicious ).
Hey there @E_P, thanks for your reply and encouragement! I read a bunch of stuff Amber O’Hearn wrote, joined the high fat facebook group (can’t remember its name) and attempted the high fat version of carni. Lasted 6 weeks then quit and went back to relaxed carni. My biggest problem was finding fat sources I didn’t mind eating. Butter is really ewww to me, ditto lamb and beef fat. Pork fat, however, tastes good to me and I ate a heck of a lot of pork belly and the fattiest pork shoulder I could find. But, apart from being expensive due to all the pork belly, I just wasn’t enjoying my food after a while. And although 6 weeks is a very short time my ketones levels didn’t budge at all. Some experts are looking at fibromyalgia as having, in part, a possible autoimmune aspect, but there’s little evidence for that yet. The arthritis I have is all osteo thankfully. I’ve needed knee replacement surgery for years now, but the waiting list is horrendous and covid has made it worse. All in all I still feel very thankful tho. Yea I am in a lot of pain, yea I have depression and some agoraphobia and anxiety, yea things are hard financially, but I live a life of downright luxury compared to most of the worlds population!
Also, regarding eating very high fat/much less protein, I’m someone with a life-long over-eating and binge-eating struggle and I have to make sure what I’m eating is at least somewhat enjoyable or it’ll get too hard for me to stick with it. It’s crazy how much eating is entangled in a bunch of my messed up patterns of thinking and feeling. I’m pleased I managed to stick with carni for 14 months, and although the change in my financial situation and a sizeable increase in the cost of meat was a big part of why I stopped, I was also getting frustrated with a halting in my weight loss. I look at the frustration now and can see I was being unrealistic and not viewing the way I was eating the right way. Also I’d somewhat forgotten how I felt pre-carni after months of being in less pain, so quitting carni didn’t feel like a huge deal.
I can’t believe pork shoulder is only $1.34/lb where you live!! It’s 6-9 times that here, depending on where you shop. 80/20 ground beef (the so-called cheap stuff) is $14/kg at the budget supermarket, and up to $22/kg at the others. The budget supermarket stuff isn’t tasting all that good, tho surely meat is meat and it shouldn’t taste less nice than what I was eating previously? Almost all beef is grassfed here. The only grain feeding I can find in my internet search is some grain feeding for a month to “finish off” some beef for export that is sold at a premium price, so definitely not the stuff a budget supermarket is selling as ground beef. I’m hoping it’s just a taste bud and a getting used to again issue. I half remember not actually liking the taste of it when I started carni in 2022, and it ended up really enjoying it.
Hi @scaperdude, thanks for your support. I haven’t tried Wellbutrin, I’ll ask my GP if it’s available here. I’ve tried a lot of SRIs and am currently on Venlafaxine (SNRI). I can’t get Cymbalta here in New Zealand (FDA approved for fibromyalgia), Venlafaxine is the closest I can get. Does squat for the fibromyalgia but definitely keeps me from getting so low I go into crisis.
Fishing and hunting aren’t possible, but I often fantasize about becoming a cattle rustler!!
It’s still so strange to me… Pork is supposed to be cheap, maybe not the fanciest lean or farm-raised Mangalica but all the others? It has an okay price here but Hungarians raise and eat much pork… I even heard some countries barely have fatty meat… shudder
Nope. I buy the same cut from the same supermarket and there are HUGE differences in taste, fattiness, etc. Okay that’s pork but I guess it’s similar with other meats, different animals may taste differently for reasons. Maybe even the same one at different places even if the name of the cut is the same… Maybe it’s different for beef and there? I don’t know.
But if the differences are not very huge and days have passed, I never know if I changed or the meat was different. Our perception just isn’t the same all the time…
I often think about that. I appreciate what I have and it has benefits - but it doesn’t make things much better. It doesn’t solve the problems.
At least I am healthy enough. I feel sorry to read your troubles
So relatable. In January I tried reintroducing nuts and was shocked that I used to feel that awful all the time! Made me freshly grateful to God for the healing thus far and motivated to keep trying.
Me too, sister the cows next door are looking mighty tasty!
Glad you’ve already got a lot of experimentation and research under your belt so you know a lot about what works for you! Maybe some spices and sauces can help with the enjoyment, if you can tolerate them?
Update re Wellbutrin. When I went back on venlafaxine I asked my doc for a referral to a psychiatrist for a medication review because what I’ve tried so far only helps somewhat. I did a phone consult with the psychiatrist yesterday and we discussed augmenting the venlafaxine. I asked him about Wellbutrin but he didn’t recognize the name, so I said it’s Bupropion. He’s prescribed me Zyban, which is the same drug as Wellbutrin, just marketed differently (for smoking cessation). So yay. 150mg once a day for 4 weeks then I can increase to 150 mg twice a day if needed.
Not only might it help with the depression but it can also help with cravings. Stopping smoking was huge for me. The govt has been increasing the price a lot every year, as part of a plan to make New Zealand smokefree, and I’ve been cutting out all sorts of things so I could still afford to buy tobacco. The sudden near halving of my income made it point blank impossible to keep smoking. Now I’ve gone back to carni I’m a bit miserable at times, getting whacked by a double dose of cravings and no “dopamine hits”. So here’s hoping Zyban helps with that a bit.
I’m 2.5 week in now. Only side effect of the sudden and considerable change in what I’m eating is constipation. When I started carni last time I got not-safe-to-fart diarrhoea for about 6 weeks. I think I’d rather have that lol. I bought a different type of magnesium which should help. Also making sure I’m drinking enough water.
I was hoping my knees would be feeling a bit better. They were a bit better at the end of week one when I wrote my original post but the last 4 times I’ve taken Lulu and Sophi out have been hellish and walking about at home is rough, especially the stairs. Carni will help though, I just have to give it time.
Autumn is starting in New Zealand and the temperature in Auckland is dropping a bit some days which I am very happy about! Not that it gets crazy hot here, but it can be too hot for me
Lulu and Sophi are wrestling and running around outside. They do so many things that make me smile, grin and laugh. Wouldn’t be without them!
Constipation and joint aches are common side effects of wellbutrin/bupropion, so keep that in mind if you think carnivore isn’t working this time around. It might be your medication.
well, fat is very cheap… protein usually isn’t… and I eat 130-180g protein on most days… it could be way cheaper with less without sacrifices. yep, I need OMAD if possible, I am a bad one to spend this much 
If I want a bit affordable luxury, I buy pork chuck for $6/kg. That is a big pricy for my budget (as I can’t stop with the eggs/dairy/tea/other extras. if I could eat only meat, it would be fine) but it’s not like I make a whole meal of it so often. I almost never go higher than that.
And it’s cheap everywhere.
the cows next door are looking mighty tasty!