Hello.
I would like to know if anyone had ever cured diseases such as fatty liver, eczema or schizophrenia with the dirty keto protocol.
And also does dirty keto mean you can solely survive on deli meat when it comes to meat? Of course I’m going to eat salads for the electrolytes. But I’m just talking about meats. And don’t you people who do the dirty keto worry about malnutrition? Please give me some advice on how to do the dirty keto…! Will be waiting. Thanks.
Dirty keto isn’t keto. It’s eating garbage that just happens to fit within the keto macros. That would be like somebody comparing an actual healthy standard diet, to something that resembled the macros (somehow) from cookies, cakes and candy.
Eating garbage like cookies, fat bombs etc is fine, but those are the treats, not how you eat as a whole. If you chose to do something like that, don’t expect either the results you want, or health as an outcome.
In what world to do you think Salads are going to give you electrolytes? Beyond trace amounts that don’t even do what spring water would do.
People that actually care about their nutrition don’t do dirty keto in the first place.
I’m curious why you would specifically choose “dirty” keto. Not exactly sure what foods you’re referring to, either. Is this all that’s available to you?
Haha. Thank you for your input. I want to try it because of how many people are saying it is actually beneficial. Like Amy Berger and Dr. Eric Westman on Youtube. I cannot afford to eat expensively I realized. I borrowed way too much money from my brother to keep continuing the clean keto diet : /.
You still have options that should be less expensive. Eggs and canned fishes. Pound per pound I doubt luncheon meat is less expensive than chicken or pork or possibly even ground beef, at least where I live. I’ll agree, the top of the top is really pricey, but clean eating doesn’t have to be.
I have to pay all my health costs out of my pocket, as I couldn’t afford the doubling of my insurance premiums at age 75. Staying low carb / Keto is cheaper.
I have nothing against processed stuff, they can be perfectly fine IMO (or not, it depends on the actual item) - but I couldn’t live on them, for various reasons. Anyway, proper meat is way cheaper…
Fowl, pork, organ meat is as cheap as it can get! If I did it really seriously, surely $3 per day would be more than enough but alas, I may be very poor, I still want more variety and fancy, luxury stuff like some cheese - and even ruminant meat a few times per year 
And coffee and stuff… So I go a bit higher. I buy the cheapest among the still quite okay processed meat items (I can’t eat much of them anyway so it doesn’t make my diet much more expensive), it adds variety and I can eat them even when I am bored of normal meat and can’t stomach any more even if I am starving (it happens sometimes).
I don’t really know what clean and dirty keto is and don’t really care, honestly. I have my own standards and circumstances, my body isn’t particularly choosy and I don’t pay for health stuff anyway. But yep, I am health conscious and buy good enough food, I am quite elated my healthy enjoyable diet is more affordable than almost any other one possible for me. I use sales, I avoid expensive items, it’s not really hard but I am experienced, I hated spending too much money on food (or anything else) even when I could afford it.
Ketosis and not eating inflammatory garbage is what’s beneficial, eating crap is eating crap, whether it’s very technically keto or not. Tons of processed crap isn’t beneficial when that’s literally your diet. Especially when you’re trying to use it as a medical intervention. Eating correctly in no way means it needs to be expensive.
The keto is expensive thing is a myth, it’s poor planning. Lot of people have addressed this, watch some videos on YT, no shortage of them. There’s wholesale clubs, buying frozen meats, grabbing a ton on discount days at supermarkets and freezing them etc. That’s leaving out that the fattier cuts of meats are pretty cheap to begin with as the masses don’t want them. Then there’s supplementing on top of that, but all of that is better than eating highly processed junk food as your diet.
In my country, there is cheap lean, cheap fatty, expensive lean and expensive fatty meat alike even if I just look at pork. I enjoy this, I can choose whatever suits me (lean pork gives me better chances but I prefer moderately fatty cuts. the fatty cuts are great for getting lard or fat tissue for homemade sausages. or adding it to my slightly too lean pork).
There are OPTIONS! So many. And processed things are almost always more expensive. Or maybe my brain filters out the crappy exceptions…
When I first began keto (4 years ago), I bought most of my meat from the deli. Not ideal, but affordable and it got me started.
I did not account for the extra sugar that is in the deli meat, so I was surely over the ideal 20g of carbs. BUT…. it got me started.
Any reduction in carbs is good for you and you will see the benefits.
Proceed at whatever pace works for you that you can maintain.
I had no meat on keto (I overate protein without that) in the first years but on early carnivore, I had a time with super salty smoked pork (very great, from the nearby pig farm) and chicken liver and that’s it for meat. IDK how I could do it but it wasn’t ideal… Still better than NOT doing it 
I hate sweet meat so I either buy processed meat made by zero sugar (not particularly hard though it limits the options quite much…) or with some but below 0.5% (almost everything I am interested in is like that and this 0.5g carbs per 100g is partially paprika).
My son is having this problem right now. He is still in college starting his 5th year. He fell off the diet gained back all his weight plus a LOT more, has bad acne, and his mental health is declining again. All this after the opposite happened to him 8 months on Keto. He tells me it’s because he can’t afford the diet. But I have seen his checking account and how he spends his money when he eats out everywhere or does door dash etc. He is now paying more money for food than he did on Keto when he had steak at least 4-5x/week. Dirty Keto is very expensive. Processed and packaged foods do not last long and have few servings for the expense. But cooking a roast in the oven and putting left overs in the fridge to eat from over a 3-4 day period is not only healthier and delicious, it can be cheaper. I just spent $49 on a rib roast that I was able to cut 7 thick ribeyes from. That comes out to $7 per steak! It was so delicious, had amazing fat flavors, and was even good cold. Then I make about $30 of cut up chicken pieces and we snack from that in our fridge all week. I’ll make chicken salad sometimes, but usually it’s so tasty to just grab a piece cold and chow down. 
It takes prep for sure to eat healthier. You have to be willing to forfeit convenience and do some baking/sauteing/roasting. Convenience is expensive. But you can do clean Keto for the same cost as dirty Keto. I’m living proof and I eat amazing. I just put most my dollars to large cuts of meat and cook a bulk amount ahead of time. I also find good recipes for things like Keto bagels (like using a fat head dough) that taste amazing with cream cheese, nut butters, or sockeye salmon. Even sandwich meat.
This is a very healthy diet and what you are hearing about it healthwise is truer than you can imagine. But don’t fall into the trap of eating prepackaged/over processed “Keto food”. You will pay more for that lunch meat than cooking your own roast or other meat and cutting it up for yourself.
The ones I use are great at it though. It’s one reason I love them, I can just buy them in advance and can enjoy them for months (several months for the freezable ones). Not all kinds, sure but most of the ones I buy lasts for quite a few weeks.
That is the problem with such a huge group, I never know which items people think about… They are wildly different, after all.
But aren’t processed items usually long-lasting? A big part of them is specifically processed to last long, they have preservatives, they are dried… Not all but normal food doesn’t last long either.
I never liked most of deli meats (I went back to the original post…) so I don’t even know how much they last, probably not much but people go shopping frequently so it doesn’t seem matter so much…?
I pretty much agree with the rest. Though after all those vegetarian low-carb/keto years, roasting some meat or boiling/frying some eggs is super convenient to me Vegs and baking was so much work, how could I do that? I did like cooking but it got tiresome sometimes especially after I had to cook differently for my SO and myself.
True, just grabbing something is even simpler but it couldn’t satisfy me at all. That would be some temporal emergency eating… But I know many modern people eat in odd ways from my viewpoint (like sandwiches for lunch, how crazy is that? not very much, apparently, I saw it everywhere. maybe it’s a different culture?).
And making a whole meal from processed stuff? Oh my, I am way too poor for that! I need normal keto based on normal meat… I need a substantial meal so pricy processed things just won’t do.
Yeah there are packaged things that last long and are good for you, such as the unsweetened dried cranberries I bought that have only one ingredient, cranberries. Nothing else at all. A large bag lasts me about 6 months. I don’t use a lot at once, just a sprinkling, but the carbs from other dried cranberry brands are usually in the other ingredients and what they use to add sweetness, even ones labeled lower sugar are bad imho because I won’t touch any sugar. I make my own when they are in season, but when they aren’t I buy these. So yeah there are some things that can last longer that aren’t that bad for us. Parmesan crisps are a good example. Almond crackers that I get are tasty and have responsible and healthy ingredients in them. They have a great shelf life but aren’t very filling. Then of course there’s all the nuts.
I was referring primarily to foods marketed specifically for Keto, or that use Keto on their labels to attract more buyers when in reality they are higher carb than we would want and have frankenfood ingredients in them. Quest cookies and chips, Keto bars, Atkins products and the like, etc etc. Even beef jerky isn’t made properly and few would fit my clean Keto standard so I make my own jerky. Most of these things have one or two servings but cost a lot. I recently tried Gouda cheese balls that were delicious, but an 11oz bag cost $22. Literally had 4-5 servings at most if you kept it to 2T. SMH why bother? So I bought a block of Gouda and made my own. They were really good, but different. More dense. It was obvious the way they made theirs required some lab ingredients and different processing of the cheese before making the balls, possibly dry grated then formed to get a cheese puff crunch? My point is that the expense was NOT worth the number of servings at all or the extra ingredients. Mine were better because of that. Lol
Also lunch meat is more expensive than buying and cooking the meat yourself and the processed lunch meat has stuff in it that’s not the best for our health. I also have found it never lasts longer than my home cooked meats.
@Alvin_Kim
P.S. while I’m not carnivore so I don’t eat strictly only meat, I can say for certain there is no malnutrition from a primarily meat only diet. That’s misinformation that has been marketed since the 60s and on. Meat has almost everything you need. I don’t think any Keto dieters worry about that.
At most you may need to supplement salt and potassium and magnesium.
As for standard Keto, which allows some carbs and some non-animal foods, you can get more of the nutrients in your selection of fruits and veggies and nuts. We choose more fibrous options with healthier nutrients rather than empty carbs that have very little real benefits. Like choosing berries instead of a banana or a mango, or choosing almond or coconut flours over highly-processed white wheat flour, or choosing a butternut squash over a sweet potato, or cauliflower and broccoli over a large serving of carrots or sweet corn. (I do include a very small serving of carrots maybe once a month.)
Hello Alvin Kim, what does "dirty keto’ mean to you? Please could you make a list of foods that you think form the dirty keto way of eating.
So far we have:
Here is how to do dirty keto. Buy ground beef and eggs, cook them in ghee, eat that with a leafy green salad of leaf-greens only with a splash of plain vinegar on it. Eat as much as you like twice a day in the afternoon and evening.
It may be dirty keto, but I call it the Time machine Diet 
- In 28-days you will be 10 years younger.
No malnutrition.
Thank you Franko!
The deli meats that I’m talking about are ham, bacon, sausages, bologna etc.
My salads consists of kale, swiss chard, and spinach. The salads I eat until full.
I cannot afford ground beef. I can but it is so low quality, that I would gag while rrying to eat them.
I kind of already got my answer thanks to Amy Berger who I learned from yesterday, that based on her experience and her clients’, processed foods are okay and even seed oils are. Omega 3’s don’t mean anything she claims. She looks very healthy and I think she is Dr. Eric Westman’s best advocate as she hosts live Q/A for him. She sounds convincing too. If you want more info, here is a link to just one of her videos on Youtube. https://youtu.be/LZqdW64KJEc?si=nljZiUDMb2TA8pAP
It’s not so important for me anymore but wow, you have found that! I can buy many dried fruits unsweetened but never cranberries (or just from a webshop for way more money. like, a few times as much). Oh well, one can live without cranberries. It’s great I can buy canned pineapple without added sugar unlike decades ago… (It is a super sweet fruit, it’s INSANE to add even more but this is people for you. By the way, dried pineapple ALWAYS has added sugar here. I could make my own I suppose but cranberries? I can’t get cranberries except the dried, sugared stuff. And it’s sad as it has a nice flavor otherwise and while I can live without it, others will just buy the sugary stuff even if they would prefer it unsweetened.)
I mostly thought about my own processed items, primarily meat 
Oh indeed, that is a thing in some countries too… Not so much here but if there is any, it’s some overpriced stuff I don’t need so I didn’t think about those. I don’t think that is relevant if one really wants to spare money but I don’t really KNOW as never saw such “keto” items. (Except oatmeal, they were called keto on the package. They were carby as all oatmeal.)
Cheese gets airy puffy crunchy just fine when nuked, no need to grate or add anything. It works with Gouda and other half-hard cheese, I made it once with softer cheese, it doesn’t work so well with hard cheeses. I prefer half-hard cheeses anyway so it isn’t a problem for me.
Indeed. That’s why I wrote in my first comment that I don’t get why would processed meat help with the costs…
The cost may be lower per kg but it’s due to all the water and whatever in it. We don’t get the same amount of nutrients. There is a sausage, very cheap, way cheaper than any pork but it has what, 20% meat? I buy the one with more meat (still low), double price (still cheap for processed meat and as much as pork chuck on sale… pork chuck is worth it way more BUT sometimes I enjoy a few slices of this stuff, easy to eat, extra something when I had just a tad less meat I needed… people usually use it in cooking, we do that too. the spices are nice, sometimes I eat it even when I don’t want my normal meat. but eating a lot of such things? would feel very weird and wrong).
All the things I buy too and eat in moderation. Well these items may be horrible or quite fine and everything in-between, it depends on the actual item. It still seems wrong and way too expensive to live on them but I am no expert and if you buy the right ones, it still will be a better diet than the average person’s though that is a low bar.
It’s easy to overdo sodium this way, by the way (depends on the person though. and the actual items), processed items are quite salty and often super salty. I don’t need more sodium on keto and can’t handle anything near the keto recommended amount so there is that. But I still saw overly salty processed items. Many are fine though, I mean, I don’t find them too salty but if I ate only those, I personally still would get too much sodium.
If you live in the US, you can get fairly good quality ground beef for $5/pound and chicken drumsticks or chicken leg quarters for $1-2/pound. You can even get pork shoulder roasts for just $2-3/pound and that could feed your for multiple days. I think that would definitely come out cheaper than the processed meats.
With that being said, yes, I do think that eating processed meats and fresh salad is better than ultra processed carbs. 
Now, I’m not saying this to be snarky, more of a gentle ribbing… How much of the eating the processed meat is because you actually just don’t want to cook?
It’s not that I don’t want to cook. It is purely because of the price T^T… I live in South Korea and the beef prices are outrageous and so is meat in general. 