Can we live on bacon and eggs?

(Filipe Loureiro) #1

Hello everibody.

We can hear often on the podcasts and here on the forum advice to eat bacon and eggs.

I must say that this is my favorite recipe. I just love it, and have no problem to do it several meals/day in a row.
Still, I wonder for how long it is healthy to eat just that.
What does the science says?
Could we live on bacon and eggs alone? Does it complete all the humans nutrition needs, on vitamins, and oligoelements?

I hope the answer is YES!

Thanks in advance and nice keto living to all.

(Sheri Knauer) #2

This guy ate bacon only for 30 days and here is a link to his interview. (sorry, I know your looking for the science but perhaps you can find it here or in a link provided or on the FB page this guy started) http://ketogasm.com/the-bacon-experiment-interview/

(James storie) #3

Iā€™ve always heard that eggs are the multivitamin of the animal kingdom! When you think about it, they could be considered offal. Itā€™s a whole chicken! And bacon, well, BACON!

(Siobhan) #4

I ate pretty much nothing but eggs for 8 days and I didnt die. Jimmy did a 30 day egg fast and also survived.
I think the main thing would be making sure you get enough fat as the bacon n eggs might not be enough.

Soā€¦ why not do a bacon and eggs challenge and let us know how it goes?

edit: I did the egg fast which is 4oz cheese at least 6 eggs and fat

(Cathy) #5

I think the answer is yes you could do quite well on a diet of only bacon and eggs. Eggs are the perfect food as they are almost half fat and half protein and packed with lots of important nutrients. Bacon also has a nice fat/protein ratio.

Personally, I need variety. I donā€™t believe I would be very happy after about 4 days.

(James storie) #6

Iā€™ve diced bacon and fried until completely rendered and then mixed in scrambled eggs to capture all of the fat! Delicious!

(What The Fast?!) #7

However, eating only one food (like doing an egg fast) can also cause a food allergy or intensify a low-grade intolerance/delayed reaction to that food.

#8

One way to see what might be missing from a nutritional standpoint is to enter the info into Cronometer. If enter 10 xtra large :egg: and 25 strips of :bacon: (6" regular thickness) I can get 138 protein and 129 fat. Switching that to 10 :bacon: and 15 XL :egg: I get 133 protein and 117 fat. So, from a macro POV it looks doable if you have a high protein threshold. (These are roughly isocaloric)

Micronutrients get a bit tricky, since many of those are RDA recommendations based on carb burning studies. I went with option #1 (10 :egg:, 25 :bacon:) because it seemed more palatable and got the following raw data:


Note:
Iā€™ve intentionally omitted some of the target amounts because Iā€™ve customized those, instead of RDA values.

These values are a best guess from a food database and some items may not be realistic. There is a lot of variability just in how fatty the cut of bacon, etc. and iodine, for one, is not always right. Adding some organ meats may fill in a lot of the gaps in nutrition.

(Filipe Loureiro) #9

Thanks for all the answers felas :). This last one from CarolIt is amazingly detailed. Thks for the time it certainly took to get this data.
Iā€™m not sure but do those calcs include 50gr or so of butter? And, btw, whatā€™s this cronometer mentioned above?

Cya guys

(Christopher Avery) #10

Cornometer.com is a useful food diary and nutrient calculator. Itā€™s an alternative to myfitnesspal.
https://cronometer.com

#11

OMG I forgot the butter! And coffee.

[Maybe Iā€™m assuming youā€™d fry up the eggs in bacon grease. Speaking of which, the type of bacon and how long you cook it will determine the amount of drippings. So, you can either eat them or figure how much to subtract somehow.]

#12

could I? Yes
would I? No

#13

You can also use sites like http://nutritiondata.self.com/ to look up detailed info on foods. You would need to create an account to make up different recipes and analyze the totals though.

(Allie) #14

Personally, I couldnā€™tā€¦ Iā€™m so sick of bacon and eggs lol

(Dany Bolduc) #15

Two years ago I made a hard-boiled egg only diet, easting anywhere from 15 to 21 hard-boiled eggs per day. I did this for 23 days.

I was doing it for weight loss. I do not remember exactly how much I lost, I remember it wasnā€™t that much ā€¦ probably around 5 lbs.

I remember having constipation problems. Had to resort to taking metamusyl (sp?).

Aside from that I felt fine, although I didnā€™t have any medical checkup before or after.

But I can tell you I was totally fed up with hard-boiled eggs.

(Crow T. Robot) #16

Was it real constipation or just infrequent and small? Many ZCers (all?) like me find that there is just much, much less waste when plants are removed, and you just donā€™t need to go for days at a time. Sometimes this is interpreted as constipation.

(Dany Bolduc) #17

Definitely constipation. Hard and painful. This was not a high fat dietā€¦remember ā€˜hard-boiled eggs and nothing elseā€™. That over 50% proteins. Too little fat (and probably not enough hydration), i believe, are to blame.

Now if the eggs had been fried in butter, coconut oil and bacon fat, the story would have probably read differently

(Joseph) #18

I have been living on bacon and eggs and sausage lately. Itā€™s been one of my favorite dishes to eat. Smother that stuff in butter and youā€™ve got some long lasting energy for the day. I was actually just thinking about this yesterday if it was ā€œhealthyā€ or good for me to be eating this much bacon and eggs. In reality I only have 4 slices of bacon and 2 sausage patties and 2 eggs. So I say YES you can on this, remember n=1 though! Iā€™ve had good results from doing this. Today I had 4 slices of bacon, 1 big sausage patty, 2 fried eggs and 3oz of peanuts and Iā€™m completely full so I just started my fast back up. Going to see if I can get to 23 hours on just this.

I think iā€™ll do an experiment next month on just eating bacon and eggs to see what happens :smile:

(LJ) #19

I only just learned of the taste paradise that is mayo on bacon, eggs, and cheese. This is now my go to dinner. Itā€™s so rich I feel like Iā€™m going to die after I eat it. And then the next day I want it again.

+garlic salt and a pinch of cayenne pepper

(Filipe Loureiro) #20

I couldnā€™t agree more :slight_smile: