Clean Carnivore Crew, January 2022

zerocarb
carnivore
#161

Enjoyed reading the posts in here again; it’s so interesting to read where we’re all up to on our carnivore journey.

I was thinking about @Shatz earlier - wondering if you’re still with us?

It’s because I ended up buying the same air fryer / grill / oven as Shatz, and I use it for every single meal now. I was thinking about it last night because I was listening to Kelly Hogan on a podcast talking about her love for her air fryer (calling it her magical meat drawer).

It’s weird to say, but I think the lack of prep is one of my favourite things about carnivore. I always quite liked cooking and I’m good at it - but it was such a time drain when you were prepping vegetables and putting ingredients together, and then clearing up afterwards. With carnivore, I just put some meat in the oven - and that’s it, job done.

#162

me being opposite. never liked the kitchen, I ate best when someone else cooked for me or I just bought restaurant food.

But the fast easy slap on grill or in pan and fry fast to blue rare meat is such an easy life for me, one that suits me to a T and I can forget about food in life cause like ya said, meal prep and meal recipes and more take ALOT of our lives than one would think if we do it in our own kitchens, which is why I think more people go fast food/take away and more and are getting worse food now than just if they would cook in their own homes?

#163

Yeah - cooking requires time, effort, and skill.

I’m fortunate, in that my parents cooked and I learnt how to cook from them - not through deliberate instruction, but just through being around whilst they cooked and seeing how things were done.

I know lots of people whose parents either didn’t cook - either they couldn’t, or they didn’t have time. It meant that they didn’t pick up those skills, and we weren’t really taught them at school.

Some people are invested enough that they teach themselves - but lots of others either fear it, or assume they can’t do it, or can’t afford the ingredients to ‘waste’ them if it all goes horribly wrong.

Or they don’t have the time / energy to do it themselves - and a microwave meal or takeaway feels easier than cooking for themselves.

It’s interesting when you see studies where any change in diet to whole foods - so, keto or carnivore or vegan or fruit based or whatever - shows an improvement compared to the standard diet, and I think it just demonstrates how detrimental to health convenience foods are.

It’s different in different countries, but one thing that I see a lot is that one wage is not enough to keep a family afloat these days (not talking about having money for extras; just…living) - so then you have both parents in a family out at work, which means that there isn’t time to devote to cooking meals from scratch: shopping, prepping, cooking, washing up.

#164

I was still hungry but I am bored of meat now (it doesn’t help that it’s a bit chewy). So I ate cheesy scrambled eggs (with a little sour cream as it was dry a bit and it should be eaten anyway) and another coffee. It’s not very easy for me to eat eggs but I am used to it, it’s my number one food, after all even though I eat more meat than eggs on most days.

The sweetish Masdaam cheese felt NOT SALTY ENOUGH… Yep, something is definitely off with me and sodium now… :smiley: I don’t feel any lack of sodium, it only affects my taste.

The same. It’s possible to spend an hour just getting out the peas from their shells… I bought it frozen as it’s more fresh and cheap too, not only convenient and time-saving but when I was a kid, we grew our own. It was fun enough on my loooong summer vacations as a kid but that was a special situation…
AND… Doing all that work, I got a vegetable dish, it was nice and whatnot but I ate much of it and I stayed (or become, maybe) hungry… And in most cases it was for 1-2 meals only.
I still liked it and felt the need to eat it but it wasn’t convenient at all.
Oh and since I tried carnivore… I look at vegetable prices (easily as much as my pork and it’s mostly water and some fiber! little sugar… it depends but they aren’t dense, nutritious things. maybe that’s why I ate them galore) and I don’t understand why I considered them a good idea. Except I loved them… But I still couldn’t eat less… But I had no meat… And then my carb intake got smaller… It was tricky.
And they got into my way on keto. I couldn’t really make things work satisfyingly, I had only a 40-45g net carb intake, after all so the amount of my vegetables was annoyingly little, below what I felt the minimum for me. I still survived 7 weeks very well but I did miss my veggies. (How vegetarians below 20g net carbs do it, I can’t imagine. They must like leaf veggies, I always disliked most of them. They are like grass to me. Or they may dislike vegetables, that’s possible too.)

It was a different world. I said zillion times 1-2 years ago that I feel SURREAL and I totally did. Time passed since and I see or feel things differently. I may eat various carby things on my off times but vegetables aren’t things I eat, only super rarely (except onion and tomato, of course, they are even on my carnivore-ish, they complete my egg and meat dishes wonderfully. I still eat them less and less, more and more rarely). And they are meh. Taste the same good but bring no joy. And it happened very quickly right before I tried out carnivore for the first time.
So I lost the connection, I have memories and probably a very tiny bit of nostalgy… And vegs are the main targets for my “I rather buy meat with that money” saying. Poor things. I really loved them once. I couldn’t eat cauliflower on keto as I had NO idea how to use less than 1000g at once, it was my minimum amount if I fried it… I never touch it anymore, never wish to. I can imagine living for several decades without it. And I don’t say it to many things, I like to keep my options open. (Okay, I actually do, I just said I can imagine. But it’s almost the same. It sounds SCARY to imagine not drinking alcohol for a year and I could very easily do it and it wouldn’t be a problem. Still. Did I say I do No Booze January, I wonder. Well I do. I drank a bit in December so it makes sense anyway. So saying “never” is too much for me. Even a year. But I already have lots of items I surely wouldn’t miss. As sure as I can tell. Sometimes years pass and I want to eat something again. But I think me and vegs, that’s a serious change where hardly is a way back - unless needed. I surely wouldn’t DIE if I found no meat around me for a year, it’s just hard to imagine such an apocalyptic situation. But I have some imagination in that direction.)

Meat in the oven, that is totally me :smiley: I play enough with my eggs and Alvaro’s food… With the eggs only sometimes.

Cooking is normal in my country, a job can’t keep someone to do it… And many people cook and bake wonderfully… Elaborated things too. I always liked simple. It took much enough time to do simple. And complicated doesn’t even taste better IMO…

(Robin) #165

My daughter gave me an air fryer fro Christmas and it looks very fancy sitting on the cabinet. But I have yet to crack open the manual. Maybe after all the post-move details are done (2 more rooms to paint), I will stop feeling intimidated and tackle it. (I know it is supposed to be the least complicated thing out there!)

I have been avoiding all my usual roasts and briskets due to time and effort… so the air fryer might break the stalemate between me and my kitchen.

#166

true!
crack that sucker open and give us all your report.
I still do crockpot but that is like ‘dinosaur cooking’ now HAHA but I AM a dino so?

(Robin) #167

I love the crockpot too! I can do a mean brisket in one.

#168

I don’t even know what a crockpot is but googling it it’s some fancy futuristic thing to me. I only have normal pots and pans, my pressure cooker is the fanciest and it’s enough for me. But I don’t use that anyway, it’s for canning fruits and making legume dishes. Though… Maybe one can use it to make meat… But it would end in a pan anyway so I will just wrap my oven pan and cook my pork for 2-3 hours next time, I like the Christmas roast though that was a tad too tender for me. My earthenware dish borderline fits the oven but only one half at a time… Maybe next time we will buy a proper big oven… These mini ones don’t even have a light most of the time and that’s not good. They work just fine otherwise.

Do you know why the English language has this expression? Why mean?
(I have these questions in my own language as well, quite often, sometimes I doesn’t find the logic.)

(Karen) #169

I have noticed pressure cookers making a comeback… I have seen them advertised and also in lidl and aldi recently. I still have my mum old thing though tend to use the slow cooker if doing slow cook meats or do them in the oven got to do pork shoulder in oven for that gorgeous crispy crackling… plus at this time of the year it save me putting my heating on during the day as the oven warms the kitchen up nicely.

I slept abysmally last night, had to come downstairs for an hour to get my head cleared of gardening etc lol. Got up before my alarm went off this morning. Did stair runs and went to pharmacy to pick up meds. Then to CrossFit as I was next in line on the reserve list but it was full and I sat with a brew and watched my daughter do the wod. It looked a hard and gassy one so 8 had no fomo lol, just glad I had done my 100 flights of stairs first thing.

Went off afterwards and picked up 4 small cheap conifers and some troughs for the ferns. Came home for brunch of sauted chicken and cheese.

Dinner was pork fillet. Only cooked and ate just under half the fillet and it was way too lean for me. May cook the rest tomorrow and eat it cold.

Today was cold and wet and wintry but tomorrow is meant to be brighter, I am hoping it is as I want to get planting. My hall is getting very busy again lol. All these cheapo bargain plants lol.

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Sorry no foody pics hahaha

#170

Instant Pots really led the resurgence in pressure cooking, because they’re a lot less fuss compared to the old stove top versions. Following their success, Ninja branched out - and now they’re both in the air fryer / worktop grill etc game.

I bought my Instant Pot about a decade ago, primarily for making bone broth with. It’s great for anything that has a more liquid base - bolognese or soup or curry etc - but I have less use for those types of meals since going carnivore rather than low carb or keto.

They make fantastic boiled eggs and cook up gammon sides really well. I’ve cooked chickens in it too - the meat is really succulent and soft, literally fall off the bone, but the skin doesn’t become crispy.

Nowadays, I use it a lot to make ghee.

It’s also a slow cooker, but I’ve never bothered with that functionality - I’ve always opted for the faster mode of pressure cooking.

The grill / air fryer / oven is a different thing altogether. My favourite part of it is that you insert the temperature probe, set it to ‘medium rare’ or ‘medium well’ or whatever, and let the oven do the rest without having to keep a timer or keep checking on it.

I use the oven most of all (my real oven is broken), followed by the grill (grilled salmon is excellent), followed by air fryer (usually chicken wings). Kelly talks about air frying frozen steak, so I will try that and let you know how it goes.

I wouldn’t have bought it if my oven hadn’t been broken, so I can see why others wouldn’t bother if they already had an oven - but I really appreciate the low-hassle method of cooking.

I don’t have any desire to go back to keto or low carb or standard diet - but if I’m honest, I have even less desire to go back to spending an hour in the kitchen every night, no matter how good the result is.

(Robin) #171

Love the Hall O’ Plants. We have the same situation every winter.

(Edith) #172

Agreed about the cooking thing. I used to bake and cook a lot. Loved trying new recipes. But, like you said, it was very time consuming. I was also a stay-at-home mom, so I had the time to put into cooking and baking. Now I work full-time, so carnivore cooking is perfect. If I’m really behind schedule, I can just brown up some ground beef. I can’t get any simpler than that.

#173

Indeed… I make my big roasts sometimes but if I need something quick from scratch, I use my trusted pan and very tiny pieces of meat and what is tinier than mincemeat… And it makes chewy meat way more tender too. And I can mix it with eggs and spice…

Still roasts and stews are the best :smiley:

I was a tad hungry (more like not satiated) so I ate a bit at 9. So it’s NOT an IF day. It happens on weekends sometimes.
I wanted food just not eggs or meat… Tricky.
In the end I ate bacon and eggs and pork roast, I really had not many options but it was okay. Not oh so enjoyable but I am nicely satiated now. Ate the tiny leftover sour cream too and cheese.

And NOW I miss my dry sausage. That’s very, very useful when I want a nice little ending of a meal, it’s super tasty and different from my normal food I eat in bigger quantities… The review winner bacon is soooooooooo inferior. But it’s variety and not bad, per se so I am glad I still have 2 rashers, I will eat it tomorrow with some eggs. Eggs are nicer than bacon if you ask me but not necessarily at the 10th eggs on the day in a time where I start to get bored of eggs…

After this roast I will make beef, I need something different and I ate tongue not long ago, not the kind I have in the freezer but still, too similar. I make beef mincemeat and use different spices, it will be nice.

Too bad I can’t do OMAD now. I always start my first meal with willingness to eat my normal food but I start to get bored of it later. My processed meat still has its role. I don’t need much but it spices up things nicely. But I am pleased, I am not into either eggs or pork roast now and I still could eat enough. It took the most relaxed style I allow right now and 4 meals but I did it.

I feel this determination and self-confidence in myself now in January. NO WAY I would quit, I solve if I have some problem. Now I really relax my ways a bit, I can’t live on eggs and pork roast alone right now (I could if I had to but I have things to eat and I already am way below my usual 8-10/10 meals and January or not, I don’t want to reach the state where I feel I suffer and suddenly break or something. I had those times in the past, sometimes very suddenly. I am safer now but I still have my limits).

The pâté with meat was okay but not so good. I don’t think I want to eat pork liver again. Maybe if Alvaro’s Mom makes it, that’s okay. I just don’t want to bother with a problematic item, chicken liver is loads better.
Alvaro got into a nostalgic mood after a vegetarian week (but maybe it’s just because I ate liver for days :D) and expressed his desire towards a nice chicken liver and heart stew, it was a frequent childhood dish for him. Not for me but it’s a pretty common thing. The butcher in the town has chicken liver and heart, they come together, we can’t buy chicken liver or chicken heart there just the mix. It’s great, the liver is soft and liver flavored while the tiny hearts are firmer (still not too chewy) and more neutral, both kinda tasty, not an oh so awesome taste (that’s home-raised pork chuck roast or home-made sausage without a ton of marjoram… and other nice great pork items. like tongue, that’s great too) but good.
So we will have that after January. Or earlier if I will fear for my sanity or the remaining joy in my life without a stew asap. One can never know. But I am trying! :wink: Not hard but I do.

(Daisy) #174

@robintemplin air fryer is life!!!

Day 10 Lion diet: Pictures are kinda weird but I took a huge round steak, about 3 lb steak and ate almost 2 lbs of it divided between two meals. Plus chunked off several pieces of frozen raw beef liver.

Sleep last night: Supplements: 10 mg melatonin with lemon balm and 800 mg of magnesium glycinate, an hour before bed. In bed at 9:21, on my back- deep breath and prayer, no earplugs. Fell asleep fairly quickly, but not quite as quickly as the night before. Woke at 11:37, not with the stomach distress of the night before, but as soon as I came in to pee, had a repeat of the previous night. So it’s definitely the new melatonin (side note, I took that back today and got a different kind). Took anti diarrhea medicine and went back to bed- on my back, prayer and breath. Fell right back to sleep. Up at 1:07 to pee, slight diarrhea. Up at 5:04 to pee. Awake from 6-8 (it’s the weekend!) laying peacefully, possibly dozing here and there for a few minutes. Up for the day at 7:59, with slight diarrhea.
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(Linda ) #175

Today and yesterday not so good for me because hubby bought home flavored pork rinds and I ended up eating two bags so told him I dont want him buying them for me again…
Last night had to go out for dinner so sour cream and,a fork full of quacamoli …but I didn’t eat a ton of food…
So todays food was lamb hock and ground beef with final part of pork rinds.

(Robin) #176

It’s amazing how we can still lose our minds and demolish two bags of something! Been there.

#177

But 2 bags is, like, little…? (Of course we may consider 2 bags of certain things way too much.) Maybe you have big bags there? We have small ones. And pork rinds aren’t even fatty… Well, a bit but not very.

I don’t have experiences with 2 bags as I simply never buy 2 bags of anything… But I always ate up all the desserts or other tempting treats I made any time. Of course I never made super much, I learned (and probably knew) that I will eat to my very very awesome eating abilities… Only 16 fat bombs, for example and even that was much for me, I really needed to minimize my fat intake and fat bombs went against that… (They were savory but made with peanuts and that’s very tempting and addictive. I still LOVE the smell, we have a jar of peanuts in the kitchen and I am hours in the kitchen every day so I smell it sometimes, wow :smiley: The smell is even better than the taste.)
I often made only 8 fat bombs and that’s really nothing except in calories… Small, dense fat bombs. Very rarely.

Now I can eat little of ANYTHING that isn’t a very few items (like eggs, pork roast and I probably still have some triggering items I never have so I can’t know). The change is remarkable. I can go below 5g peanuts very easily (it’s still best that I obviously eat zero on carnivore, it’s easy, I never ever miss it! I have these odd addictions where not eating the stuff cause no problems but I lose my mind if I touch the thing and inhale a lot in no time. or too often if it’s coffee)… But let’s not talk about non-carni items, right?
Well. I definitely can’t eat more than 10-20g cheese at once (not mixed in something, that’s maybe a tad higher. I don’t like most very cheesy dishes) but I never ate cheese in big quantities.
It’s very hard for me to go over 60g bacon a day, I don’t want that.
Pork rinds are so extremely expensive I can’t even bring myself to try out a bag. Our cracklings are way too fatty and too expensive for a low-meat product so I don’t buy them either.
Sausage, well I like to eat it in moderation but it’s the item I can go high with. Especially the ones for frying but dry sausage would work too if I could unlock the mind barrier in an emergency where I am hungry with only a long dry sausage :smiley: I sooo could eat it. But the normal portion is 5-10g at once.
We don’t have flavored pork rinds. Flavors… Well they can change the game… I like nice flavors for sure. But it’s still mostly my hunger or my compulsion to eat up the content of an opened package. It’s the same with a plate. I just don’t leave food. Well, used to. It changed even before carnivore I guess but definitely on carnivore. The stop signal of meat is powerful but I rarely meet it nowadays…
I eat tiny, tiny deli meat. But pork jowl, I already installed brakes and barriers and rules as inhaling 1000 kcal of it in 2 minutes is not simply easy, it’s almost unavoidable in certain situations (like I am hungry, I have enough and I allow it though this latter is always flexible in my life when hungry. I still have my consciousness and respect some of my rules but just to some extent. it’s weakest regarding amounts, I don’t respect that when hungry).

I don’t have the “eating only a little” thing with pork roast. I decide it’s early lunch so only my first meal of probably more and I have eggs so only a tiiiiny pork… Nope. If the eggs can’t cover 1200+ kcal (and they hardly can), it probably won’t be a little. I should know better already.
Deciding on a separated, single, smaller piece may help but only if I have plenty of other food to get satiated. And those are tempting enough. Eggs rarely can compete with pork (especially after I already ate several) so it’s a bold plan of me to eat little roast these days but if I wait for hunger and use desserts with mascarpone… Hmmm… Still will probably fail :smiley: But maybe not. Life is full with surprises and experiments! :smiley:

I made boiled egg biscuits! :smiley: They probably won’t be very great but still more fun than mere boiled eggs. I have 7 caraway-cheese ones and 5 mascarpone-vanilla-clove ones. These are dessert days due to the opened mascarpone (I plan to eat 100g of it, probably today and tomorrow but maybe only today, who knows?). I really need a break from my roast I think. Not a complete one, I need that too as 3 rashers of bacon isn’t enough meat even for me now but the amount will be small. Or not. One can never know, hungry me isn’t very predictable.
And I go back to my stricter style on Tuesday.

#178

I got skunked on my bbq. Our fav place was closed for a week when hubby called and due to reopen soon. Ugh. He stopped at another place and meat was awful. Brisket was SO dry and chewy. So over smoked. No fat cap on it. The ribs were SO chewy and not cooked enough and a very strange bbq rub on them that was goopy, thick, chucky wet like mixture and had some strange tasting herbs in there I wasn’t a fan! I ate almost none of it. Called it a day on my food, luckily my pork chops earlier kept me ok from wanting more food so I just didn’t eat it but the family jumped on it :slight_smile: Luckily hubby liked it all and he will finish it all off. What a waste of money for me on that joint. It is amazing to me how places can ruin such good meat :frowning: well I didn’t like it, I am sure others do love it LOL

Today is super simple
Got chicken and burgers. Got a lb. of bacon to fry up if wanted.

Right now I am so over buying food. I am done with buying ribs and brisket and pork butts and more. I am cooking for myself. Done deal :slight_smile:

#179

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The lizard is a racehorse goanna. It is 3ft long and mainly carnivorous.

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I went from trying to save it, as it had been hit by a car, to wondering if I should eat it. It is Australian aboriginal bush tucker (photo 2. from Internet)

Ended up wrapping in newspaper and double bagging it for the freezer while it was still fresh. I sent an email to the state museum to see if they want it for taxidermy.

#180

Tastes like Chicken!!!

Ahhh, sad he was hit by a car :frowning:
nice to offer him for research tho.

I gotta said I would try eating that sucker. I actually read up that lizards of bigger size are a decent menu item, never tasted one but I sure would if I get the chance!