Deep-freeze Dee-cember (30 day carnivore experience)

[kib1]

My observation from my grocery shopping is that while the meat is pricy, the fact that I’m not spending any money on vegetables, condiments, desserts and processed foods my grocery bill is less.
Works for me.

I decided to microtrack this because my food seemed so much more expensive, what with all the steak, even in restaurants. Turns out his pile’o snacks, store-bought pastries, fancy beer, keto-this n keto-that (mystifying, as the rest of his diet completely negates these specialty products), sugar covered ribs, restaurant treat desserts - and medical bills - are about the equivalent of my food bill plus collagen supplement. Which is, admittedly, quite a generous budget for both of us. It’s a bit of a heart ache, I feel his choice is killing him while mine is maintaining steady health that may last many decades, but … We each make our choices, right?

[PaulL]

We each make our choices, right?

You can lead a husband to keto, but you cannot make him think.

Alas.

[Shinita]

I read many posts from newbies in the forum, saying they cannot stop eating.

I mostly had that with carby food but it may happen on any diet. It has the tiniest chance on carnivore especially if I focus on meat…
But I am sure there are phases. Nowadays I get satiated easily and for long, no matter how much plant and carbs I happen to eat. I have no idea about my macros though as I don’t track. Maybe I just massively overeat every day but I don’t think so. I suspect my very low egg and dairy consumption is helpful. Or the fact that even if I have much carbs, it’s not just any kind.

said not to worry about appetite; it would sort itself out.

Because they didn’t meet my appetite (or it needs a woe I can’t possibly able to do). And hunger and need for fuel. (And other things but I understand if the mental/temptation part is something they expect me to solve somehow, I never could and probably never will but it will be better eventually, give me another decade or two.) Why is it always about appetite? It has little to do with my food consumption… Maybe I am a weirdo. I eat too much to lose fat even when I have zero appetite AND zero hunger… As my need for fuel totally comes then I could have fast but no, some urge surely emerges even without the mental ones… But I better stop, it’s my personal problem and it’s not even among my major ones, it’s just low-key annoying sometimes.

to eat while it tastes good and stop when it stops tasting good

My SO and I talked about it a few times in the last month and we can’t imagine this, people are so odd! The flavors are the same, no matter if we are hungry, okay, satiated, very very full or what. We may not want it anymore but the taste is just like it always is… It never changes. We suppose that’s why so many people overeat like crazy. They desire the tasty food even when they are already very satiated. Of course there is a part where the food doesn’t bring satiation but surely not having this flavor change matters a lot too. I know I ate A LOT after I got very well satiated but the food was super flavorful - and not the kind that brings me stop sign… Not day to day, it was more like at parties with some wonderful items, sometimes at home when I really fancied a favorite and there was a lot of it… Sometimes it’s just a triggering item that rarely misses, it grabs me and I am doomed…

Cheap meat is cheap. Vegs are way more expensive if you ask me, except some very cheap ones, of course. Peppers and cucumbers for the price of chicken? While chicken can’t satiate me alone, it has precious protein, I can pair it with pork, it is useful. While the veg does little beyond making me hungry. A single pepper may worth its price (if one needs it) as it’s light and crunchy and juicy… But we need food too, it’s just tiny extra joy. The cheap plants used as food doesn’t work well for me. I still need my animal food. I ate plenty of fatty animal protein when I was a vegetarian as I needed it. The plants mostly acted as extra cost, hunger inducing items and joy. Some nutrition too. It’s cheaper if I focus on meat. It isn’t the case for everyone but it is for me as far as I can tell. I probably could significantly but not very very much reduce my food cost and still survive just fine but that would cost me, it wouldn’t be really good. I could reduce the cost a bit if I just ate less and no coffee or tea… Consuming less (especially coffee and tee. I am very good at sweeteners now even on off days) is what I really want but it goes slowly…

I really get shocked about veg prices sometimes. I always compare them to meat prices… And they seem such a bad idea then… I am afraid I can’t see vegs a super precious item like even weather forecast sites seem to do… They are just expensive things I can’t even get satiated with. Not really food. Maybe some accent in food. For fun. Not nutrition. But of course it’s because of my diet, tastes and the way my body functions.

[FrankoBear]

1pm breakfast was a 3 egg omelette cooked in last night’s tallow with some grated Jarlsberg cheese over the top. The rest of last night’s steak, it filled the whole dinner plate and was shaped like the state of Texas, will be for dinner this evening. Sunset is at about 7:30pm. So, having last meal of the day before sunset.

The picture is from the road down to my local beach. The tree is a Christmas Tree, as it blooms bright orange in December. It’s also the world’s largest mistletoe. The sea breeze is in early. But don’t let that stop going for a swim in the ocean lagoon. A snorkeler saw a 6ft shark in that ‘safe’ swimming area this morning. We all know how water and imagination magnify things.

[JJFiddle]

So by “24 hour ferment” are you saying you leave it out at room temp for 24 hours or do you leave it incubating for 24 hours?

I fill a 6 qt instant pot max with 3 containers of Fairlife homogenized milk and bring to a boil. Then sous vide it down to 115°. Then I add a 5 oz container of Fage yogurt, and set on yogurt for 24 hours. It does usually get jarred and refrigerated with some delay but that’s not intentional. Since I’m not really eating it, I guess the only benefit to me is that when I put it in the blender I don’t have to smell lactose, which still smells pretty foul since Covid.

[Karen18]

Stayed in much of the day yesterday, it poured down just about the whole day and into the night and i thought there would be massive floods nearing the house again but there is but a smidgering of water lying on the fields over the back this morning! Should i add …thankfully!

I had another dental appt in the afternoon for hygenist and also to start the whitening process.
Food was 2 small rump steaks for brunch and the dinner was partridge breast which i have never eaten before and a couple of pork chops followed by a tin of sardined later.

[Fangs]

usual zc, nothing is really changing other than me being even more picky all the time LOL

hitting road early to pick up kiddo from Uni.
her car is not repaired out of the body shop yet…my gosh repairs take so long, they had trouble finding the 2 doors for replacement…ugh.

so off I go to get her. will eat lightly on the road. I can’t stomach much of the naked burgers from places anymore and there is really nothing I want other than a good ol’ steakhouse maybe to eat but that ain’t going down on this trip,get her and get back fast

got nice steak to eat when home along with some leftover pork ribs I have in fridge. done deal for food.

ZC ON!

[Shinita]

Super little light in the kitchen (the lamp above isn’t enough) and I dislike going over 400 ISO with this old camera… So things got blurry therefore I made the pics tiny…

My ragout soup, it lasted for sooo long but I finally ate it (almost, a few bites remained but I will eat it for dinner)!

And my roasted hen, it’s for dinner along with the pork chuck roast I didn’t shoot.
Really sorry for the quality but I don’t want to go down with the CF card and do it again…

I had a sponge cake with butter and ham too and before lunch, some experimental biscuits. Eggy cheese whisps, basically. Crunchy and not bad but it needs more work. I used a boiled egg.

And I had creamy/eggy coffees. But Alvaro brought my tea order (lots of tea! yay!) so I probably will be able to quit coffee for a while. I am not so much into it anymore, I just had no proper black tea.

We had rain at night and in the morning but not since! Or just a few drops. And forecast says there won’t be any more! The temperature is nice too so the snow will melt soon even here on the hill. The little town already has close to none, Alvaro says. Zero sunshine today but we probably will have some in the next days.

I have fully healed, now Alvaro is the sick one, poor soul. But he could use the car today! It was challenging but doable. So nothing can stop us to do some shopping on Saturday, I need a few things for my edible gifts and we don’t have enough proper cheese anyway. And some fatty pork would do good, I use up my lard easily lately as I don’t track and am a bit looser with my added fat consumption… But I eat fattier fried pork too so less pure lard remains.
I think it was useful to push the leaner pork for a while but no more of that. I still will eat it, sure but not alone, I will pair it up with something fattier. And definitely never will fry it alone. I am not even happy with my leanish pork in my soup and it wasn’t very lean… Just not chuck level, the perfection.

@FrankoBear: Such a wonderful looking tree, I enjoy every pics of it!

[Geezy56]

Glorious (but hot) summer days here.

Makes me wish I could move there for our winters.

There is an ‘off’ switch for eating.

This has been one of my favorite things about carnivore.

[Geezy56]

I fill a 6 qt instant pot max with 3 containers of Fairlife homogenized milk and bring to a boil. Then sous vide it down to 115°. Then I add a 5 oz container of Fage yogurt, and set on yogurt for 24 hours.

Thanks. All of the recipes I researched said to only use the yogurt setting for 12 hours and then let it cool for a couple of hours outside of the Instant Pot. I’ll try your method next time.
I’m not very adept at use mine yet but I’m learning.

[Karen18]

Out and about today…went back to the Asian shop again to get some more braid… typical that we didn’t have the right colour braid for the shirt he needs for the twixmas dance break ! Oh it is so hard not going completely mad in that shop

Back to Beeston for a bite to eat and i had 2 fried eggs, 2 sausages, 1 bacon and 2 black pudding… i felt pretty stuffed after… i felt so hungry when i went in the cafe, probably because from this morning NO COFFEE! instead i had a cup of chilli spiced hot water, but i soon filled up … should have made do with just a couple of eggs on black pudding! Sorry no pics

Dinner has just been mixed sea food pan fried.

I have a steak out to cook so i may feel like that a bit later. I am off out to do a bit of Fencing (swuashbuckling type … not garden lo) … a taster evening with the U3a.

[Geezy56]

It’s a dreary chilly day here today so I needed something hot and savory so it was a good day for my savory venison stew.

[JJFiddle]

That venison stew looks delicious!
After the colo prep, and then the procedure, went to a breakfast diner for 3 scrambled eggs, sausage and coffee. Delicious but I should have gone much lighter. After all the angst however, I think this procedure is about the same with or without plant foods. I did not finish the gallon of liquid lastnight, stopped about 10:30 and then npo til 10 am in recovery when the nurse brought coffee.
I didn’t sleep lastnight, just an hour and a half, so crashed when we got home. Looking forward to gabapentin and melatonin tonight and a sound night’s sleep!
This evening, had my 4 oz liverwurst and some plain club soda.

[robintemplin]

I likely won’t sleep before mine either for the same reason. Glad it’s “behind” you now!

[Shinita]

@Geezy56: Nice! it looks like just meat, water and probably salt (as I don’t see that, per se ). Is there something else?

I will try to get some ruminant meat next time I go to the usual hipermarket… It won’t be this year as we won’t go to the city except for Christmas dinner. But maybe I can pick up some deer in a LIDL before, we do visit a nearby town on Saturday. Much bigger than the tiny one where Alvaro works but a tiny one compared to the city where his Mom lives. I thought it’s one of the biggest cities but nope, only the 9th… It was super important in the past though as it was the kings’ seat and is called “the city of kings” even now when we talk about it historically. There are very often exhibits about our kings and saints (there is a significant subset) and there is a dedicated museum I never visited…
I miss going to exhibits, I wasn’t this year I was last year, that was the “kings and saints” one and I saw historical things in the "night of the museums’ in another town too. But it was long ago. I like to go and see stuff. The smaller town we visit on Saturday have a castle with exhibits too but we weren’t there since years, sometimes I mention it but we rarely visit that town. Despite it being like 20kms away or even less (it’s more by car, it’s only that short if we cross a shooting place).

The hen isn’t so great roasted. It has more flavor than a chicken but it’s less soft and it dries out in the oven a little (especially that I just put there and used the highest temperature for reasons but it wouldn’t be great anyway). And even the flavor wasn’t so impressive this way… I probably will put even the limbs into the soup next time, I can just take off some fat if that is a problem (it is, I don’t like too fatty soups for some reason) but I have other plans for a chicken or hen anyway. Tossing it into the oven is simple - but not the best method. I will use a recipe from the history cooking channel… The guy have everything, meat dishes, desserts, drinks… The carby stuff is often quite frightening and he loves super sweet things I can’t imagine to be edible… But some are almost carnivore (past folks loved meat too!) and I tend to change recipes to my liking anyway
So next time I will use a pot and a significant amount of fat and put the chicken in that. Alvaro’s Mom usually cook chicken that was and I like it enough. Except the sunflower oil but so little sticks to the chicken that I can handle that if I must. It’s a drop after the about one tonne I have consumed in my life… It only took a few decades, it’s quite scary now…

I just need to figure out what to do with the duck wings… How can they shine the best…

[Goldengirl52]

Hi @Shinita, I’m up over here in the PNW of US at 3 a.m. and saw you were around. Thought I’d say hi and mention I am about ready to dump a lot of foods to see if I can get rid of whatever is causing my allergies or histamine intolerance. I do believe carnivore would be best for me, but I can’t imagine life without eggs and they are high in histamine they say (articles/videos).

I’m really not sure if I could afford to eat meat only. I’ll have to check out exactly what a carnivore diet does allow, or, consist of first. Pretty sure dairy is allowed, not sure what else. I’ll go take a look before I write anything further. Be good to talk to some others that are carnivore, which I haven’t zeroed in on before now.

The closest I’ve come to being carnivore is eating only meat for dinner, no side-dishes at all of any sort. Maybe see your around today. I only slept 3 hours so not sure how long I will remain upright before I crawl back in bed. Sure am glad I’m retired, this phase I’m going through in my life would have been way hard if I was trying to hold down a job.

[JJFiddle]

@Goldengirl52 Welcome! Yes you might see a good reduction in allergies! I would minimize dairy for that (especially lactose-laden dairy like milk) but eggs are great and cheap too! I like grassfed burger, at $6/lb it’s ¼ the price of steak.
Hubby still eats regular food but even so my grocery bill is half what it was before. Veggies are expensive and I ate lots of avocados, salad, pickles, and all those keto designer ingredients. I threw out an entire cabinet of artificial sweeteners and flavorings, fake noodles and fake biscuit mix.
Emptied my fridge too, no more coconut and almond flour, 30 jars of pickles and jalapeños, gone! Oh yes and cleaned out the spice cabinet. For nearly 2 years my shopping and meal planning has been “easy as pie” - meat pie lol! Hubby benefits too because along with his sides he’s getting a top quality main course.

[Goldengirl52]

Hi JJ, I read eggs contain a lot of histamine. Maybe I got some bad info. I like the idea of Carnivore but I don’t want to give up yogurt, cream-cheese, mozarella cheese, and heavy whipping cream I add to my decaf. I know I need to though to find out if I they are causing my issue.

I’ve been looking around the internet trying to find out about the Carnivore Diet and how many Carnivore-friendly foods have histamine. I also want to ask Carnivores if maybe some of them had my issue before they started Carnivore, and the Carnivore diet cured that issue?

Glad to see you this a.m. (a.m. for me, 4:15 now, don’t know how long I will last without more sleep

[Goldengirl52]

Hubby still eats regular food but even so my grocery bill is half what it was before. Veggies are expensive and I ate lots of avocados, salad, pickles, and all those keto designer ingredients. I threw out an entire cabinet of artificial sweeteners and flavorings, fake noodles and fake biscuit mix.
Emptied my fridge too, no more coconut and almond flour, 30 jars of pickles and jalapeños, gone! Oh yes and cleaned out the spice cabinet. For nearly 2 years my shopping and meal planning has been “easy as pie” - meat pie lol! Hubby benefits too because along with his sides he’s getting a top quality main course.

I had to re-read to get everything, I’m just dealing with only 3 hours of sleep here
I can give up anything you mentioned very easily, the seasonings I’d have to learn but come to think of it, just no plant based right I like salt mostly and glad it’s not plant-based

Oh my gosh, I’d have to give up nuts to be true carnivore. I also read that my fave, walnuts, are high in histamine.

[Fangs]

got kiddo from Uni.

now I am taking ‘us’ shopping cause she swears upon her last breath there is NO FOOD IN THE HOUSE, lol…omg this shop is gonna be horrifying, I am already trying to shut my mouth on what goes into the buggy, LOL ugh, but luckily she is way more low carb eater so I will pull back and let ‘her shop’ and then I meat/seafood shop and I will just let this grocery trip be easy and not nag her to death HAHA

usual day. got a nice steak defrosted to eat when I get back from shop and 2nd meal I got planned 1/2 rotiss. chicken and will pair up with 2 thin pork chops. done zc deal

You know I never say breakfast lunch and dinner anymore. only family does. I say first meal, second meal…that is all I have in my eating life. I eat when I want either meal, there is NO BOX I am in when it comes to meal times, I am out of the stupid azz eat breakfast lunch and dinner and snack BS times!! I am on my own eating zc time schedule which is so personal to me alone…whew, I am Love Love Loving it as usual! A relief it is truly to be ZC for me.