Eggtober Octstravaganza - 31 days of Healthy Protein Eating - Carnivore Challenge

[FrankoBear]

Made it to the end of the teaching semester. Work will continue. But every year I crash in a heap after the last class day. It is stressful on campus. One tutor committed some self-harm. I have many assignment extension requests to deal with for 5 subjects from students who are ‘burnt out’ and suffering mental health problems (you should see the crap they eat). My observation of the young elite and leaders of tomorrow, the one’s getting a university education, is that many are fragile. They do not have the learned pragmatism that we see in this company each time someone faces a challenge. In this carnivore group it’s, “I feed my self well that is my base, and from there I can take this thing on.”

So, I’ve had a few mornings in the sunshine, and got outdoors with Billie the Labrador and down to the ocean. Like I said in the last post, I feel as weak as a baby. But eating well, being active outdoors in the forest, around the homestead, down at the beach, sleeping well, is all good life recovery stuff.

I had 3 egg omelette with some shredded Jarlsberg cheese cooked in the tallow from last night’s Cattleman steak (a short rib steak). The steak size was big with about 1kg (2.2lbs) of meat on it, so I’ll have the leftover ‘half’ this evening. So good to be back in the countryside and eating 2MAD and drinking rainwater from our own tanks.

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October is dysautonomia awareness month. It’s taken me until now to realise.

Some keto folks discuss it: https://www.ketogenicforums.com/search?q=dysautonomia

This may affect the functioning of the heart, bladder, intestines, sweat glands, pupils, and blood vessels. Search: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysautonomia

It is very interesting to read about. I reckon, when I say “I crash” it may be from stress and sympathetic nervous system dominance. The autonomic nervous system is the part of our wiring that does all the automatic and reflex things, like breathing, sweating, producing tears, digestion etc. So, if a person has multiple unwell symptoms that conglomerate into a term such as “crash” or “collapse”, then they may have dysautonomia. The autonomic nervous system was one of the more complex things to study during physiology classes, it has multi-systemic interactions and many hormonal and neurotransmitter cascades. I haven’t dived into it for a few decades.

But one of my students has developed POTS this semester, she faints at least once per day, she is still a teenager. POTS is Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome. I found it interesting to listen about due to the tachycardia (very high heart rate) because that was a symptom I was having (diagnosed as atrial fibrillation). POTS is a dysautonomia disease. Another one that affects muscles and mobility is Parkinson’s Disease.

Lewy Body Dementia, a rapid onset dementia, that actor Robin Williams had before he decided on self euthanasia, and my dad had as well, overlaps with autonomic nervous system disease as well. The dementia area is interesting due to its responsiveness to a ketogenic diet in some cases. The diagnosis of dysautonomia is quite complex to make. But if people have multi-system symptoms of automatic body functions, it is worth the work to track it down. As for fixing it, there are a few toxic medications that interact with each other, that’s about all I know at this stage. This is just scant note-taking and needs some fact checking and verification. I can either read a novel before bed or medical science information, I guess.

[FrankoBear]

Hmm. Anyone have trouble with pork? I wonder if it is bothering me rather than eggs? I might need to drop both for a couple weeks then add one back at a time.

I think on this question often. The problem, I think, in pork, poultry, and bacon is the fat ratios of saturated fats to unsaturated fats. If the pig or chicken are grain, or grain mash, fed, then they have higher polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) in the eventual food products. It is hard to assess in eggs. But with chicken meat and pork one test is to see how liquid or slimy the meat is at room temperature.

Testing can be done with beef and lamb as well, but they are ruminant animals and the visuals aren’t as drastic, beef and lamb don’t tend to melt as the free fatty acids absorbed from the ruminant’s gut is a product of bacterial fermentation. Fair enough, Wagyu farmers push their cattle into insulin resistance quite forcefully, and you may end up with PUFAs in the fat streaked muscle meat.

Oh, and the chefs tell us to make sure our steak is at room temperature (20 -22’C) before cooking to get a better result. If chicken and pork meat cuts, or even bacon, end up swimming in a lake of slime, then that is indication of a higher PUFA ratio. A high PUFA ratio is an inflammation promoting diet, which is not what is needed if people are looking for an immune calming dietary approach. Polyunsaturated fats are easily oxidised releasing inflammation promoting and initiating free radical molecules.

There are options to cook pork in a low-fat manner, remember doing that in the 1980’s? Throw out the rendered fat and then adding back a safe fat. A safe fat could be non-dairy. It could be ghee, tallow, lard, (tropical oil: coconut or palm), any of the fats that stay solid at room temperature while the pork or chicken is melting.

I just look for the best quality, non-grain fed, forage fed, pork or chicken or eggs. For me, it is about sourcing bacon and eggs. I’ve found my preferred cooked meat comes from ruminant animals and occasionally fish. Once in awhile I’ll follow my instincts to duck, mussels and/or oysters. But that is rare, or as options when eating out.

[Shinita]

I want a bigger freezer too… And some decently priced mutton, seriously now…
Our fridge just gets worse and worse, it’s really time to seriously search for our next one. We did that sometimes but not as seriously yet. It’s tricky. It’s almost always the case with almost everything: we really aren’t very choosy but we still have a few expectations and it appears to be a lot, we are glad if we can find something that meets our few but super important requirements… I want the biggest not double fridge I can fit into my kitchen with a huge veggie rack (3 times as big as my current one, it’s tiny as it needs to leave space to some machine parts and the lowest shelf in the door) and a freezer where the top shelf is open. And no unnecessary-for-me fancy things. And low energy cost. I want to be able to put our tall pressure cooker into it with a lid on! Poor thing always goes in without, it barely fits and I made its self almost as high as the other 3 combined, I can’t do more than that. Yep, I need a way higher fridge. Bigger freezer, bigger other part. Whenever we cook after some big shopping, we need my very developed packing skills to fit everything into the fridge. Alvaro couldn’t buy 2 bunnies as they couldn’t fit into the freezer. And he can’t buy vegs way before cooking them as we don’t have space for that.
It will be awesome when we get out next fridge! Even if I fit everything into the fridge, it’s so hard to find and get out anything. I could sort things much better with more space. I wouldn’t have just 2 small parts: fresh meat (and whatever I need to push there somehow) and everything else (tiny vegs, tiny fruits, tiny herbs, all in their small boxes in the back as we barely even use them, ready to eat food - meatballs, fried fish and beef stew now -, sausages, now there is some jars with stuff we want to pressure can but they didn’t make a full pressure cooker so they are waiting). Too many boxes and weird shaped things. Alvaro knows never to open the freezer door as there is some chance something falls out (I do try to avoid packing that way. I lost too many boxes that way. though half of them died when I just rummaged around and there were too many boxes on top of each other).
So yep, I am looking forward to our new, pretty and big fridge. Oh I don’t want a white one, that’s boring. This one was white (it came with the house) but I covered and painted it, it starts to get off now, the door only closes with the aid of properly strong magnets, it has rust and cracked plastic… But we really like to use our machines until we can. We used this fridge well, it’s really time for it to go.
A big one will make us unable to use the storage under the current one but it’s for onions, potatoes and the like and even Alvaro uses so very little of them since my carnivore times started… But maybe a small storage still will fit. I am not into rummaging in the freezer (that will be on the bottom now, yay. more convenient) at ground level… Well we will see its height. I need space on the top to store my canned fruits. I use all the cupboard tops and the fridge top all the time, I don’;t have many upper cupboards due to the 2 huge windows. Only 8 cupboards (1 isn’t even in the kitchen)… It sounds many but some of them are tiny and only one is really big, the corner one. No idea how anyone fits into a small kitchen, I need so, so much space and I deliberately barely have kitchen machines…

We have rabbit but non-carnivore so I put the (ugly) pic into another thread. I was much more into eating it than making a shot… Alvaro used up all the sour cream, fortunately I put some into my pork first. As I don’t like the (not so much) soup, I just got most of the meat with a little broth, cooked for a while and added sour cream. It’s still not thick but it will get jellied when it cools down.

My other photos didn’t get so good either, the rabbit scatchings got a bit blurry, whatever. It’s enough to imagine it sharp. And the most interesting thing isn’t its look. It’s weird! I can imagine posh ladies snacking on it It’s not some peasant thing like normal, pork scatchings! It’s… Light, sweetish, subtle… Just like rabbit meat itself.
This was the fattiest lil bunny I ever saw! And the others had fat too. But this one had a lot, hence the rabbit scratchings, just a little taste, I didn’t rob the rabbit from its fat, just took a bit. Interesting experience. I wondered if I am functioning correctly. Can fat be SWEET? Well, sweetish but definitely. It seems so. Pork never does that, not even piglets. The rabbit liver was almost tasteless as usual. Zero bitterness, subtle sweetness but not much of any flavor.
The 2 round things are rabbit kidneys. We always get the kidneys and liver and the head- and feetless cleaned rabbit.

And I wrote it elsewhere too… I listened to a cooking show in the radio. And they made a dish I wouldn’t but it was so not following the official guidelines that it was fun and nice to me.
T-bone made in the oven (well it got a quick session in a pan afterwards), fully immersed in Mangalica lard

mom ya ever get embarrassed buying SO many steaks and like nothing else in your order

I might would be embarrassed to buy only chicken frames, that’s so deep poverty and bad eating (unless if I would buy them for the cats) but steaks? The thought never would cross my mind but my feelings would refuse to go into that direction even then!

I have bacon now, the good, sliced thing but I just never felt the need to eat it. I have this often now. I am fine with my fresh meat, some eggs, dairy and little else and I keep my processed meats for times when I get bored of my normal meat or when I specifically desire them. And it just don’t seem to happen. In the end I will plan them into my day… It’s good most of them freezes well so I don’t need to fear the expiration date. But last time I couldn’t fit everything into the freezer and my bacon is still not there. I probably will start to eat it soon But I need lean meat with it and I don’t have any right now. (Or I just don’t care, that is an option…)

I got tired, I will read Frankobear’s comments next time. They deserve my full attention, not whatever I have right now. I ate too early but Alvaro cooked early so I cooked the rabbit things early and things just followed each other… I ate rabbit too, 3 pieces but I couldn’t easily stop… The cats were happy with the many tiny bones with plenty of little meat morsels between them and the fried meat liquid
Did I write they liked the boring, white, too salty fresh but still not soft cheese? So they got some. But it turned out Alvaro is fine with it. I can eat it too but all my other food is better so I am unwilling to eat more than a tiny bit here and there… And then I have found the weird quark (super sour and its texture isn’t the usual. it’s… hard creamy if that is a thing. it is to me). Maybe I need to be more shy when it comes to buying dairy. I instinctively go for variety but I don’t need it that much at this point. I have mascarpone and cream cheese too but they are amazing and Alvaro can help eating them. He can’t eat this quark. maybe if I mix it with cream and make some simple cake but I don’t want to bother. He is at home for 9 days, he can cook and bake for himself, not everything but almost. Maybe even for me but he and carnivore cooking, that is not something that happens. Stew is the closest but this time he had to make his carbier rabbit dish… Still mostly rabbit and I eat it and it’s October, I would be miffed if he made such a dish in my carnivore November (I probably would just grab MY rabbit parts and cook them myself. or try to eat the rabbit parts as clean as possible. but we have rabbit so rarely so he shouldn’t do that to me, I don’t like extra work). Or whatever it will become but I really plan a carnivore one.

[kib1]

I love this “PUFA hack”, the idea that a PUFA is liquid at room temps, and so the make up of the meat’s fat becomes more obvious. Thanks!

[coopdawg]

Nuts

[robintemplin]

Thanks for all this…. Fascinating stuff. I also live with tachycardia and AFib, but have zero (literally zero) stress in my life. I am beyond lucky!

Glad classes are over for you and you have the sea, a good dog and a strong woman in your back pocket.

[coopdawg]

I like also…we are divesrs

[robintemplin]

Dang, you just stumped me with that word, Co-op!
Typo or fabulous new addition to my vocabulary?

[coopdawg]

i’m not grest with words…

[Karen18]

I was rudely awoken last night at 1.15am for a flood warning… shrugged it off as it never really affects me and my property then was woken this morning by my neighbour phoning to make sure i was okay. My CrossFit friend who lives across the road and a little further down had been knocking on every door along the road to check on everyone… well yes … the road was a fast flowing river as the banks of the local small river had collapsed and was gushing onto the main road! So as you can imagine today has been somewhat out of the ordinary with the community on our road pulling together. After 30plus years and numerous hellos i have finally learnt a few names to faces! One such neighbour picked up some sandbags for me and my two immediate neighbours as his son had left his van with him. I wasn’t about to risk driving off my flooded drive into a pretty deep road. My wellies weren’t quite high enough to have been able to stop water overflowing in to them so had to stay at home all day. Some peeps were wearing anglers gear,… great idea!

Brunch was cold pork chops which tasted better than yesterdays seared sickly ones and dinner was a large sirloin steak mixed bacon n 3 hard boiled eggs in butter followed by the last of the corned beef cold… i felt ready to stop with the last mouthful!

[kib1]

Wow! Glad to hear you’re ok and not flooded out.

So, the last picture you took was what the UK calls corned beef? Ours is totally different, it’s a piece of brisket marinated in a brine of pickling spice and other flavorings for several days - up to a week - and then usually boiled. Looks like this.

[Karen18]

[Karen18]

Not flooded out … yet! Hopefully the waters will subside… never seen the road like that before and i have been here 30plus years, my next door neighbour has been here 40 years and he said the same!

The top 3rd of houses along our road have been penetrated they get hit as the back river runs in closer to their gardens.

[Shinita]

Ouch! Hopefully it will be over soon and it won’t do bigger problems!

I like living on a hilltop… Of course, there are some kind of floods here too but that’s just water running down the dirt road, making HORRIBLE gashes… A not very small child could hide in those holes sometimes. But the house is very safe

But we had some insane thick snow sometimes (way thicker than normal due to the wind being playful). I wonder if we will have big snow again or climate change already robbed that from us…

[coopdawg]

Hunker down.

A good excuse to eat tinned meats…smothered in mayonaise.
And hug your pup.

[Geezy56]

Scrambled eggs and sausage for me today.

[Shinita]

(Why I went off, again? Yes the rabbit wasn’t fully carnivore and it’s autumn and I had some very seasonal carbier bites but I still could have stayed very close. I didn’t think I went too wild, I had my nice meats and eggs too but my body had problems. I don’t feel so well but I mean it very literally, it’s not euphemism for feeling sick, nope, I am fine just not as fine as normal. And my stool changed drastically and it rarely does that. And my eating window is messed up, I blame Alvaro who is at home at have lunch at 11am… Okay, I mostly blame myself, of course but his ways don’t help. I am very used to eating lunch with him and I had no perfect satiation at that time. Today I had a very tiny meal though. And I put a box of scratchings into the freezer. It’s nice but I don’t need to eat it all up… But tomorrow is Monday and things go back to normal. Without coffee. I like it less and less now. I drank one at noon today, with milk. Nope, not good. And I used instant, not the other one I dislike more every time. Maybe one day I can find a tasty one but I don’t want to risk buying 250g not good one again, it lasts FOREVER and I don’t throw out coffee either. maybe the most horrid ones but it was one time when I bought the cheapest thing in Auchan I was curious, okay? sometimes cheap things are good enough, I had to try. )

We had rain all night and the day started gloomy but it’s sunny now! I need to go out already, yesterday we skipped the big walk for reasons.

@Geezy56: That’s my plan for my real lunch too! And probably rabbits and pork too, a scrambled egg is too tiny. Alvaro had eggs with turkey sausage for lunch with 2 small desserts. I think he is completely unable to eat a meal without dessert. Except for breakfast at his workplace where he eats a single dish but that is often cake or fruity oatmeal too…
Even I have dessertless meals… Oh well, I am nothing on him when it comes to desserts. It’s just odd as I already have too strong connection with them if you ask me, I barely even can skip them. Never if we define it wide enough, I always have at least some egg milk or coffee or tea. Is tea dessert? It can be. Give me a year and I will define a little sausage as dessert and I resisted that this far… It’s more like after dessert. Why I want something normal but snack-y after certain desserts I don’t know.

Sorry, I will try to write about proper carnivore food in the near future (as I can’t even promise it forever).
Did I say the smoked mackerel is insanely salty? Even with my unsalted sponge cake buns What can I eat it with…? It’s tasty and I am fine with tiny amounts but it was still salty that way Maybe I should put really tiny pieces into a scrambled egg or sponge cakes, before baking I mean… If I had sour cream, I could make some paste… Like tuna sandwiches, they have very little tuna but it works as tuna is flavorful but smoked mackerel is even more so…

Sometimes I am worried about the past, what if I won’t tolerate most things due to their saltiness? I already have problems with certain cheeses and processed meats since some time. Or yolks in desserts.
Oh well, I will still have so many things to eat and I can dilute the salty ones somewhat…

[Karen18]

Oh if i had a pup to hug lol not eating any condiments at the mo just a fairly clean meat only. I am eating bacon and the corned beef which i suppose you can class as processed but all else is pretty clean. Been eating this way since beginning of sept and the weight i had gained… not a lot I hasten to add but too much for my liking as i don’t like clothes feeling uncomfortably tight… has all gone without effort and without feeling hungry and now all bad habits around cheese and condiments has diminished… I have mayo in fridge but not touched it, bout time i chucked it out!

[coopdawg]

Good luck! x

[Karen18]

Thankfully water gone from main road and no longer gushing from the river. It has been a nice sunny day today giving us a reprieve from rain , which is due to return tomorrow but at least i have sandbags at the ready. The severe weather and flood warnings have been removed. The water was starting to diminish around 11.30pm last night. Managed to get my electrics back on first thing this morning.

So with normality back i had my coffee and read my books outside in garden as the sun was warming up nicely. Only 7° but no breeze and so it was very pleasant.

Went out with my daughter to Ikea late morning and had some brunch there. Forgot pic! 12 small swedish meatballs… only thing on the menu i can eat and i could have eaten 2 portions easily. They were very nice and moist but i declined the lingonberry sauce and veggies of course. Bought a set of 2 frying pans, just cheapy ones but they will be better than the ones i have at the mo that have just about passed their use by date plus a plastic spatula as my old one is a bit messy and i must have been using it a good 20 years plus
About 4.15 i was starting to feel pretty hungry so i cooked up a large sirloin steak which was delish and while cooking and eating it i had been cooking some chicken wings which were nicely slightly over cooked but i was still hungry so cooked up a bacon and 2 boiled egg mix and then i felt nicely full enough ro stop eating.