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

[Geezy56]

But then I thought about how good my body has been feeling for the last 10 days, and the weight I want to lose, and how much I hate those relentless carb cravings. I had a few seconds of mourning for the Indian food I wanted to reward myself with. Then I put on my apron, cleaned the darn pan, and fired up the rib-eye. A few seconds into cooking it, it started smelling good and making me hungry for it —- and then I was ok.

That’s fantastic!
You are becoming a carnivore. In time other foods will become meaningless to you and then you’ll know you’re there.
That is if you choose to continue down this path. Remember those great feelings.

[JJFiddle]

Good reading. Thanks.
@Sophie welcome to a great lifestyle! What a great story! I feel ya on the Indian and Mediterranean food, lol. The results are so much better with this good though. and no spices = no body odor. One of the sorta shocking aspects of this woe.

@Karen18 bacon with nothing but pork and salt! Truly amazing. I haven’t found bacon that simple here. And clearing/sorting - inspiring.

[Fangs]

I tell ya guys, a day or 2 off the thread and SO many posts hit and I enjoy reading them all.

and @Karen18, @JJFiddle and @Naghite and @Shinita, I am still SO enjoying you guys posting such wonderful pics!!! Rockin’ the thread

@PaulL, reading you are a carni now was awesome but so sorry on the med issues that hit yea. I tell ya Paul life becomes so super simple with shopping and cooking that I tell ya the truth, you almost can’t ever go back just cause of that reason alone. Less kitchen time, more life to live time more healthy…so glad you became one of us, heck you were almost one of us anyway for a long time LOL

====nothing new to report. heading into year 7 as usual. food is usual. Eating clean carni. but I told my meat guy to get me a boston butt cut of pork with full on fat cap. Alot of the stores are cutting off that fat cap and gosh the meat is too darn dry ya know, for me anyway so when packaged I got full fat boston butt cut and he also adding the cut fat from another butt being sold into my pack. I SWOONED GUYS over this fatty pork I made. I hit that crispy and softy texture delish fat like a maniac. I tell ya, so so so so good when the meat is just the way ya want it. Ate on it for a few days. Couldn’t hold hubby off it too but lucky he by passed most of the fat in it and I was in my glory I got all I wanted LOL

so hanging and holding zc like always, great lifestyle!

[PaulL]

I told my meat guy to get me a boston butt cut of pork with full on fat cap. Alot of the stores are cutting off that fat cap and gosh the meat is too darn dry ya know,

That’s why I like the picnics (pork shoulders) that my local supermarket sells, they leave all the fat on. Not only does the meat come out juicy and tender, but the fat is heavenly. I’ll have to look around for pork butt.

[Shinita]

I feel I had to cook too many different things today too And I did nothing for Alvaro! (Well he will get some of it if he wants.)
I fried pork chuck, leaner pork mince and even made meatballs… The last two are logical to happen together as if I need to use the food processor to make mince, I use it to grind the pork skin I almost always have (Alvaro really love smoked pork hock in his legumes and I really love the meat itself. and the fat. I get all the fat). And the only dish I can make with skin is meatballs, very nice ones.
I have meat for days now but only for 2… It wasn’t a huge effort but still, time and focus and whatnot. I would love to do things like cooking meat for 5-6 days… It’s theoretically possible but I am not into roasts right now.
I have ready to eat food in my freezer but they are just additions, couldn’t make a meal even with several eggs.

How can I have cooking as a hobby while simultaneously getting tired of some cooking unless it’s really simple…?

It’s 14:36 now, I only had coffees (yeah, this no-coffee thing doesn’t seem to go so well… it should, I really dislike my cheap coffee, only like my fav instant one. I used egg, butter, cream, my fav to add something extra and it’s still bad. maybe it’s my body’s way to persuade me to really forget about coffee… eventually it will be effective…) and I am not even particularly hungry! I was that last night so I ate I really need to be a tad disciplined to figure out what satiates me properly so I never get hungry or peckish late. I can’t handle that, I always will eat then and it’s fine, it’s like bona fide temptation, impossible to fight but can be avoided if I do things right.
I know I ate too little of something OR my eating window/number of meals was too big. Probably fixing either would work well on most days. Sometimes I do need and want more food and that’s perfectly fine. For some reason, I don’t feel at my planned last meal that I didn’t get enough for the day.

Right now I just want to avoid eating before lunch It’s easy enough and should make things a bit better. Not even stupid coffee with the inevitable calories in it, I always suspected coffee is the enemy of my fast to some extent. I need a clear fasting window. And coffee is bad for me anyway. I need to keep that in mind. Occasionally it’s fine but maybe I should avoid it altogether to get unused to it.

Lunch will be fried pork (leaner and the lovely chuck), leftover eggs and that’s it I think. I am too lazy and tired to make a photo, next time. My sleep wasn’t good either, I slept enough but not at the right time. When I wake up, I often have a hard time to go back to sleep. I should meditate.

We still have summer weather in the middle of the day. With lots of sunshine today. So the house is warming now. Even with sudden true winter weather (not the coldest, just the average), it would took more than a week for it to cool down but that condition won’t happen so we surely won’t start heating until November. We have this in good years but this autumn was unusually warm so maybe we will break a record. I will ask Alvaro what that is but it’s somewhere in the very beginning of November. It could be way better if poor house got sunshine But only my room does. Oh well.

I hit that crispy and softy texture delish fat like a maniac. I tell ya, so so so so good when the meat is just the way ya want it.

Yes
And it’s so very disappointing when your fav cut is just not nearly as good as other times My pork chuck is finally great after some disappointments and it’s so, so good! At least I hope I will enjoy it as much today as I did tomorrow. Probably but one can never know, sometimes I don’t enjoy my perfectly fine food quite as much as another time. But it still will be good then. But I want bliss after all the too lean/dry meat (even the pork shoulder the meat part was the usual fatty, probably, Alvaro felt it but I like the nice fat layers in pork shoulder… and it had little. sad. pork shoulder isn’t my fav but it’s easy to eat when it’s properly fatty. see my two days with 1000g of it in each… Now I always pair it up with lean meat and don’t make much at once).

[JJFiddle]

Yesterday I sous vided a pork tenderloin. Never again, that cut is in my rear view mirror now!

Tried some mustard but it didn’t help. Glad it was the last section of tenderloin, I’ll either cut some for hubby or toss it. The puppy had to eat the last 2 bites
The ice cream was good though.

I’m still conducting tests on the effect of dairy on a carnivore cold. Lastnight I shaved off about an ounce of beautiful sharp cheese to eat with my 4 oz liverwurst. Within an hour I had cold symptoms. This morning they’re gone.
I think I can tolerate sharp cheese when I’m not under the weather. I just love that with a clean carni body it’s so easy to analyze the effect of any food. People go through these elaborate elimination diets to find their allergens, all we have to do is add one thing and BAM the reactions are right there.
Carnivore is called the ultimate elimination diet for a reason.

[FrankoBear]

Caught a bit of gristle from chewing down on some baked beef ribs and broke off a cusp from a back molar from which I had lost a 4 decades old filling. Went to the dentist today to get the tooth reconstructed for $500. I was just surprised I could get a same day appointment.

Just OMAD today after the dentist confirmed I hadn’t fractured the tooth. I had some bacon and eggs and a big mug of beef bone broth to get that healing going.

Falling apart a bit this month. Limping toward the end of the teaching semester.

[Bellyman]

Yesterday I sous vided a pork tenderloin. Never again, that cut is in my rear view mirror now!

Interesting. My wife will make pork tenderloin from time to time and it’s not bad. But… I can’t tell you much about how she makes it.

We buy pork a half pig at a time, lots of different cuts, including bacon and sausage, from a neighbor who raises them and one of his sons who has a slaughter house does the cuttin’ up n freezin’.

I wonder how much of a difference the source of the meat makes?

[Geezy56]

I wonder how much of a difference the source of the meat makes?

It can make all the difference in the world. Raising my own animals and hunting for game to eat I definitely taste the difference.
Just look at the difference between store bought eggs and farm fresh eggs.
Diet, handling, breeding, it all matters.

[Bellyman]

I definitely get that. And I agree, it all matters.

I think you and I are blessed to have access to really good quality. I know some reading here probably struggle to get anything better than the pink slime versions of meat which is really sad.

[Shinita]

The puppy had to eat the last 2 bites

It’s nice I always have other beings to eat up my subpar items too. I usually eat even my lean, dry meats somehow but I gladly feed it to Alvaro (who prefers lean meat so he is fine with it) and if that isn’t an option or I find some gristle (the lean pork yesterday had pretty much. not very much but it’s good I can make some cats happy with it, at least), the cats are always willing
I like when things don’t go to waste Sometimes when I don’t like the liver I have, I feed some to the cats too. I never saw them not liking carnivore food, no matter what kind. I don’t have choosy cats (except Caroline/Cloud, she just wants fresh voles she caught herself sometimes. she didn’t even eat fish last week!).

---

No milk truck today, oh well, I want less and less lately anyway (but the truck one is the tastiest). I still have cream.

My lunch got smallish again. Not very small as I had some smoked hock and that was fatty Yum. So it’s a very good sized meal for TMAD. The pork chuck is nice but not as nice as tomorrow but I didn’t fry it the same way as tomorrow… Okay so I should NOT use precooked, too thin slices and then pretty much leaving them in a pan while frying them into oblivion… (It wasn’t my plan, it just happened.) It’s good it’s fatty meat so it couldn’t dry it out horribly. Next time I will do it properly. I didn’t even use butter on it today.

I wonder how much of a difference the source of the meat makes?

I wonder too… Surely a lot but it’s weird that in the past I felt supermarket pork tasteless and then it suddenly changed and now I often find it quite tasty. I do know some good home- or farm-raised pork is better, both tastier and healthier, most probably but I can live on cheap meat until I can get better stuff (sometimes I do buy better stuff but it can be tricky, the biggest hurdle isn’t financial, it’s not so very easy to find good fresh meat. smoked, sure, smoked pork is everywhere, it’s easy to store and very popular, after all… but fresh meat is rarely available around here. at least we can get bunnies very nearby. not a substantial meat, not the tastiest either - I am a huge pork lover, mutton and deer is welcomed too but harder and more expensive to get - but still quite nice).

I have read that if it’s about pork, the country makes a big difference too due to different breeds and feeds.

Or did you mean it specifically about tenderloin? I am very sure I don’t like it, no matter the source, too lean for me. Edible though. But give me some good chuck please, not tenderloin

Just look at the difference between store bought eggs and farm fresh eggs.

Yes, I always felt a significant difference there. Of course, it’s individual too, some people are super sensitive, others are super insensitive, I am in-between (as most people :D).

I have read a lot about how extremely much diet matters. It is very strong in milk too, the cow goes into some onions and the milk will be unusable for purposes where that strong flavor doesn’t work! Allegedly walnut makes turkey meat delicious while some plants make it horrid… And the diet may change a lot in the nutrients of the meat too especially if other factors are in play (what I have read about US pigs. but the pig farm lady said their pork have a different effect on some sensitive people’s bodies too).

[Geezy56]

Here’s a thought for you and your pork tenderloin.
Slice it in about 1 1/2” to 2” medallions. Butterfly the medallions and stuff with a cream cheese mixture of bacon bits or some other meat, chorizo maybe. Then basket weave bacon around each stuffed medallion. It can be cooked on the grill. Baked in the oven or my favorite, smoked on the smoker.

I do this with venison backstrap but it’ll work with any lean meat.

[JJFiddle]

@Geezy56 looks very cool!

[Shinita]

Oh indeed I covered lean meat with bacon before and it worked and was pretty!
(I still rarely buy bacon strips. Now there is some on sale in LIDL and we will drive just next to one so we buy some But I will just fry them alone, 100% crunch )

[robintemplin]

Oh good lord, man!

[beannoise]

I almost quit coffee this week. I had a tiny window when I could do it without inflicting bodily harm on anyone… and then hubby got called into work overnight and closed the cat’s foot in the door on his way out. Turns out angry Siamese cross can sound like a child screaming. No more sleep that night. Thank you adrenaline.

I also think my egg days are at an end. I was doing well with farmers market eggs, but not as much now.

I wanted to quit coffee so I can try alternate day fasting and to see if I can clear up some inflammation. I’m debating trying fasting without quitting coffee. I’m not teaching an overload next semester. Maybe I can deal with caffeine then.

[PaulL]

I wonder how much of a difference the source of the meat makes?

It apparently does affect both taste and nutrient profile. Graziers who practice regenerative grazing report that as their soil health improves, the variety and the health of the forage improves, and the nutrient profile of the resulting meat is noticeably better.

I know some reading here probably struggle to get anything better than the pink slime versions of meat which is really sad.

That doesn’t mean they should give up. Fortunately, even meat that isn’t of the best possible nutrient profile can still do a body lots of good.

[PaulL]

Had a couple of burgers today to break my fast, and suddenly I realised I wanted eggs with them. I fried three in the pan grease, put them on top of the burgers. A knob of butter on top of the meal, and I feasted like a king! Can’t wait for supper–more ribeye!

P.S.–I never used to be able to fry eggs without breaking the yolks. One of the benefits of carnivore appears to be greater skill with the spatula, lol!

[robintemplin]

Why wait for perfection? Start fasting with coffee. It will still be beneficial. I do everything with my beloved coffee with heavy whipping cream.

[Sophie107]

Just made out my first grocery shopping list since returning to ZC almost 2 weeks ago. It reads: La Croix, distilled water, egg bites, meat!(steak, pork, chicken), butter, eggs (lots!), hwc.

Shopping sure is simpler with this WOE!

Btw: Egg bites make a great ZC snack if you haven’t tried them. You can get all animal product versions.