I Have Farm Fresh Eggs, What Else Can I do to Clean Up My Keto?

(Tracy) #1

I feel like I’ve experimented and learned enough over the last year to know the best foods for Keto. I have really simplified my meals and prefer them simple. Now I want to clean up the foods I’m eating. Since eggs are a daily part of my life I have a friend that I’m buying eggs from. I love opening the package and seeing these beautiful unpasteurized eggs from free range chickens. What else can I do to clean up?

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#2

What a nice variety in colors :smiley: I like looking at such eggs too. I buy them from houses in the nearby villages. I buy my meat from local farms except fish, those are caught somewhere. I very rarely buy more than simple, one-component ingredients but some of my spices and condiments are exceptions (I do my best to minimize sugar in them, mustard is my most used one and it has none). If I can get enough meat, my diet easily becomes carnivore-ish and that’s nice and simple. I still eat some store-bought dairy but I can’t do much about it now.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #3

If there is a local farm that sells meat, that might be a good next step. There is a farm near me that sells frozen grass-fed meat, in bulk enough that it is affordable, and comparable in price to prices at the local supermarket.

By the way, if you are in the U.S. and are accustomed to supermarket eggs, remember that eggs that have not been washed should not be refrigerated, whereas eggs that have been washed must be refrigerated to retard spoiling. Unwashed eggs still retain a protective coating, that refrigeration will damage. When eggs have been washed, the coating is also washed off, and the eggs will quickly spoil if not refrigerated. Washed or unwashed, eggs that are treated properly will last a long time. Hope this is clear.

(Tracy) #4

The lady I’m buying eggs from gave me a briefing about egg storage. She does all the washing and even delivers. I’d much rather give her my money for fresh eggs than a supermarket. I will do some research about buying local grass-fed meat.

#5

The meat I buy from farms (or rabbit from one of my “egg ladies”) isn’t more expensive than supermarket meat (sometimes even cheaper), just more delicious (as far as I know. I ate extremely little “normal” meat in the last 27 years and those were typically tasteless to me, my tastebuds are very choosy), it’s great. My eggs are way more expensive but they worth it! And still way cheaper than meat :slight_smile: And just awesome.

I looked at the egg pic again… I never buy chocolate brown or greenish eggs… Just white (very rare, supermarket eggs aren’t white either here) and various “tanned” ones. But some has very interesting dots and spots…

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #6

The colour of eggs varies with the breed of chicken, but has nothing to do with the taste, which depends on what the chickens have been eating.

In the U.S., for some reason, brown eggs cost significantly more per dozen than white eggs, I have no idea why.

#7

Hi Tracy, I reckon research the PKD. Paleo Keto Diet in these forums. there may be some aspects in the well discussed topic that can help with your keto cleaning.

If you are on Instagram follow “Slow Down Farmstead”. that lady has the most amazing whole food diet to aspire to, I think.

(Bob M) #8

Therein lies the rub with chicken. If you don’t know what they are eating, you could be getting high PUFA.

Having said that, I still eat eggs and chicken. I just try to eat them less regularly.

For me, my taste buds must not be good enough to determine taste differences between eggs, because I’ve never tasted any difference.

(Tracy) #9

I love the farmstead lifestyle and watch anything I can about it. I’ll check it out.

(Tracy) #10

I’ll be honest, the local eggs I’m buying don’t have such a difference that I could tell them apart in a blind taste test. However, when I crack a white supermarket egg the white is cloudy and the yolk is pale yellow. I assume that pasteurization kills some of the nutrients. The local eggs have clear whites and dark orange yolks. I also love knowing that it helps my friend sustain her chickens by selling her eggs to me. It’s win-win.

#11

My local eggs often have cloudy whites, I don’t know what it means. The yolks have very different colors, they are never really pale but there are differences. Some are quite orange.

Indeed, the eggshell color has nothing to do with the taste but I sooo enjoy they aren’t all the same. I like to have pretty food.

(Tracy) #12

Cloudy whites may not be a bad thing. It was something I noticed right away though.

(Bob M) #13

You know, I’ve seen supermarket eggs where the yolks were darker and yellower than the local eggs bought up the street, and vice versa. Not sure why. I assume it’s what they eat (or possibly type of chicken? Or both?), but since I can’t tell what they eat, it’s not possible to know.

Would like to have my own chickens (have 4.5 acres), but we have too many predators - hawks, bobcats, owls, raccoons, etc. Would have to build a fortress and surround it with vicious dogs.

By the way, supermarket eggs aren’t pasteurized.

#14

If you didn’t know. The dark orange yolk is due to the carotenoids from the chickens eating fresh grass. The carotenoids prevent LDL oxidation, cancer, production of AGE’s and diseases in general. How nature intended.

I’ve noticed a difference in my well being and others after consuming free range eggs. It’s like night and day.

(Marianne) #15

Lucy you - those eggs are beautiful. I’d just them to make keto pizza with the crust that is only four eggs and 6 oz. of cheese (I use 8 oz.).

My husband and I eat very cleanly - mainly a piece of beef or pork pan seared, chicken thighs or quarters, or chicken breast supplemented with mayo or a cheese sauce, spinach, brussels sprouts, asparagus, in butter and/or bacon grease, easy salads with home made dressing, keto pizzo, cole slaw, tuna/egg/chicken salad, olive oil, ghee, etc. That’s pretty much it. Always delicious and satisfying.

Best to you.

(KCKO, KCFO 🥥) #16

I’d suggest finding a source of free range chickens. I get bison that is free range but I am in Colorado, not so easy other places. Grow your own green leaf veggies, zucchini, & tomatoes if you can. Cauliflower just never worked out for us, lucky to get one nice head at the end of growing season, so we just buy organic from the stores. I do love my herbs from the garden as well.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #17

Stop ‘n’ Shop in our area often carries eggs from local farms. I believe that Big Y may, as well. So some of those darker yolks could have been locally produced. If I am correctly remembering some reading I did, the darker yolks come from a diet higher in protein, while the paler ones result from commercial feed.

One of my uncles had a chicken farm, years ago, and even though his chickens were a commercial operation and not free-range, the taste of a fresh egg is nothing like the taste of an egg that’s taken weeks to make it to market (I was amazed at how long the eggs sat around in the basement of the farmhouse before the IGA man came to collect them). Fresh eggs can be an acquired taste, I brought my then lover out to the farm to meet the cousins, and he found the taste strange, having been accustomed to supermarket eggs for the previous umpteen years.

BTW, thanks for catching that mention of pasteurising eggs. I meant to say something in my earlier post. In fact, I don’t believe that eggs even can be pasteurised.

#18

As far as I know, there are pasteurized eggs in some shops in some countries (I never saw them but I don’t even search for them) and it’s easy to do it at home as well. I don’t care about it so it’s just what I’ve read.

Weeks? Wow, that a very long time compared to the “lifetime” of an egg… So those eggs all “fail” the freshness test with water? I have fresh enough to stay on the bottom eggs even after some storage, I always eat the oldest eggs I have… But I very often have floating eggs too. It doesn’t matter to me, actually but getting fresher eggs is useful when I keep 200-250 in the cupboard so I always eat eggs stored for 4-5 weeks here… It’s the limit as I experienced if I don’t want the occasional bad egg due to too long storage and a hot summer is worse, not surprisingly.

(Allie) #19

You’d know the difference if you had some of the eggs from my girls, and if you weren’t so far away, I’d happily give you some too! :grinning:

(Jane) #20

I know this is an old thread…

You don’t need vicious dogs - just a very secure coop inside a very secure outer run. We have hawks, owls, coyotes, bobcat, raccoons, etc also and have not lost a hen knock on wood in the 2 years we have kept them.

We bought a kit coop that has a small 10-ft run internally in case we can’t let them out - food and water inside the coop. It has thick, small-mesh wire on all 6 sides so totally sealed up. We put down square paver blocks and set the coop on it - makes it easier to keep clean as the stone can be washed down.

Then we set 4x4 posts and built them a large outer run (approx 16’ x 48’) to let them out into during the day. Used plastic deer fence for the walls, then buried rabbit fencing all around the bottom and then put down a row of cinder blocks around the perimeter. We put bird netting over the top to prevent hawks and owls from swooping down from above.

When we are working in the garden or mowing the meadow we let them out of their outer run to eat grass and scratch for bugs. They have scratched their outer run down to dirt, which we knew they would. Once I saw them huddled up and saw a hawk circling overhead. I went and stood with my small flock (5 hens) and did not deter the hawk so I ushered them back into their outer run and the hawk moved on.

The fresh eggs taste amazing and are better in the warmer months when they have access to an abundance of bugs to eat.