Jumping Into 2025 Fat First: Carnivore Conversations for January


#42

What do you use it for? I bought a decent (i.e. not small) amount of it once and I don’t know what to use it for… I have it in my own sausage spice mix but only a little bit and I rarely use spices anyway :frowning: My SO doesn’t even like it… I am sure there are uses where I would love it but it’s an exotic spice here, we don’t have it since long… Maybe I should google recipes but I probably would find non-carni ones… Maybe you can help me out a bit…? I probably could put it into my scrambled eggs but I rarely eat any and then I put pork into it… I think it must be nice in an egg stew…

Garlic is something I liked but only ate it in a few dishes - then carnivore came and I realized I hate it even on roasts :smiley: Hungarian recipes (the ones I read online, not the ones Mom made…) typically have onion and garlic, I don’t know why. I always skip it, onion is more than enough! And I drastically reduce the onion too in stews… Some people have stews where the food is half meat, half vegs (and Hungarian stews typically aren’t full with various vegs, just a few for flavor!)! My stew is almost only meat but that’s how it’s best… :upside_down_face:

I don’t enter it but pork is definitely my fav. I couldn’t live exclusively on it, not even for 2 days but to make it my main food item by far? I can do that. I hope that works nutritionally longer term too… Not like I will keep it up for very long any time soon… Maybe ever… I don’t know what the future brings just that my body is very clear about liking little plant matter on most days. (It probably likes very little to none on all days but let’s be realistic, I eat other things now and then and it doesn’t complain if I don’t go very far.)

I had to google here, wow, pork chop is really fatty a bit! I didn’t know as we don’t have this cut (at least I never saw it). We have pork loin (we used to have 2 kinds when I was a kid, where did it go I don’t know, we have one now) and that is a very lean cut, normally. As slabs are extremely varied, once I had a super fatty one! But it’s usually a very very lean meat with some amount of fat layer on it, usually little, sometimes more, the trimmed kind is special, rare and more expensive. I remember that the 2 kinds from my childhood were pretty lean. But it was long ago, I went vegetarian at 17 and even Mom stopped eating meat from that time on (we had little even before and she kept pork fat for herself)…
My fav is some perfectly fatty marbled pork chuck! :smiley: Usually pan fried in slices, so good! And unnecessary fatty for me at this point but it’s lovely to eat. Some chuck, some green ham, great combo for me.

I definitely prefer legs when it comes to chicken but the great duck sales are for whole ducks. And there is some charm in roasting a whole duck I guess…? Though I never did that with a bird and I have read about problems because the white and dark meats need something different…? We don’t even have these terms for the different parts but indeed, there is difference in looks and texture… But why pork don’t have this when it has light and dark parts too? It’s much more apparent than in chicken… :thinking: Maybe because they are fine with the same treatment? Oh pork is great, so very tender and easy to cook! At least the not super lean kind but if I could make super good chicken breast (I always disliked that part, indeed, it is too lean but it’s so very great when done right… that is one rare dish I use some garlic for), I am confident I can make any soft lean meat good (the chewy ones may be trickier but I could always mince them…). Even my seitan tastes good and that’s a smaller miracle as gluten has a mild bad and no good flavors. But it’s a MILD bad one, nothing where some good lard, lots of soy sauce and my sausage spice mix couldn’t help with. If the mix is place, it’s far from being spicy enough. Pork only needs some salt and time in the oven/pan. And being at least a bit fatty. Pork is so easy. I used to get bored of it for years though. Now it only happens if I am not so pleased with my cut (shoulder with some not great tasting fat, it never was my fav cut but it’s worse nowadays, I don’t know what happened… or I have only very lean pork, that doesn’t work in bigger amounts either) or if I neglect variety. But I have much more experience than years ago and my taste have changed too. Not very much but enough.

Oh we have both a few times every year! But give me some more time and I can say this about beef… I eat almost no ruminant meat (too expensive, not available, chewy too and I really, really love pork) and if I eat some, that must be the cheapest cut possible (not counting organs) and that’s deer, more tempting than beef… But they are pretty close.
Sometimes I white here about not even seeing mutton anywhere :frowning: Or it’s extremely expensive. But usually I don’t see it at all. It never was very available but I could find it somewhere… It just disappeared. One day I get determined and start to search for it very, very seriously. I can’t imagine it’s impossible to buy it. It’s not exotic, it’s normal!
But I am actually fine without them. I just have very fond memories about the meat. Especially the Racka (beautiful sheep, I have a skull on the wall! stunning horns) meat from the beef farm. They had mutton once. Goat once. Well, it is a beef farm but they butcher cattle very rarely too, a few times a year and it runs out in hours (maybe 1-2 days if you accept any cut). It was more in the past.

I had that a few times but no energy. I am sure some people just have some bad “luck” with it. It could be much worse, it’s not like I am super enervated all the time but I am definitely not energetic often. Never were, except maybe as a kid but that’s different… And maybe I just was busy, not particularly energetic? But I wasn’t low energy. Just lazy a bit but I could do things if determined (or “pulled”. Mom was good at it, she said to do things and I went and did. to an extent but she wasn’t a slave driver. that was Grandma when she visited her old house we used as a vacation home, Mom was so exhausted afterwards and she was very hard-working herself especially compared to me. Grandma was totally sweet normally but she was pretty driven on those one week visits. she didn’t even often tell us to do the work, she just decided it must be done and she was old so of course we did it. and she had some difficult ideas) :slight_smile:

More energy from some more carbs? I don’t have that either. It may be good as I would be tempted… I really would love more energy. But carbs are better at lowering it. If it’s a short time and not high-carb yet, they are usually neutral energy wise.

Oh my, is that a thing? Maybe I have heard about it, I am not sure…
If skipping it seems to help, that’s the way! I hope you can substitute it with something if you miss it… (I totally should substitute coffee with water already, it came back and don’t seem to leave again, I need some determined push. I don’t have much but still, some. But I will run out of it soon if I keep drinking it…)

IDK what is the first but they sounds like rabbit food to me :smiley: Never liked green stuff much. Chamomile is pretty but always disliked its tea. I always preferred proper tea leaves (not green tea if possible but add jasmine or something other fun extra and I accept it). And sometimes fruit teas (not the ones with a lot of sweet fruit pieces. I don’t like my tea sweet except when nostalgia hits here and then). If I can just drink tea, any kind I like and I can quit coffee, I will be fine with it… But it’s usually plain, weak black tea anyway.

Yay! Even if it’s just a step, one should appreciate it and it does sound hopeful for the future!


#43

Okay so I am back! Coffee free carnivore-ish (but I am really strict now, for me, no bites of rutabaga with my meat or my only sugary condiment with my cheese!) OMAD or whatever I will manage to do. I have the least confidence regarding the OMAD part, carni seems pretty tempting and I really didn’t like the coffee near the end (and I barely have any and that is for other purposes. oh yes, flavoring with coffee doesn’t count but I almost never do that anyway).
So, day #1. It went well (this far) despite the complete lack of planning and proper supplies… It’s not even 10pm yet but I am very determined so let’s hope I do the small miracle that is pulling off lunch OMAD!
I wondered about a photo but bad light, not particularly pretty or exiting food… Maybe tomorrow, I have plans!
I got somewhat hungry so had lunch at 3pm. I was… Brave. Very little proper meat, why do I do this…? Some rabbit (with some sauce stuck to it, so not fully carnivore but close enough for me), some pork shoulder, half a sausage, scrambled eggs with teeny tiny bacon cubes (2-3mm? :smiley: Alvaro looked at them with disdain but they tastes normal, they are real just tiny… for half the price… works in my eggs! Alvaro wants big pieces so he used some super meaty smoked pork belly slices), oh yes some smoked pork belly too, some cheese (some means not minimal but little in all cases here)… I had no sour cream but I have plans with cream for tomorrow so I just opened my last box. I called my creation eggnog. With my preferred ratio. Mostly cream, some yolk, almost no but very noticeable alcohol (oh yes, another non-carni ingredient but I don’t even count it. I don’t track it either as it has negligible calories. I used whisky and rum. it’s just flavoring).

Guesstimation says 133g fat, 108g protein (but it’s OMAD… but a lunch one… will I get hungry after midnight or not?), 5g carbs.
Good day if I won’t eat anything else, I really don’t want to but I can’t sleep hungry.
I was a bit hungry after this meal but I had no tempting food to eat and satiation arrived soon. I still have it.

I noted for the zillionth time but I MUST have enough okay not too fatty normal red meat to eat at all times when I sit down to eat. Why do I mess with this so often? Yes I have this and that in the freezer but I have reasons not to want them (cooking is needed, I don’t like hake fish, especially now that the last batch wasn’t very well fried so extra cooking is welcomed… too special meat I don’t want to eat up when I am just hungry but can’t appreciate it)… It’s MUCH better if I have some of my normal cuts. And boiled eggs too. I boiled 4 in the evening so I have them now. Sometimes they help even when I really need a little extra protein at night. It’s trickier with meat as I too easily go overboard and it’s often fattier than needed. I LOVE eating a boiled yolk with 2-3 boiled whites and it has some nice volume, it’s satisfying too especially at night when my appetite seems to be the greatest, everything is more blissful at that time, even the simple boiled egg. Eggs are awesome anyway - but there is no chance of me eating many cooked in the same way.

So I need to be more prepared!

Tomorrow is shopping (pork, milk) and picking up an order (2 hours of walk in the cold frosty weather, everything covered in rime around me)… It’s from a confectionery webshop and it’s the unusual one where half of the order is for me! Milk powder and flavorings this time. As I quit coffee, hopefully I won’t overdo milk powder this time… But it has its uses in baking. Especially carnivore baking as it doesn’t have very many options for dry matter and sweetness.
I will make tiramisu tomorrow. Poor mascarpone reaches its expiration date and when I said options, Alvaro was very happy with that idea. So he gets a big, normal one and I make a carnivore-ish one (where some instant coffee and rum will be the non-carni part. works for me! I hope). It’s interesting as I never really want more than super simple desserts on carnivore so I never even made my multiple years long ice cream cake idea :frowning: Maybe one day? Well, tiramisu is about the same difficulty: very easy! Almost all ingredients are carnivore or unnecessary. My cream is lactose free so quite sweet! That’s why my eggnog was a nice sweet dessert today (but the good rum helped too, that is sweet as well. the whisky was just very alcoholic. it’s only 40% so it’s strange but maybe I am just not used to alcohol anymore…?). It was in a 30ml cup so it felt a generous portion too. My attitude is vastly different with tiramisu (it is never enough) but I can’t eat more than what I have so it will be fine. I probably won’t want to go far with my only mildly sweet dessert anyway…? I am curious so I will taste a single tiny bite of the normal (but still pretty low-carb, it’s tiramisu made by me for Alvaro, why would I put much into it…?) one.
At this moment it’s the making and tasting what excites me, I don’t desire to eat a substantial or sweet dessert at all. I just need to use up the wonderful, mildly expensive stuff that is mascarpone and I still can’t watch Alvaro to eat it ALL. I am a tiramisu fan myself even if I don’t want it now. Yolks and cream and my fav instant coffee (it doesn’t taste proper coffee, more like flavoring for a dessert so it’s perfect for this), what not to like? :smiley:

But I won’t DRINK coffee.


#44

I will bring photos later if they turned out tolerable… Bad light for it and no passion at all…

I have tracked. Yesterday was about 135g fat and protein in one meal… I really like tiramisu even when it’s almost carnivore… I prefer mine even if it’s a bit lacking in sweetness (but that’s overratred anyway… except I managed to overdo the bitter coffee… I know what to do next time differently), the cake part was better in mine! :wink: I keep changing and more and more planty items feel bad tasting to me.
Even though I greedily ate up all 2 portions of my dessert (I only planned to eat one), it was more like because of hunger and the fact creamy treats are so easy to eat and this one was tasty too, full with some of my fav items… But I didn’t feel any particular desire towards tiramisu so it was a bit of a waste on me this time. I very rarely want true desserts while on carnivore. Some sour cream after my main dish or some eggy drink, sure but not this.
I decided to buy mascarpone only if I have some immediate plan, I don’t want to work on something and eat it half-heartedly just because I fear it would spoil…

But I wrote way too much about this.
I ate some fried pork heart (the not so nice parts so there was lots of too chewy bites for the cats) and fried a little lean pork too. Hence the high protein high fat day.

Today I had lunch too, it got a bit too protein rich considering it had almost no fat… And it won’t get much better so I expect a high protein very low fat day, hopefully it will work. My plan says 54% fat, wow. But who knows how I will feel, I had no dinner yet.

I have pork/heart stew, nice, I eat it with eggs. And I had some fancy, milk soaked, egg coated very lean pork. Hm, that method is better with chicken breast, I imagine pork would be better in a sauce as it needs a much longer time to cook… And the stupid coat (gelatin and egg) likes to come off anyway.

I eat and drink some eggs and have some dairy but my day is still quite low fat if I mostly eat lean pork… But I had this and fancied it too… One day should be fine, maybe.


(Bean) #45

I’m still making progress. Week 7 for strength and physical goals, Ruminants and poultry only with some very, very minimal additions that go a long way to making it sustainable. No dairy, eggs, or pork. One meal a day 4-5 days a week. Eating to only satisfy hunger the other days. And usually in a small window. ETA. Still working on coffee, but that is tapering in tandem with antihitamines.

I read somewhere to set your goals and then cut them in half. I did that. Turns out that for me, that making progress is far more sustainable than having perfection.


#46

My goals never include perfection, I may be overly optimistic but I have some idea about my limits :smiley: They are still beyond me but theoretically possible and I better push myself as much as I can (it’s not enough, I am a hedonist who doesn’t do hard things and don’t even try to resist temptation. it can be hard to be me)… I usually have some more realistic goals as well and anyway, I don’t feel so bad if I fail the very challenging, barely possible ones :slight_smile:

Well this week wasn’t so great in multiple ways, I will try harder next week. Today I desired a bigger eating window and no limits, basically.

Food will be nice today I am sure, I don’t remember ever eating african sharptooth catfish but we bought some before Christmas when seafood was on a great sale… I have some leftover stew too, it’s enough for meat for today. I probably will make meatballs tomorrow as I ONLY have super lean meat now (trimmed green ham and chicken breast) but I do have some fatty pork skin to mix it with…

The stew wasn’t that great. I mean, the meat is good in it but the little plant matter didn’t make it any better, I think I prefer fried or roasted meats now. I used to love stews then I barely ate it as I tried to keep my meat dishes fully carnivore and it was easy… And now that I tried to return to it, it’s meh. Fine then, I stick to frying/roasting in the future too. With the occasional deer stew or something, deer is lean and just frying it isn’t the ideal way to eat it. I usually fry fatty meats, roasting allows leaner stuff but with some fat layer on the outside… And chicken breast have its milk soaked gelatin and egg coated cooking method, it’s fancy and more time consuming than the others but it’s nice for variety. Chicken breast is so very very tender, it barely needs any time to fry! :smiley: My new beloved item despite it’s very pitiful fat content. I love tender meats. I love the occasional chewy kind too, variety is lovely. And of course, super crunchy scratchings are pure bliss, I just shouldn’t render out too much fat, leaven it super lean and not really enjoyable… I didn’t know it can do that… Scratching in the supermarket is so fatty it’s not even properly crunchy, oozing fat! That’s too fatty and not crunchy enough to me. And it has no meat. Mine is better to my liking but I have this with everything. I look with disdain (actually, I don’t even look…) at most supermarket items as I make something similar sooooo much better. Or I don’t do anything similar as I don’t need or want them. This choosiness helped me a lot when I just have left high-carb. It was very hard to tempt me with something that wasn’t some simple ingredient or spice mix. Except wafers, they were dangerous sometimes (they are so bad ingredient wise that it was a super occasional temptation and reading the label usually made me stop wanting them but still… I love the texture and can’t reproduce it) but I have grown out of that too.
Supermarket stuff is easy anyway, I need to resist for a few minutes per month. My problem items are ones I am surrounded with. They can wear me down if I kinda like them without a proper temptation that would win me over right away.

I had 2 OMAD days, 1 close to OMAD fat fast-ish days (a bit higher cal than the usual as for the first time, my 90% fat 1000 kcal dinner wasn’t enough), a few days without any coffee but I barely consume any anyway… Some carnivore-ish, some not because I happened to not have enough proper meat again… Why do I do this I don’t know. I need to plan better. Not great, not tragic, I will do better next week.
We bought eggs (well Alvaro who was willing to cycle in the fog) again so I have supplies - except meat that isn’t super lean so I should get some again. Tuesday is pork day so that’s the first time I can do that. But I have lots of meatballs in the freezer (and will make new ones from the leftover skin. I want to use it all up already!).

Yesterday was mostly sunny! The other days of the week all were foggy or overcast. I miss sunshine. Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny again but one can never know. The deeper frost went away so the house isn’t too cold now… Our little A/C and tiny heaters used in moderation for reasons can’t do enough when it’s a serious frost for a week. Not very cold (like -20 Celsius) but not a light frost only, it matters.
Maybe we buy another A/C soon, we know it’s not a bad idea since long… My room is too hot in summer and only not cold in winter if I use a normal heater with its pitiful 100% efficiency. A/C is way cheaper to use (and we will see how much it worth it, we don’t know how long it will last and the upfront cost is significant) and can make cold and dehumidify, handy stuff. But it requires maintenance and I have ways to combat the problems with my room temperature (in summer it means I move out so maybe not the best).

It seems I still tend to write a lot but it happens rarely, it’s progress.


#47

No goals here,not in any future timeframe at least. I´m just trying to feel good NOW.

I tried a pair of my old jeans yesterday, to my surprise I fit in there except waist needs 3" to go… well that could be a goal… But those jeans will fit one day, I don´t care when.


#48

Enjoying some organ meats. Is there a February keto-carnivore thread?


#49

Ha! I was able to button those jeans last Sunday, my weighing day. Too tight but if they fit,they fit! :slight_smile:


(Bean) #50

I can start one? February is a short month, and I’ll be traveling at the beginning of March. I think maybe a combo thread this time?

Here it is: Forward for February/ March: Carnivore Chat 2025