Seeing/reading what everyone else is cooking is encouraging!
The no-stevia experiment is one week in, and cravings are almost gone. I think about food less and spend no energy trying not to overeat.
Calf liver and smoked pork jowel tastes so good together - liver is sweet and bacon loves sweetness!
That looks good.
Carnivore nachos today.
Pork rinds, venison chorizo and extra sharp cheddar.
I ate tow of these platters. Hopefully it wasnāt too much cheese. We shall see.
I baked a beautiful bread for Alvaro, fried meat and rendered lard for me. The latter provided a big bunch of very well-done scratchings, meatier than usual and very, very good. Crunchy Perfection! 
My fried pork (the leaner part of the 70/30 pork Alvaro brought yesterday. and I have another slab in the freezer, how neat!) wasnāt as cooperative and the piece I wanted to focus on got blurry, oh well. It was pretty 
I just ate these for lunch - and a tiny bit of jellied fluff for dessert (and a creamy Irish cream tea! and it was wet and I wanted biscuits but I had none so I ate one of my sponge cakes with cream in it. it was moist. oh and a cheese whispā¦). Itās hard to shot, itās a lovely dish and it has air bubbles but itās still not a photogenic one. When in doubt, I tend to make a close upā¦
I have 130g lard now, it should be enough for March.
Before lunch I already had 2 egg milks. With milk. One was a golden milk, itās so very awesome, I go and look up if mine can be called like that but I suppose so 
Oh my, itās so hard to get to the recipe, first there is ZILLION points about it curing everything and bringing world peace. I donāt care (much. but I donāt necessarily believe soā¦), I obviously drink it for joy. And today to try to avoid coffee (I failed, by the way. it is a long, tough war between me and coffee). Okay, I didnāt put nearly as much turmeric into it and I used way more black pepper, salt too of course, why would I make a dessert version but I like my result
But I actually try to remember I want to get used to drinking water. Hot or cold, whatever suits me at the moment. I am in my hot drink phase as itās not winter but I still like warmth. But my morning brain donāt remember anything. No weighing, no 1 liter water as my first liquidā¦
I am very well-fed now. Not the vaguest idea about my macros this far but I will figure out before dinner as I really donāt want to overeat everything again. I had lunch early but it happens on weekends sometimes.
@robintemplin being known at your BBQ place is awesome 
@Geezy56 are you able to get good bark on smoked brisket and pork butt with just salt? Should I do anything extra to make it dark and crispy without the rub?
@Karen18 Iāve always wanted to try black puddings since I read about them in Dickens books and such as a girl. So fun to see!
@Shinita lovely macro pictures! The textures look yummy
Yesterday, my little sister told me her blood sugar was high. T2 runs in the family. I told her the no-meds solution is low carb, but she sure looked frightened at the idea! I try hard not to be obnoxious like the legendary vegan from the joke (how do you know someoneās a vegan? They tell you!). No one could do this without wanting it quite badly all on their own, so no point in talking about it much, right? Any pointers on how not to be obnoxious? 
Smoked pork jowel and chuck steak.
Well, your sis knows how youāre eating, so she surely already knows the basics.
But I usually just suggest they try a small changeā¦ like giving up Pepsi for example. Then see where it leads.
Tomorrow I will experiment with carnivore biscuits. The desire wore me down and in the very end, my day became only keto. I need some tasty, crunchy carnivore biscuits. But at least NOT eating cheese every day so a whips could be acceptableā¦ But I didnāt add other keto items, itās something. I focused on what I really wanted and made it tiny. And then I ate some smoked cheese, the last bite should be something rich and I wanted to be satiated enough so the day is DONE already, at 9pm 
I talked to Alvaro about my biscuit plans and he just couldnāt follow me when I mentioned pork skinā¦ No problem, I told him. You donāt need to 
I tracked but IDK why Itās impossible. I had 280g meat - and whatever was in 80g scratchingsā¦ Around 130g protein, thatās fine and I canāt possibly have much idea about my fat intake but it must have been below 180g as that is the number for fatty, not meaty scratchings. The pieces were plenty fatty in the beginning but the fat tissue lost most of its fat and all the nice meaty parts emergedā¦ Good stuff, just totally impossible to track. No problem, the upper estimation shows it wasnāt a particularly bad day. For a Saturday. After meaty days, I just didnāt want much meat today. But I did ate a few bites after I skipped dinner. I have this even on carnivore sometimes, I am not hungry, per seā¦ But I want something little and preferably different from the things I had beforeā¦ I was restless. And I usually want crunchy or at least crispy biscuit-like things when it happens.
I ate my little ice cream but it needed a bit more cream to be nicely sweet and I used my fav instant coffee powder, it was very lovely. I have an ice cream phase, well as much as I can have such a thing. I wasnāt interested in the last years, only made some to use up leftover yolks and cream - but I really like it now. I donāt need or crave it but itās nice when I want something creamy and different. And I have these huge, 500ml whipping cream boxes, it would be hard to use them up without ice cream. Though I could freeze it alone I supposeā¦ I did it lately and it worked. Or I should remember creamy ragout soups are a thingā¦
Oh poor thing. I donāt think you can be obnoxious if you helpfully points out some useful steps and nice low-carb items and dishesā¦ There are SO MANY!!! I went low-carb first, my limit was 80g net carbs. It was super easy and highly enjoyable, it was pure win, without any sacrifice whatsoever. As I could cook my own food just fine and could handle eating off occasionally. I know itās not so easy for everyone, it was a nice fit for me. Going even lower was where it got tricky. But 80g really wasnāt too low, I still had plenty of food to eat, I was a tad lost in the beginning though, had to change my recipes, make new onesā¦
I am with Robin, if low-carb sounds scary, try with baby steps Or big steps but only with the easy sounding ones. I would start with skipping added sugar, it was very easy for me and my SO but if it isnāt for your sister, at least not drinking sweet drinksā¦? They often contains SO MUCH sugar and I donāt even understand why to sweeten drinks at this point as I slowly trained myself out of it. And I have found a sweetener that is tastier than normal sugar anyway. But I used sweeteners for sweetness, not flavorā¦ And as little as comfortably possible. I had that with sugar, people so overuse it! They put it into everything, even sweet fruits and meats, crazy! (Okay, some people must love sweetened meat, I hate it. It is not really a thing here unlike in some countries.)
Maybe she looks at your food and are afraid of that but some more ānormalā low-carb would seem doableā¦? She probably could find ways to lower carbs without even making her diet change so much. Not elimination, just reduction, choosing some lower-carb option if that sounds good enoughā¦ Thinking about doing a tiny little sacrifice to help her bodyā¦?
I really canāt resist temptation but I still could change my diet a lot and I never even gave up food joyā¦ I would have if my health demanded it, health is the most enjoyable, after all. I was healthy enough, not in a hurry so I didnāt do a single super huge jump. I did a few pretty big ones though but I had plenty gradual changes. Oh my, originally I had my coffee with some dairy AND sweetener! It took years to go down to zero but it was easy at least. One can do a lot if determined, stubborn and consistent. I choose no sacrifice over speed. I just trained, pushed myself a wee little bit, it was fun. Less sweet is fine? Maybe yes, if no, I added more sweetenerā¦ But eventually it went down. Now my preference is very different from my original one.
I feel things much sweeter too but it happened to all my family members who stopped eating sugar. Alvaroās Mom who got diabetes (that was the point where she stopped eating sugar, with exceptions because the doctor told her so. Alvaro and I were off sugar since years already. she is the type who can make such changes immediately and smoothly if she has motivation), Alvaro who stopped eating added sugar but kept eating natural sugars and stayed a high-carberā¦ And I who went low-carb. We all felt everything much sweeter in months and it was the same level for us three despite our wildly different woe!
Then I tried out carnivore and evolved further If I eat sweeteners, I go back to the original lowered level I thinkā¦? But never further back, not even if I eat very sweet, sugary things. Good.
These things are interesting! Itās not just giving up stuff. Itās a new world, with new dishes I would love to know before and interesting revelations.
Good luck for you and herā¦ I am pretty sure there could be done useful, not bothersome steps right away! She can think about this. Checking out new (or just old low-carb) recipes. Maybe some will be tempting?
There are even very traditional dishes with a lower than usual carb contentā¦ And if a food has a fat+protein part (like normal meat, without adding a bunch of carbs without a good reasonā¦) and a starchy part, one may eat a tad less of the latter and maybe extra salad or something. Just pushing it where it is still okay, these can shift as time passes like the sweetness in my coffee did.
I have too many ideas now but I stop. I donāt even know what is important for your sister. I knew what was important for me and I didnāt give that up until I was ready and didnāt mind (I am lucky I didnāt need to push too much or go quickly as I was healthy enough, I just wanted to keep my health and feel even better). Itās important for many of us. Make the easier but helpful choices first And skip added sugar if possible. That just isnāt good especially if diabetes is a highly possibly thing in the future. But itās not good anyway. But amounts matter. Little because itās too hard to swallow elimination is still better than much!
People shouldnāt suffer a bad diet when they can change itā¦ It doesnāt need to be very sudden or extremeā¦
I really stop now but I am very enthusiastic about this topic.
By the way, @E_P, your photo is very tempting, again. I like your food pics
Since March seems to about home construction, hereās my project. Hubby and I put down tile today.
Pork belly and leftover steak so far. Probably ground beef patties for supper. Also. One cup of coffee. Going to try for none tomorrow.
Absolutely. Itās the smoke and the slow cook that puts on the bark. I used to use the typical rubs that had all kinds of spices and sugar in them but after I became carnivore I just went with salt and pepper (white) and found I like it better.
I use a traditional offset pit smoker so itās really getting a good smoke to it.
It was mud bugs today.
I think I dang near ate my weight in those little crawfish. They are like crack to me.
Oh my thatās a serious work! We just want to buy PVC but that is a multiple month and very huge project for usā¦ Well we need some furniture first as we have 2 pieces without legsā¦ And itās not easy to find the right color and pattern. I am not very choosy but just anything pretty canāt workā¦
IDK why I have these compulsive vaguely biscuit eating (cheese whisp and scratchings were the closestā¦ but I made biscuits too) and coffee drinking today but I had snacks before noon and skipped lunch.
My carni biscuit experiments went moderately well. But it turned out even cheese stays soft if I go for crunchy biscuitsā¦ Itās so {OMG, Ginger put her claw into a tiny space of a computer motherboard, one of the zillions in Alvaroās room and it got stuck! I barely could take it out, she bit me twiceā¦ stupid kitteh}ā¦ I forgot where I was. Ah, cheese whisps, so they are so perfectly crunchy! But I use the oven and other ingredients (but the cheese was a separate layer), nope, the cheese stays soft. Maybe it needs more than 30 minutesā¦ My soft, moist biscuits are tasty though. I used pork skin, boiled eggs, cheese, little salt and cumin! Even a bit of my fav spicy mix as the pork skin wasnāt properly smoked.
But I made some simple ones without the bothersome skin (my grinders have problems with it)! Itās like Alvaroās cheesy fluff (whipped egg white and grated cheese) just without the cheese cube in the middle and way more flat. And cumin instead of nutmeg. I call it Crispy Fluff, I often use descriptive names, itās hard to invent fully new ones and why bother? Lovely little thing.
I canāt handle life without biscuits sometimes, I need these. Thankfully I am not super choosy, I just want good taste, not too much cheese and a crispy/crunchy texture.
My dinner will be leftovers: fried pork, biscuits, sponge cakes with Greek yogurt, most probably. Maybe a bite of smoked pork rib as well. And I drink a little milk.
Weather isā¦ Not good, not tragic. Almost no sunshine but sometimes we have some weak sunrays for a little while. I slept horribly and let Alvaro to go to the wild garlics alone. They are at a nice stage, babies, big ones and bud alike! Next time I really will go and there will be flowers. It turned out that area is start of a nice place for hiking I knew from the other endā¦ Didnāt know that. The place is calledā¦ letās seeā¦ Shell Alley! IDK why itās shell, it means so many things just like in English! Not the same ones, though.
Yesterdays foodā¦
Came back home , tram and bus then went to Long Eaton for flowers and card for daughter for Mothers day, bought some shopping and back home. Tired with a bit of a headache.
Had the porky chops for dinner followed by some tinned tuna and later on in the evening the bacon.
My daughter and son in law popped 8n on their way to anti natal class with a card and flowers and i gave her hers too. She was looking really well.
2 fried eggs and bacon for brunch today and now cooking plain chicken wings.
fast post
lost internet for 2 days, OMG!! ME UNPLUGGED!
then my cell phone hot spot wonāt work from verizon, gotta call them, I sure as heck am paying for itā¦have mercy on it all LOL
beef pork
simple zc life
kiddo went with friend to charleston. came back with a nose ring.
Lord have mercy HA Told her before when she asked long ago she could do it if she wanted, I mean who am I to say no when she is older right? well darn if she didnāt go and do itā¦hubby just rolled his eyes and walked away in silence HAHA He canāt take it! too funny. my kiddo is testing the waters for sure but hey, if this is it, all she does, dye her hair crazy color and a nose ring, hey I feel ok with that, like 1 billion more bad things she could do right? just funny cause she came home like at 1AM from the trip and heck I never noticed it and she was all in my face, trying to see if I noticed and I didnātā¦omgosh, too funny, she was irked I didnāt see it but hey I aināt looking at anyone at 1AM too closely, just happy she drove home thru the door that late in fine shapeā¦ughā¦oh my life
again stupid stuff to chat about but again I throw out there my darn ZC EATING life is so simple that is helps me thru the crazy HAHA
I will take your advice on this, next time it comes up in conversation! She does NOT have to eat a burger patty with salt like she sees me do at family lasagna night 
That would have scared me too, 2 years ago.
Exactlyā¦even the less scary baby steps will help, and help immediately. Sheās all on board to prioritize protein (her fiance is a football player and she wants to feed him properly when they get married soon, bless her) which is such a great place to start. Thank you so much for the encouragement @Shinita
@Fangs when our youngest (blond) came home from college with pink hair, she was underwhelmed by our response. We told her it looked natural since we have so many red heads in the family. She did not enjoy trying to strip it out later when it began looking bad.
Food prep and taxes today. Hopefully I can pull all my other lose ends together now thatās done.
Made/ portioned/ froze;
Chicken cracklins
Corned beef
Ground beef patties (lunches)
Beef ribs
Lamb roast
Broke chuck down into steaks
Had some of the ribs and cracklins for lunch. Corned beef for dinnerā¦. And hubby told me this morning he wants to try low carb. Yay. Now if I can get him on the carnivore train. Pictured is my chicken skin in progress. About 4#.
I got reminded to Alvaroās many hair colors and Momās reaction when she met him having bright orange hairā¦ The hair color wasnāt her main problem even though Alvaro was and is a cinnamon roll
But he had various colors, the absolute worst was black. As it is the case for many peopleā¦ That light hidrogen-peroxide blond (surely it has some nameā¦) was the best looking if you ask me.
Now I got a little nostalgicā¦
I dropped tracking and I donāt wanna to bring it back but maybe for the few main itemsā¦? I do try to eat simple. I have this since some time, I normally donāt eat several dairy items on the same day anymoreā¦ But I have such a huge room for improvementā¦
It was a keto day again, I wondered and consciously decided it is not a bad thing right now, I just had to do what I could today. I should avoid eating early, I know but some days are just a mess. I ate too many times today but I couldnāt get easily satiated now. Typical when I eat early.
It surely gets better tomorrow, weekends arenāt so great sometimes. But it wasnāt too bad considering itās me, now. I donāt have good days lately, I donāt mean eating wise but of course that could be better too.
As I whipped a tiny egg white for my biscuits, I whipped more and made some dessert. Like a light ice cream, it was surprisingly good or maybe not as I did such a thing beforeā¦ It had some yolk but very very little. And I was low at cream so it had very little of that too (I used a little Greek yogurt and some butter). It still had a nice texture and taste when frozen.
I ate scrambled eggs and my leftover fried pork as my main dish for dinner, nothing surprising there.
Oh let tomorrow be better, I felt so unwell after my messed up last night And it was 3 days with very close to zero sunshine.
Oh, how low-carb, what kind of food? Will you be able to eat the same food for most part? I wish him success and enjoyable eating!
Some people canāt properly appreciate what they have 
I need to cook and bake for a high-carber!* It probably wonāt change in the foreseeable future and itās almost certain he always stays on high-carb. And I appreciate we have a common ground, he even eats meat almost every day and likes eggs and dairy! It makes things easier. We had worse times (when he ate vegetarian high-carb and I ate vegetarian keto and we rarely could share a main dish). We both were very health-conscious at that point though and that is the most important thing as we didnāt do it particularly wrong. I couldnāt do what I can do now, I needed time and becoming ready for it. Alvaroās diet barely changed nutrition wise as he merely added a little meat and it replaced other good animal proteins.
I canāt even imagine what it would be to live with someone eating really similarly to me. Beyond no one eating all the fruits we have in the gardenā¦ Certain things would be easier for sure, less temptation. Shopping would be a tad simpler. But it seems we both have found our sweet spot and good woe and I am lazy enough and he is flexible enough so I donāt need to cook too muchā¦
*But I donāt cook vegs (except when itās 1-2 minutes work and it gives the base for the next 5 lunches, that is fine except I find that dish SO boring! And I just cook it, with barely any effort and timeā¦). I have my limits. As a vegetarian, I didnāt cook meat, now I donāt cook vegs. With very rare exceptions.
Hi @pase, welcome to the forum! It can be a huge adjustment for our bodies to make when we do an instant switch from a typical āunhealthyā diet to carnivore. Our bodies often dump a lot of water from our cells when we remove or severely limit carbs, and that can unfortunately temporarily dump a lot of electrolytes too. Whatās your best guess as to the cause of the pain? What role do you think the pork played? Is the baking soda still helping?
Looking forward to hearing more about how everything is going for you. What made you choose to go carnivore? All the best!!
Hi @Shinita it is the flower of a eucalypt tree known as a Tuart.
I lecture at university for 6 hours per day on Wednesday and Fridays (in this semesterās timetable). On those days I donāt eat during the day. I do OMAD with dinner at night, usually beef, usually baked beef ribs. If I āneedā something, I will make a beef bone broth, or have a cup of coffee. Other than that it is just fresh water to drink. Over time, I have found that running on blood ketones is best when dealing with university students with agile minds.
On other days with just one lecture, or tutorials, Iāll eat an eggy breakfast - omelette or scrambled eggs and bacon etc with a coffee. Then a ruminant red meat dinner, beef or lamb.
Over time, I think we have found that people have to see the changes in you/ us and become curious. Then they approach with questions. Until that moment, keep eating well and keep getting healthier.
Welcome Howard. Going from unhealthy eating to carnivore is ā¦ hmmm, what is it. In a general sense it is a good move. And we are thriving here, and you can have some of that, for sure. But rather than the āwhatā, it is the āhowā that carries some risk. Iāve often wondered about doing a lead-in with time restricted eating (One Meal A Day - OMAD), or fasting, and then breaking the fast with a dirty carnivore way, maybe with some fermented vegetables in the mix. Hereās my 2c. With a direct change there can be risk. One of which you appear to have heeded being the formation of kidney stones. Their symptom can be āback painā. In the science of that is a hypothesised, observational, syndrome called oxalate dumping. Oxalate are mineral combinations that can form needle-like crystals in tissues. It seems at old injury sites, or sites in the body of wear and tear, hence back pain and joint pain can occur. Some people get gut pain, others headachesā¦ The sharp crystals can combine into jagged kidney stones that may result in a hospital visit. Having high oxalate foods like dark chocolate may ease some of the dumping symptoms. But those crystals are hard to dissolve they appear to work their way out through the skin, eye crusts, dental calculus, scaly skin plaques over weeks and months. I think Iāve gone 3c now. Take care and consider ketocarnivore as a safety net, if you need. Time will fix it, the welcome discomfort of change. But if you have discomfort from the start, then staying on plan has been made harder than it need be. Iām glad the electrolyte combinations have helped alleviate some of the problem. You will have an interesting dinner party story to tell when you get through the adaptation phase of the low carb eating.
I have had some tin sardines recently, and some other fish. The Portuguese tinned sardines are the best I have found, but Iād like to reconcile that against yāall. I reckon that Surf (seafood) and Turf (ruminant red meat) is the ultimate health food combination in terms of nutrients. But, Iāll acknowledge allergies and taste preferences vary.
Rib steak tonight, sealed in the pan on one side, then oven baked, and sealed on the top side. Some sheepās milk pan-fried haloumi along side it. 3-eggs with a left over lamb chop for breakfast. I socialised in the sunshine at the coffee van in the beach car park, and had a short walk with Billie the Labrador.
This is our little 2-bedroom homestead work in progress. Itās completely off-grid, power is from solar panels and battery storage, winter wood-fired stove and oven, we collect all our water into rain water tanks, human waste is composted. The design is based on an Earth Ship. But this is a steel framed house (vs termites), and the greenhouse on the front that is as big as the living area needs to be completed. Out the back is a 120sqm shed, you can see it with the solar array on it, with a caravan, and another composting toilet, and storage space, and an outdoor bathtub. We are surrounded by a woodland and neighbouring holiday homes.
