The elusive Zero and BIG news

(Robin) #1

Well, day 2 of attempting zero carb. Yesterday was a breeze cuz I had roasted a lovely brisket and had some hamburger patties ready to heat up. Today, I reached for my lazy keto processed meats and looked them up, out of curiosity. Dang! Carbs! Not huge for keto. But it’s the Z in ZC that I am aiming for. So… that just means I’ll need to be more deliberate in my shopping. No pre-packaged processed meat. That’s ok. My husband will benefit from what’s already in the fridge.

But… I also jumped on the scales to get a baseline. (It’s been a while.) And lo and behold, I weigh 158. Exactly 60 pounds less than when my keto journey began. I honestly never thought I’d be in the 150’s again and I was okay with that. But seeing that 5 on the scale was a HEAD RUSH!

Now I am going to just stick with the carnivore plan and stay away from the scales. Happy camper here. I got this!

(Laurie) #2

Some processed meats purport to have zero carbs. I always read the labels. If you want to stay away from them entirely, you can enjoy cold roast beef slices, cold chicken, etc., prepared at home.

Congratulations on reaching the 150s!

(Bob M) #3

I typically eat a lot of ham, as it’s low fat, higher protein. Almost all of it has some carbs, but like bacon, there will be a few grams. Reading the label helps.

But unless you’re really triggered by any amount of sweetness, a small amount of carbs won’t be bad.

(Robin) #4

Thanks. I am tempted to go ahead and eat the processed meat I bought. I’ll still be under 10 carbs at the most, just not zero. But, that magic number can wait a few days.

#5

The small amounts shouldn’t matter too much. Just know going forward some may have small amounts of carbs and decide if you want to get them again or not.

Are you doing eggs on your ZC plan? I know they have small amount of carbs, but definitely a great nutrient dense complement to all the meat. Ground beef, bison, or lamb with an adequate amount of eggs seems to be what I’ve fallen into as a routine.

(Robin) #6

Thanks. I ate a lot of eggs when I first began keto and got tired of them. But I may revisit them.

(Vic) #7

Proccessed meat is junkfood.

Ok ones in a while, but not every day.
That includes cured bacon.

Jm2c

#8

Super CONGRATS!

I bet you did love seeing that 5 there :slight_smile: Always a great win when we follow the plan and get results and we know our changes are beneficial!

COOL

Hey don’t do deli meat…because if you train yourself to ‘eat the fresh real non-processed’ meat in your home, then you came into carnivore in such a truthful better position.

Leave the deli for when desperate to eat something on the road if nothing else is around.

Leave the processed stuff for eating out and you get an omelet and some sausage links or something like that.

EAT THE FRESH stuff at home and enjoy all you want.

I never ate deli meat much except for salami…still love that stuff LOL but I do eat some bacon and sausage when I started cause I thought they just paired so well with eggs…but when I thought about it, eggs and man made sausage really is ‘not fresh meat’ :slight_smile: so I dumped most of that and decided to EAT the meat/seafood/fish and fowl…the good stuff.

So yea use it as filler or when you need to but don’t kinda think of it ‘as a good carnivore meal’ ya know.

Just some start ways to come into this plan with putting the better options first.

Just suggestions :slight_smile: To me it sounds like you are doing great so far! Hold strong!

(Robin) #9

All good advice. Thanks!

(Jane) #10

My homemade sausage is fresh! Fatty pork cubed and mixed with spices, then ground and stuffed into casings or vacuum sealed it in bulk and frozen. No sugar, no nitrates, no preservatives - just meat and spices.

#11

To be fair, she did say “man made”. :slight_smile:

#12

ohh I bet they are delish in that you must have perfected that recipe down into exactly the best sausages you love! cool

(Jane) #13

:laughing:

(Jane) #14

Well, I tried a few and all were… meh. Then I found a recipe online that was someone’s grandfather’s recipe he made every Christmas and you toast fennel seeds and gind the allspice berries and it was better than ANY I have ever bought, so I will never buy any from the store again. I didn’t have anise so left it out the first batch. Added it to the second batch and didn’t like it as well, so now the recipe is fixed - wouldn’t change a thing.

It may have TOO many spices to be considered carnivore… :woman_shrugging:

My next project is to perfect some chorizo. Store chorizo is always so greasy it is even too much for me LOL and you don’t know what is in it. The chorizo at the butcher shop is made there and has perfect spices but is so lean I have to add a bit of butter when I brown it.

(Edith) #15

Would you be willing to post your recipe? I’ve been making my own bacon which is also far better than bacon I buy at the store. I would love to try making sausage.

(Jane) #16

Sure - will type it up when I get home and post.

I made my own bacon once but wasn’t happy with it because the slices were too thick. I have a meat slicer now I use to make my own sugarless jerky and would like to try again but can’t find any pork belly locally. I picked some up in Ft Worth and brought it back in a cooler previously.

Driving down to Houston to spend Thanksgiving with my sons and grandsons so will pick up a couple of slabs then.

(Jane) #17

WOO HOO! We have a new butcher shop that has been opened a couple of months. Prior to that there have been NO butcher shops that I could find anywhere, even driving over an hour. He is 5 minutes down the road and I feel so blessed. He is going through the red tape to get his USDA stamp so he can butcher his own herd and sell it. For now he resells meat but it is Walmart prices but much better quality.

I have asked a couple of times about pork belly and finally today he said he had one - an 11.5-lb slab!!! It is frozen so thawing it out so I can cut it up into smaller portions to make bacon that will actually fit in my fridge to cure LOL. This puppy is 19" long and 10" wide.

(Jane) #18

My Italian sausage recipe. My mods from the original recipe: use garlic from a jar, omitted the anise and sugar, cut the red pepper flakes in half. It still has a bit of a kick so if you don’t like spicy at all cut back on the cayenne and red pepper flakes or just omit the red pepper flakes and let the cayenne provide the spice.

Homemade Italian Sausage

3 lbs pork shoulder
4 cloves garlic
1 oz (28 g) kosher salt, divided
2 Tbl whole fennel seeds, toasted
2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tsp ground cayenne pepper
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried marjoram
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp ground mustard
1/4 tsp ground allspice berries

Step 1
Grind garlic with a pinch of salt in a mortar to make a paste (I found the garlic in a jar makes a nice paste – fresh garlic was very dry). Toast fennel seeds until brown. Add toasted fennel and black pepper to garlic. Bruise spices lightly with a pestle to release the flavors. Add pepper flakes, cayenne pepper, oregano, marjoram, coriander, mustard allspice and a splash of water. Stir to combine.

Step 2
Cut pork shoulder into cubes. Add the spice paste to the cubes. Mix thoroughly by hand. Add the remaining salt. Cover and refrigerate until flavors meld, 8 hours to overnight.

Step 3
Process the cold pork through a meat grinder in batches. Keep pork in refrigerator until ready to be ground. Ground pork that will not be stuffed into casings can be frozen.

Step 4
Push a casing onto the stuffing tube of your meat grinder. Feed the sausage until casing is filled up. Tie a knot at the end and pinch and twist into links, if desired.

Step 5
Place sausage links onto a wire rack set over a sheet pan. Refrigerate uncovered 24 hours. At this point if you want to separate the links you can cut them at the twists.

Step 6
Grill sausage links until browned and done all the way through, about 5 minutes per side.

(Richard M) #19

Thanks for sharing.

(Jane) #20

Do you have a bacon recipe you like? I;ve only made it once and it was nearly 2 years ago so I don’t remember if the flavor was great or just ok.