Category Archives: Carnivore

Priced Out of Paradise

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How does a regular person afford a carnivore diet?

Crochet (now Carnivore) Gramma has had wonderful success with the carnivore way of eating. She’s lost a bunch of weight, become more physically active, and is (I believe) generally happier. Carnivore can work a lot of miracles in a person’s life! Unfortunately, it doesn’t usually make a person any richer, and she was wondering in one of her latest “walk with me” videos how she is going to afford to keep eating well. She feels like she’s been “priced out of paradise” and may have to start eating the boxed mac and cheese again. I know that feeling. If I were starving, I’d eat whatever was available! The consequences of that kind of food, though, I will avoid for as long as possible.

I have felt that same sinking feeling she does, as I’ve watched prices go higher and higher.

I have heard a lot of carnivore gurus say that eating good meat doesn’t cost more than the standard American diet, so you don’t really need to worry about the budget. That really seemed to be true for a long while. Perhaps it’s still true. I don’t know what the processed food prices look like, to be honest, so standard American dieters may be in just as dire straits as carnivores! But it sure seems like meat is going up in price a lot faster than the other stuff.

I’ve been grocery shopping on a strict budget my whole life, unlike probably most of the people who’ve popularized the carnivore diet. These are usually people who are not feeding large families, and also likely have more income (or more comfort using credit cards) than most of us do. Not to mention, nobody is sending me free steaks to promote on my YouTube channel. I’m not knocking them for that, and I’m grateful that people like Dr. Berry and Dr. Baker are doing well in life. They work their butts off, they’re brave and honest, and they’re frankly just better at everything than I am–than most of us are, in fact.

Us regular folks still have to find ways around the growing money problem.

People who are more financially comfortable likely don’t notice when the “cheap” box of hamburgers goes up by $5 overnight, or when the 12-count bag of meat sticks that you rely on for kids’ packed lunches is suddenly $2 more. Even worse, you’ll be opening a brand of canned chicken that had always just contained chicken, water, and salt, and a glance at the ingredients says that they’ve now adulterated it with food starch. Your yogurt that had been clean now has fruit pectin and some kind of bean gum in it. So now you have to find something new or quit that food entirely.

And it’s all of the foods, not just one item. Just a couple of dollars more per item. NBD, right?

When everything is increasing in price, and your income isn’t even inflation adjusted, this starts to really hurt. I left Wal-mart without my usual cheap box of hamburgers after seeing the hike in price. I won’t pay that much right now for those sub-par burgers. I will probably get over the sticker shock and do it anyway someday, and find some non-food place to cut corners. I’ve already canceled all of my little subscriptions and extra comforts. We’re running out of places to find another five or ten dollars!

We have an above-average income, but we also have seven kids still in the home. The oldest one doesn’t really eat at home much, so let’s say we’re feeding eight people right now, plus two meat-eating dogs. I am blessed that I could walk away from that box of hamburgers because I have a freezer full of beef that I can make into patties for myself. I only bought the boxed burgers for convenience, as we get a whole beef at a time, about 3 times a year. It looks like that’s going to have to be cut back, as well, as those prices just get higher, too. Still, it’s a sight better in both quality and price than the store beef!

What is happening here?

Dr. Shawn Baker posted this on YT a few days ago, and I think this increased demand has a lot to do with it. People are starting to wake up to the fact that the food pyramid we’ve been indoctrinated to was upside down.

Of course, it is nowhere near that simple. On the supply side, farmers are getting squeezed in ways that I’m not conversant enough to articulate. When I’ve picked up my beef from my farmer the last few times, she has been increasingly concerned about what is being intentionally done to the market to stop people from affording to eat meat. The push to turn everyone vegetarian is real. People who eat like this…

…have decided that you should eat beans and bugs. It’s expensive on purpose.

Every elite class in history has known that slaves need to be only strong enough to do what you want them to, and never strong enough to rise up. They want us to be fewer in number, dumber, and weaker, and then to die before we cost the medical and pension system very much.

Meat is elite food. The powerful are deliberately trying to make us too weak to do anything that would raise us closer to their status and make us harder to control.

This is not going to last forever. Revolutions are just as real as elite oppression. I just can’t say how long it will take, or by what means. Perhaps our elites will decide to loosen their grip to save their own skins as people get angrier.  Maybe the market will sort itself out through clever ideas for getting around the imposed scarcity.  Maybe Jesus will come back and we’ll see final justice in a New Heaven and New Earth.

In the meantime, we have to figure out how to afford to eat like human beings, not cattle. That means eating meat.

I have a few tips for my adopted Gramma, who I hope can find some use in this post. I’ve really gotten attached to this lady as she documents her journey on Youtube. Today I learned that she had social anxiety, too, so that’s another thing that we have in common that meat healed. Subscribe to her channel, or give a few dollars to her buy me a coffee fund. Hopefully, we can buy her some meat!

These are some of my habits that help me spend less on food, and some other ideas I don’t currently implement. I’ve ranked them in order from most to least plausible for regular folks:

Eat more of the less expensive meats. This is the most obvious one, of course. Chicken and pork cost less. This won’t be an option for people who have to avoid all but ruminant animals, but thankfully most people do just fine with other meats. Dr. Berry has said many times that you can be perfectly healthy on just eggs and bacon, and I think that’s largely true. But bacon is going up, too! We can rely on the chicken thighs and picnic shoulders for enough fat. Some of our family do not tolerate pork at all, so I will have other meats available for them when I make pork.

Eat a lot more eggs. Eggs prices have finally gone back down to mere Biden-era prices, after having more than doubled during a “bird flu” scare. It was a scam, of course. And the $13-something box that I buy is still $5 more than it used to be. I can buy the cheap eggs, thankfully. Most people do fine with the cheapest eggs, and the nutrition is still adequate in factory-farmed eggs, though not as good as appropriately raised chickens will give. Even with the volatile prices inherent in the egg market with these ridiculous policies for dealing with infectious diseases (again, the real goal is to drive us to plant-based eating), eggs remain the least expensive source of animal protein.

If you are eating eggs and trying to stay higher on fat content, you’ll want to dispose of most of the whites and eat more yolks. I often do one white to three yolks. Even throwing out the whites, eggs are a very good choice for inexpensive eating.

Shop the markdowns and sales. This is another very obvious one that we’re probably all already doing. I really hesitate to say this one out loud, though, lest someone who shops at my favorite grocery store sees it and decides to compete with me for the meat there.

Find out what days and times your local grocery store puts the marked down meats out. The stores are on a regular schedule, so if you can get to the bargain section at the same time as the manager, you’ll have a lot more to chose from. We have a particular brand of hotdog that we like, and that is acceptably clean, that was marked down to $2.50 a pack. I got a dozen packages that way! It is kind to leave some for other people, so I will often leave some good deals and come back the next day and only buy them out if nobody else wanted them. I’m pretty sure the cashiers at my favorite store know me as “Red Sticker Meat Lady”.

You may even want to find out what stores the wealthier people shop at–the ones you know you can’t afford–and scope out their deals. Every store has things that have to move fast. People with plenty of money don’t care as much about those red stickers, so you might get better deals there. I haven’t tried this, probably because I’m already shopping at a slightly higher-priced store due to our dietary needs.

Look for alternative sources of meat. If you have a freezer or two or an extra fridge, buying a whole, half, or quarter beef directly from the farmer is a much less expensive way to go. I only buy hamburgers at the store because I’m too lazy to make my own patties. Now that they’re so ridiculously expensive, I will probably make my own patties from my freezer beef. Hanging weight for my last one was $4.50/lb, I believe. That is more than dollar higher per pound than it was when I first started doing this several years ago, but it’s still a lot better than grocery store prices, and the meat is incomparably better. Store-bought steaks make me cry. I can’t even eat at steakhouses, I’m so spoiled by this meat.

I did the math with my take-home weight the last time we bought a cow, and because I take the marrow bones, heart, fat, and organs, I think I recall ending at about $6/lb for the whole thing. That is a lot to shell out all at once, of course. I understand how impossible that sounds for a lot of us. But if you can get ahead enough to buy just a quarter of an animal at a time, you’ll be doing much better in the long run.

We’ve got a friend who sells us duck eggs for $5 a dozen, just to get rid of them. You’ll have a hard time finding anything like that, I’m sure, but any local producer will be giving you better quality, and the prices can vary widely, so just look around.

Buy leaner cuts, which tend to be less expensive, and add fats. I’m not a fan of chicken breasts, pork loins, or any other lean cut of meat. But when they are on sale, I will buy them anyway. I can add bacon to pork loin or country ribs. I can add bacon to anything, actually. Chicken breasts can be made into something delicious with a cream sauce or cheese and bacon. I have an air fryer chicken tendies recipe that is delicious, and we use butter and mayonnaise for dipping to increase the fat content.

Canned meats are kinda OK. Dr. Ken Berry says you can get by just fine on canned meats like Vienna (pronounced: vy-ee-nee) sausages, and we do have a fair amount of canned meat in our lives. But I do find that these need to be less often than once a day, especially for the ones with a lot of salt and nitrates. Several times a week, though, can be a good amount to supplement with canned goods. Canned beef with the fat is fine every day, but it’s expensive. I keep that in the basement for emergency situations, and don’t bring it out much for regular meals. Canned fish of most kinds is also good on a daily basis. But the things that are lower in fat and higher in salts, like sausages, just don’t satisfy the same way. You also need to read the ingredients every single time you buy it. Manufacturers are quick to start adulterating the food with starches and sugars rather than raising the prices.

I will post some recipes for salmon or tuna patties that are carnivore or carnivore-ish, along with my chicken tenders.

Fast more. Take this advice only very carefully. I am not a fan of fasting for anyone over the age of about 45, nor for people who are already lean, nor for children, nor for women of childbearing age. I personally only fast for religious purposes. I’m happy to give my lean mass for prayer and supplication, but I’m not giving it up to make the number on the scale look better. You can achieve a lot of ketones and weight loss by fasting, but it’s not worth the detriment to your muscle mass, unless you are in a very strong state to begin with.

All the same, if you have plenty of fat to lose, your body will prioritize burning that up first, sparing your lean mass, and it will be a lot less harm than eating potatoes, I am sure. When money is tight, you could tighten your eating window down and only eat for 6 hours of the day instead of 8, do one meal a day, or you could skip every third or fourth day of eating entirely.

Scale it back to “keto”. For me and many other carnivores, this really is not an option. I have not found very many plant foods at all that don’t trigger either my auto-immune or anxiety/OCD problems. But most people who are on carnivore probably have a few things they can get away with. Low-carb berries, some green things like asparagus or cauliflower, or avocados and olives can fill in some gaps. It is a trope among carnivores that “plants are trying to kill you”, but in fact, some plants are pretty benign. Plants with fruits seem to even want us to eat them, to spread their seeds! But the sweet fruits we find in the stores are so over-bred for sugar content as to be dangerous for regular consumption.

It is mostly the good fruit oils–avocado and olive–that I would add back, to satisfy the need for fat, but  it is my opinion that there are other plant foods that many people will not experience any real detriment from. If you need to make cauliflower “taters” to fill up your stomach a little more, or add some berries to your yogurt, you may find that to be a good, though not perfect, option.

You have to experiment yourself to find out what you tolerate, and (like me) that may end up being nothing. Honestly, I hesitate to add this as an option, because most of these “foods” just waste your body’s energy trying to digest them. But you will feel fuller for a little less money, perhaps, and it may be a short-term solution.

Get creative. Ask for beef for Christmas, or a freezer to keep your bulk and bargain buys cold. Use your tax returns to buy the side of beef you can’t save up for any other way. Finding new ways to bring in money is an option for some of us, I suppose. But most of us are pretty much already doing what we can. Cut corners other places. I’ve canceled all of my little $5 subscriptions, for instance. It’s hard to do that, though, because I know that other creators need my money, too! You could start a YouTube channel or a blog (doesn’t pay if you’re me, but some people might do well). Whatever you’re already good at, see if you can squeeze just a little income out of it.

Raise a few animals of your own. This is another one of limited use. You have to be in a place where you’re allowed and able to raise animals. You have to have time and energy to take care of them. And, really, backyard chickens can be a lot of trouble, let alone any other kind of animal you might try to raise. But many people do find they have a knack for raising their own eggs and meat, and if you are good at it, you will save money. I sadly never saved a dime with my backyard chickens, but I enjoyed them, and the eggs were much better. If you can free-range them, they cost very little indeed! But the predators around here made that impossible, so I was always out more for the feed than I would have been just buying all of my eggs at the store.

Hunting is another way to get fresh meat on the table for a lot less money. Again, this requires a certain skill-set and location, so not as many people can take advantage of it. I will probably be doing this eventually, but haven’t quite decided to yet. There’s a gal down the road here who says she would be happy to teach me to hunt!

I’m sure I have more to say on this subject, but I think this post is too long already. What do you do to keep food prices down? Or to make enough money to cover the increasing costs? Currently, I’m just using a buymeacoffee link. If you want to contribute to my gofundme for my last run, it is also still active. I will give a report on that race very soon, I’m sure!

Leave me a comment or something! I want to hear from you!

 

 

Why Would a Carnivore Use a Collagen Supplement?

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I thought this diet was perfect!

I recently gave a list of the foods of which my diet consists, and it included collagen powder. Carnivore purists would scoff at a number of things on my list, including that one, even if it is an animal-based food. Why? Because you can get collagen from meat! Why are you wasting your money?  Just include the gristle and chewy parts and have lots of bone broth instead of an expensive powder, they’d say. And they’d be right. You can certainly get plenty of collagen that way.

But you also might not get enough collagen that way. Or you might not be able to eat that way consistently. Or you might just want to be very sure of the minimum amount of collagen you’re getting, and that amount will always vary in foods.

I don’t like to drink a lot of bone broth. I don’t need a lot of extra liquid in my day, and I really just don’t enjoy a cup of bone broth unless I’m cold or have a sore throat. More importantly, because of my histamine sensitivities, long-cooked foods tend to make me itch in unmentionable places, so I don’t want to drink bone broth every day. And the chewy, slimy, gristly bits are–I’m sorry, I can’t grow up about this–gross. So is chicken skin, unless it’s very, very crispy. I’ll eat that, but it’s not happening every day. I’m mostly a beef girl.

Stronger skin, hair and nails. My hair and nails seem to me to be stronger when I include collagen, and it promotes wound healing, so I’m keeping it.

I’m getting older, just like everybody else. 

If only he’d been taking collagen all these years…

As we age, our bodies have a harder and harder time utilizing the protein we eat. We need more protein, not less, as our bodies become less efficient. (That’s a good YT video in the link.)

At the same time, our appetites decrease. In my case, I don’t seem to have reached that stage yet. I eat like a very hungry bear (I almost said “horse”, but no grains here). But I do want to maintain my current fat percentage, and I’m still hoping against hope to recompose away this last bit of floppy mommy-belly, so simply eating more isn’t going to work for my needs. It stands to reason that, if I can get an extra serving or two of collagen in some way that is easy for my body to absorb, but doesn’t add another 6 ounces of meat to my already-full plate, I can benefit from that.

I haven’t gotten too far into that senior category yet, but I am at the age where we start seeing the fine lines and wrinkles. Well, you see the fine lines and wrinkles. I can’t see me at all without a magnifying mirror because now I need glasses, too. Even carnivores are going to age and die. I’m on my way to that fair land!

I do credit my meat-heavy diet for my younger-than-my-age looks, though. Unless everybody I know is lying to me, I don’t look my age, nor do I look like I’ve had and nursed eight babies. When I look in the mirror, I see a forty-five year old woman. But I’ve been told many times, almost every time I go out, that I look ten years younger. I didn’t always use collagen, so it’s probably more the general healthy lifestyle I’m living, but…well, I’m vain. I want to hold onto that for as long as I can, and if a supplement of collagen might help with that, I’m doing it!

Now, if you see me out sometime and think I look my age or more, I understand. I think so, too. But be nice. Let me keep this dream going, ok?

Are there contraindications? Well, you can exacerbate kidney stones and other oxalate problems in some cases. Collagen can turn to oxalate in the body, and some individuals are more prone to overproduce their own oxalate already. And, as with so many other things, insulin resistance makes oxalate problems far more likely, so if you’re on a carnivore diet, a higher collagen intake is probably (in my fairly educated opinion) far less risky than if you’re dumping it on top of a high-carb diet. Nonetheless, if you are doing a carnivore way of eating to reduce kidney stones or other oxalate-related health problems, I wouldn’t advise taking extra collagen. Just eat the gristly bits and skin, like the carnivores say.

Now, why isn’t this diet perfect without supplements? For some people, I do think it is! If somebody is young enough when they get started, or if they had been fairly healthy beforehand, and if they’ve got every other health factor, like sunshine, exercise, sleep, etc., nailed down, or if they’re just lucky and haven’t suffered much impact from their standard diet yet, everything they need, and nothing they don’t need, should be found in meat. But some of us–probably most of us–do have farther to go to get to optimal health, and carry a bigger burden from our years of plant food, and can use a little extra help.

Collagen is one of those supplements that I find more likely to be useful than not.

Having a Hard Time at the Fridge?

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Do yourself a favor if you’re trying to go carnivore. Make a list of the foods you CAN eat. Put it on the fridge or the pantry door. Here’s my current list.

  • Beef
  • Butter
  • Tallow
  • Salt
  • Coffee
  • MCT oil
  • Bacon
  • Eggs (Chicken and Duck)
  • Sardines
  • Cod liver
  • Salmon
  • Shrimp
  • Chicken (very occasional)
  • Pork (also occasional)
  • Seaweed snacks
  • Collagen powder

You’ll note that there are some plants and plant products in mine. Those are no harm to me that I can detect, and they make things more interesting. And there’s a supplement of collagen powder that a purist carnivore would scoff at as unnecessary. We’ll talk about that later.

There’s nothing on the list that I could eat, but don’t want to, like oysters. Yuck. It’s just what I like. I can add or subtract things to it any time I want, except while hungry. Do not decide to write something on your list just because you want it right now. Only add a food once you’ve decided, rationally and not in a fit of hunger, that it will help you reach your goals.

Why make a list, though? It’s not hard to remember this stuff, is it? But you can trip yourself up looking in the fridge and thinking, “Oh, that’s pretty close to carnivore. It has honey, but honey is an animal product, so it’s fine!” or “I used to eat these and can’t remember what the harm was. I’ll just stick that in my mouth.” And the next thing you know, whatever the harm was–let’s say it was collard greens and you had anxiety and OCD within a few hours–you now remember all too well.

I find that the visual reminder helps me to not ignore my commitment in a moment of mental weakness. I’ve been carnivore for seven years now. I ought to have the perfect hang of it, and a lot of people are just perfect about sticking to it. But I’m denying myself some foods that I enjoy that are “healthy” foods. I love to eat greens! I can eat them with society’s full approval. Good girl, eating your vegetables! Sometimes it still takes a little willpower. The list gives me visual a reminder that there is a LOT of stuff I enjoy that I can reach for instead of the bad for me stuff that I’m tempted to eat.

Also, other people can see your list. If you have a nine year-old, especially, you will never be able to put a bite of food in your mouth again without realizing that somebody could catch you being this weak. “Mommy, I don’t think that food is on your list!” I don’t know if that’s a motivator for everybody, but I do not like having other people see me weak. Maybe that’s a bad thing, but I can use this character flaw to my advantage and let it help me keep to my plan.

You don’t have to do it forever. I only do it occasionally, when I’m feeling particularly weak. After holidays (because I do walk a little off the path on special occasions), or when I’ve loosened up too much with definitions (those Epic salmon strips are sweetened with maple syrup, and gosh they’re yummy!). Sometimes I have to get myself back in line. I wish we could all be Kelly Hogan, and just never look back, but some of us are a little more swayable than others.

Keep a reminder close by if you’re struggling at the fridge.

Your Kids Eat Carnivore, Too?

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Why, thank you for asking!

Yes, they are eating in a way that is known as hypercarnivore. But they are not hyper carnivores. They’re very chill.

First, let’s define that new word. The Carnivore Diet, the way I’ve come to use the term, is not exactly what we’re talking about here. Most of my children lack the gut damage and medical conditions that forced me to remove all plants (some of which I miss very much) from my diet, so we have a more relaxed approach to their food. But they’re still living the Meat Life™, and doing very well on it!

From the Infogalactic entry for hypercarnivore:

“A hypercarnivore is an animal which has a diet that is more than 70% meat, with the balance consisting of non-animal foods such as fungi, fruits or other plant material. Some examples include felids, dolphins, eagles, snakes, marlin, most sharks, and the GAH children.”

I may have made up part of that definition.

My kids are more carnivore than even that, though. I guess about 90% of their food is meat, fish, dairy, and eggs right now. One of them is almost 100% carnivore due to IBS. A few of them don’t tolerate dairy. They all know their own unique quirks, and as long as they eat their meat, I’m flexible on the other stuff.

I posted a meal plan a few years ago when someone asked if I fed my kids a carnivore diet. I had not yet fully applied my new way of thinking about food, and the family were still eating a high-carb (by my current lights, anyway) diet most days, though I did consider it to be carnivorish. Even then, I think it met the strict criteria for hypercarnivore. It didn’t meet my current standards, but we were moving in the right direction.

These days, my children eat all of the meats, and a limited selection of fruits and vegetables. I allow fruit once a day, and a sweet potato every now and then, but other than that, high-carb foods are out. As much activity as these children get, the amount of sugar in what I do allow them is still very low. Seeds and nuts are allowed, but limited. Grains and beans are not in our pantry, but at church functions, or friends’ houses, we will make a few exceptions for the sake of being social. Gluten is verboten, no matter where we are. Likewise, seed oils.

Parents, you don’t have to feed your kids junk food and “kid food”. They don’t need to eat what everybody else eats to be happy. In fact, what nearly everybody else’s kids are eating is making them unhappy. I was just making lunch for my family after a busy school day, and it was 2:30 p.m. before I got it on the table. We do that almost every school day, because I have seven children to homeschool, and we don’t want to interrupt our school day with food. We’re concentrating–something that a whole lot of people are unable to do simply because of their food choices.

How many Standard American Dieters, even if they try to keep it clean, organic, and “healthy” can say that their children go until 2:30 or even 3:30 in the afternoon without begging for food and getting hangry? Because my children are on a low-carb diet, they have very steady blood glucose, and very steady moods. They have breakfast at 7:30, and they are finished eating until whenever the food can be ready. They are extremely flexible, and I never hear a word about how late the food is.

When I think back to how hungry my children–especially the smaller ones–used to be between meals, and how cranky they would get, I am appalled that I let it go on that way for so many years! I just didn’t realize it could be any other way. I’d have to give them a snack mid-morning just to hold them until lunchtime, usually at noon. Then they’d want another snack while dinner was cooking. Nowadays, nobody is ever hungry around here at noon!

I thought 3 big meals and 2 snacks a day was normal! While it is common, it is not normal. It is a highly disordered food culture that has children eating every two and half to three hours, right up to suppertime, and sometimes even another snack right before bed. We still have three meals, most days, but only two of them are big meals, and the third will be a quick, small one of cold cuts, leftovers, and berries. Sometimes dinner (it’s called supper, if you’re one of ourn) is our biggest meal, but I usually try to do the biggest feed in the middle of the day, so we’re not eating a lot near bedtime. This meal timing helps our sleep, in addition to giving us extra time in our day to work.

Do you want to have hypercarnivore kids, too? I really think you should! Healthy kids are happy kids. Many, many of our family’s behavioral and supposedly untreatable health and brain problems just vanished into thin air with a better way of eating. I don’t want to talk too much about my kids’ personal challenges, but even difficulties as intractable as autism and IBS can be mitigated greatly with a high fat, low-carb diet. If you’ve ever been unable to get your child to smile and make eye contact with you, you know what it would mean to have those things all of a sudden. This is precisely what happened with one of ours! Please try it and see for yourself, parents! It’s worth the time and effort.

I would dearly love to see more children healed in body, mind, and soul.

If you’re trying to move your children to a more appropriate diet than the standard fare, it is wise to change diets slowly to avoid upheavals, both digestive and emotional. Take half a year or a year, not a month, to wean off all the bad stuff. Start with the worst foods (usually grains and added sugars) today, and eliminate the lesser offenders later, one at a time, after your child is used to thinking differently about food. It worked beautifully for my family!

Don’t fret about the time lost. Just work your way out of the mainstream food habits a little bit at a time.

Let me know if you have questions. I love to answer them, free of charge. I also offer half-hour coaching sessions via Zoom where we can talk about ideas for making your lifestyle healthier. Email me if you’re interested! My address is cindy at getalonghome dot com. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What I Eat in a Day

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Some of my recent carnivore meals

“Just eat meat” sounds like such a simple concept, but people often ask what I eat in a day. Here are a few of my recent meals. Most days, I have two or three meals. Some days, just one big one. Meat Life™ is satisfying!

First, the simplest stuff. Ground beef, cold butter cubes, and cold beef tongue:

I usually have a can of cod liver and a can of sardines for my 4:00 p.m. meal, if I’m eating more than one meal that day. My eating window closes around 4 p.m. on those days. Me 7 years ago would have gagged at the thought, but it’s a very satisfying way to end the day:

A gigantic ribeye with some butter my youngest son shook up for me from cream:

These bigger meals are almost always OMADs (one meal a day). Burgers, fried eggs, and a LOT of bacon:

My birthday meal this year, filet mignon with bacon.

This next was a fun one. Leftover carnivore waffles as bread for a ham sandwich. Mustard, homemade avocado oil mayo, and pickles made this a little fancy for me. On a normal day, it would have just been waffles, butter, and meat, which makes a fine sandwich:

Chicken nuggets, make with pork rind panko, shrimp, and melted butter for a light lunch:

An all meat diet sounds a little draggy, but I assure you, there are ways to fun it up and still stay within the parameters of what works for you! What works for me won’t always work for others, and many may need to be less or (rarely) more strict than I am. Shoot me an email (cindy at getalonghome dot com) if you’re interested in finding a way to make keto or carnivore fit into your lifestyle and serve your unique needs!

A great, BIG thank you: My next run is now fully funded! I’m super excited to be training for the Black Bear Half Marathon! If you feel sad because you didn’t get a chance to contribute, there’s still time to do that! Just click the big yellow ‘donate’ button below. I can always use more funds for more training, gas, or food! And taxes, of course. You know they’re going to tax me on this.

Thank you so, so much, my friends!

 

Things Carnivores Say

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That I have never experienced.

Carnivores are always making fantastic claims about what the diet has done for them. And you know what? I believe every single one of them! How could I not? I make some fantastic claims for myself! I’ve healed my allergies (except to ragweed, which reigns champion every fall), asthma (even ragweed doesn’t bring that back), and eczema, lost 60 pounds, cured anxiety, depression, OCD, and a host of other problems! You can read the rest of the blog to hear about all of it. But there are some marvelous benefits that almost all carnivores say they have experienced that I, to date, have not.

I’ve been carnivore for seven years come November, so I’ve been eating this way plenty long enough to say for sure whether these effects are something everybody should expect. I say no. Some of this Meat Magic may pass you by, no matter what other benefits you receive. You may experience the following effects, and I hope you do. Practically everybody else seems to, but I have not.

Thing #1: Carnivores don’t fart anymore.

I hate to lead off with potentially embarrassing information about myself. I know it’s not ladylike, but I still toot. It does not smell bad at all. I never have gas, bloating, tummy pain, or anything like that. But air still puffs out from time to time, especially when I eat butter. In fact, it smells faintly of butter. Sorry if that’s tmi, but it’s true. Butter makes me fart.

Woman covering her mouth, saying oops, with a little green cloud behind her, indoors

Thing #2: Carnivores don’t get sore after a hard workout anymore.

While I am very glad for anybody who is able to say this, delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), is not something I’ve left behind. I don’t know what this means for my health. Maybe I’m doing something wrong. But when I lift super-heavy, I still feel it the next day! I actually like that feeling, because it means I broke past my comfort barrier and really did something. Most people don’t like to be in pain, so I’m happy for those who can still walk upstairs and sit down without groaning the day after leg day.

But I just haven’t seen this for some reason. Still sore, and still happy to be that way!

Thing #3: Carnivores never miss certain foods.

You’d think desserts would be the hardest thing to pass up, having gone off the sugar, but the biggest struggle for me is to not put collard greens in my face. “Well, why not just have some delicious, good-for-you leafy greens then, you freak? You even cook it with bacon!” Because, my friend, something about fiber-rich foods makes my OCD come back with a vengeance! I like having eyebrows, and collard greens make me pull my hair. I know that sounds nuts, but it’s true, and I’ve cheated with leafy greens enough to know for sure that I can’t have that stuff. I do pick out the greens-flavored bacon and enjoy that, though. I can get away with that.

I’m sure other people struggle with certain foods, as well. I’m not above lingering over the dessert table to smell the delicious food, myself. I’ve just gotten used to the idea that these foods are a pleasant memory. I can miss them, but they are dead to me.

Thing #4: Carnivores don’t get sunburn any more. 

This, sadly, is another myth for me. I kept waiting for the day that I would be able to spend unlimited amounts of time in the sun without getting a burn, and it never came. Now, I always just burnt a little in the early summer, peeled, and then had a nice tan the rest of the summer. I never had a big problem with burning anyway. But I do still get a painful glow if I don’t remember to get out of the sun during the most intense hours of the day.

One thing I have noticed is that I don’t burn as much if I don’t sit still. Running at noon in direct summer sun? No problem. Sitting for the same length of time? Burn, baby, burn! So maybe the rest of those carnivores who are not burning anymore are just suddenly moving a lot more than they used to, dodging those slowpoke sun-rays!

Thing #5: The bugs don’t bite me any more.

I’ve heard so many people say the bugs don’t bite them anymore. As with all of these things, I believe them! They’re mosquito-repellent all of a sudden. What a blessing! Amazing things happen when you change your body chemistry so completely. But I’m sitting here scratching this very minute, and so are my meat-heavy children. I dunno. You can form your own theories about why that might be.

How about you, carnivores, and non-carnivores alike? Do you have any dietary expectations that haven’t quite been fulfilled by the way you’re eating right now? Comments are open, and I’d sure love to get something besides spam in here! Let me know!

Also, while I’ve got you here, I’m asking for donations to fund my next run. Help me get to the Black Bear Half Marathon:

 

Help! I’ve Failed the Carnivore Diet!

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You ate pie? This cannot be tolerated! Mail in your Carnivore Club decoder ring immediately!

A person new to the carnivore way of eating was lamenting having fallen off the wagon after a number of days “strict carnivore”. My reply was this (edited a little):

Don’t count the days. You’re counting failures. Nobody can live like that. Instead, think of this as a path you’re on. You stepped in a little doo-doo today, or twisted your foot a little in a hole. But you’re still on the path. Stay. On. The. Path. I actually had a little bit of a slip on my path yesterday. I’ve been carnivore for 5+ years. I do not subtract the days that I ate something off-plan. I am still in the carnivore club, even if I ate something that is not meat, because Carnivore is the way I need to eat.

Friends, I stepped in a little doggie doo myself just yesterday! My kids and some friends were having strawberry and banana popsicles (homemade, just strawberries, bananas, and beef gelatin), and I was hot and thought that sounded like a neat idea, and I ate one! Right there in front of God and everybody!

While I wasn’t immediately sorry, and it tasted fine and cold, fruit of any kind will exacerbate some allergy symptoms for me, so this morning I was painfully reminded why I don’t usually indulge in such treats. When you get used to not having allergies, and suddenly you do again, you take notice!

Oh, dearie me. Now what will do? I can’t say I’m eating a carnivore diet now! My indulgence was a small one. Not even cake! I did not berate myself for it, and I wouldn’t even if it had been cake. I just got up this morning and ate my usual two hamburger patties and went on with my carnivore life. I scraped the dookie off my shoes and kept walking the path. That’s what you need to do now. Even if you’ve been absolutely wading in poo for days, or even weeks, every meal is a chance to do better for yourself.

You will never be able to build a new habit, or maintain an old one, if you are unable to face an imperfect day without beating yourself up. We all have stresses. We all have lapses. Heck, sometimes we just need to have a little fun! When we start going off the path more frequently, some thought might need to be applied as to why you keep doing that. But, thank God, changes can be made! You’re changing your neurology. Every cell in your body is being realigned to interact with food in a completely different way. That doesn’t just flip on and off like a switch. It’s going to take a lot of time.

If I eat a thing that’s not meat, I do not worry about it. I don’t consider myself to be less of a carnivore just because I occasionally like the little seaweed nori snacks. I include those in my carnivore diet sometimes because they do not appear to have any ill effect on me. Pickles, too. I could do it every day if I wanted to, and still consider this a carnivore diet. I don’t. It’s probably more like once a month. But who cares? Different people have different needs, and I do not need to avoid nori snacks. You might.

I do need to avoid strawberries and bananas. That fact is reinforced in my mind today every time I have to stop myself from rubbing my now-itchy eyes. I’m not going to forget this soon! You’re not going to forget your regret from the last mishap very soon, either. Just get up and go on with your healthy way of eating now. The trend is still in a positive direction! There is no reason to be angry with yourself. If anything, be resentful of the food. Learn to hate it for what it does to you.

Tell me, if you were on the standard American diet and you just happened to accidentally eat something that was good for you one day, would you feel like you were suddenly a health food fanatic? No, you would not. You would just think, “That was an unusual meal for me.” Do the same for your carnivore diet, friend. You had an unusual meal. You had a little misadventure, but you know that side-path you got onto won’t get you where you want to go. Just step back onto the right path!

And next time, look a little further ahead so you’ll be ready to dodge the doo-doo instead of stepping fully in it.

If you need help thinking about how to live a healthier life, I’d love to spend some time coaching you. It’s not just carnivore that I’m about. I can help you tweak your entire lifestyle to get to a better place. Just email me (cindy at get along home dot com) and we’ll get you scheduled. I’m not terribly busy this summer!

Smells are Free

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Did you ever read Ooka the Wise: Tales of Old Japan?

There was a story in that book about an impoverished young man who rented a room above a restaurant. He couldn’t afford the delightful fish that was served below, but he’d gotten into the habit of eating his plain bowl of rice while sitting near his open window, so that he could smell the flavorful food cooking, and thus add to his enjoyment of the rice. I won’t spoil the story by telling you the rest of it, but this is one of my favorite books, and I’ve replaced it each time our current copy has been read to death. If you can find it for a reasonable price, you should pick it up.

Anyhow, that story stuck with me especially poignantly, since for most of my life I couldn’t smell anything much due to inflammation in my sinuses. Since starting a carnivore diet, lo these 6 years ago, I can smell my food! I can also smell your food, and there was a time when the smell of cake or pizza would drive me crazy. How ironic, I thought, that I’m finally able to smell all that stuff, now that I can’t eat it. Dear Alanis, here’s an actual irony for you!

I’ve noticed something new in my life fairly recently. The smells of these forbidden foods, all by themselves, are very pleasant. Any time I have veered off my healthy path of eating to indulge beyond the point of smelling it, I have not enjoyed the taste as much as I thought I would. Carbs don’t taste nearly as good to me as I remember them to taste. In fact, the memory is pleasant enough that I don’t have to ruin it by trying to recreate it. I have, however, continued to enjoy the smells. After all, the sense of smell is the sense that most deeply stirs our memories. Think about how your mother’s perfume or shampoo used to smell. What the church hymnals smelled like. The root cellar where Grandma kept her potatoes. You will not only remember the smells, you will have some emotions that go along with it. Provided that Mother and Grandmother were the kind a person would want to remember, these are wonderful memories, invoked just by smelling something. Sometimes just by imagining smelling something!

These days, you’ll often find me standing over the dessert table at church functions, just leaning over it a little bit and blissfully inhaling the scent of chocolate or glazed donuts. I’m sure I look to others as if I’m desiring to eat the things in front of me. I’m sure the (often markedly unhealthy) people coming up behind me think that I’m just so deprived, and feel sorry for me. “Why in the world doesn’t she just eat the cake if she enjoys it that much?” they must wonder.

But I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if I eat that stuff, there will be repercussions. I have no trouble not putting that stuff into my mouth! Boils, guys. I get boils. But smells can’t give me boils!

It’s OK for me to do that.

Now, if you are in the early days of fighting a carbohydrate addiction, I absolutely do not recommend doing this, any more than an alcoholic should feel free to sit at a bar drinking seltzer water while his old friends get tipsy. You’re going to screw yourself up. Just don’t walk over to the dessert table. Stick your face in some flowers or something to get that smell out of your face! This is not something I could have done four years ago, either! Now that I am well and truly not tempted to eat what doesn’t benefit my body, I have a little freedom to experience the pleasure of sweet-smelling food. Smells are free, and I come away having experienced as much risk-free enjoyment as possible out of the offerings, and with no ill-effects afterwards.

I’ve been reading into dopamine a little bit lately, and what I’ve found out is that the pay-off, the thing you think you want to do, is not what dopamine is responding to. Dopamine is actually what gives you the urge. So if I get a dopamine spike upon thinking about a chocolate chip cookie, it doesn’t matter much if I actually eat the cookie. It is equally helpful to either ignore it, thus reducing that dopaminic urge for cookies next time, or indulge it with some alternative that is risk-free. I have found that I can simply reach into my memory of what that cookie would have tasted like, and get the same relief, as if I had performed the truly harmful act of eating a cookie. Likewise, I can smell the dessert table, feel pleasure, and that is as far as I need to go. If you like scented candles, you know what I’m saying.

That doesn’t mean that you should do this.

If you’re fighting food addiction,–and I guess I was food addicted for the first couple of years of this way of eating–I would highly recommend you find something besides food to satisfy that want. Do something fun, dredge up a memory of a wonderful time you’ve had, hug your kids or your dog, sing a song, take a short walk, play the piano.

Do anything at all besides thinking about the food!

I have been too weak to be able to benefit from the delightful smells that emanate from highly processed carbohydrates. As I’ve related before, I have sat and just cried while everybody else ate pizza. But if you stay on this path long enough, those smells will cease to be associated in your mind with then putting something in your mouth. It will happen eventually. And when it does, you will have a new pleasure in your life.

Smells are free!

I don’t know if there’s another carnivore on the planet that does this, so I’ll leave the comments open on this one, in case somebody wants to say “Hey, I thought I was the only one!”

Craving Sweets in the Heat?

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It’s hot outside. Not coincidentally, lately I’m seeing an uptick in questions from new carnivores about sweet cravings, especially in the afternoon. Please do not answer the siren call of the ice cream truck. You don’t need berries, honey, fruit, or cheesecake. You just need water!

Because an insulin spike will, in fact, cause your cells to pack away some water with the sugar that it lets in, your body will ask for sugar when you’re not giving it enough water and salt. It asks for sugar, but that doesn’t mean you have to give it sugar. It simply doesn’t know how to ask for salt through cravings. You, though, are a human, and smart, so you can figure this out for yourself! Salt and water will ease your sweet craving just as quickly, and much more beneficially.

A lot of people like to take a fancy electrolyte powder in their water, and I’m totally fine with that. In fact, I have a packet or two of them just about every day. Myoxcience has my favorite electrolyte powder, as they don’t use stevia in theirs. They even have an unflavored one for those of us who have to avoid all sweet tastes. A lot of people like LMNT, but for some reason (probably the stevia) that brand makes me wheeze.

Try these things if you like, but honestly, for most people, some good old pickle juice will do the trick. Pickles don’t cost near as much. Just make sure you find a pickle brand that doesn’t have polysorbates and food dyes in them. Mt. Olive has an organic one that fits the bill. I’m sure there are others.

Don’t let old habits and sudden cravings knock you off-plan just because it’s hot outside. Drink your water and salt!

 

Carnivore Popcorn

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Somebody asked me a while back what they could do for popcorn. My friend, I have found it!

You’re going to have to do a little footwork to procure the materials if you don’t buy your beef in bulk the way I do. If you do, tell your butcher you want the trim fat. And the suet and the marrow bones, and the organs! Don’t waste food! But this is about the trimmings. If you don’t buy your animals in bulk, you can probably go to any butcher and ask for fat trimmings. I promise, they will not think you’re crazy. Just march right up to that counter and ask!

When I got my first big ugly bag of fat with a bunch of red meat still stuck to it, I momentarily thought “What in the world am I going to do with this? Why did I ask for this?” I like suet for rendering, as it gets you a nice clean tallow, but this? This has a lot of meat still on it!

Um, hey…Carnivore person? It’s A BUNCH OF FAT WITH A LITTLE BIT OF MEAT ON IT! Isn’t that what you prefer to eat?

So I diced it up into about 1/4 inch pieces

And I fried it and ate it with my pitifully lean steak. (If you are one of those blessed people who have an air fryer, this would be a good use for it!)

You don’t need to eat this stuff as a side. It would make a marvelous small meal (aka, a snack).

You will never miss popcorn again, I promise. Just try it.