I have become, as I like to say, Carnibbleous. What's that mean? Well, it's low carb with a vengeance. I am eating nothing but meat and eggs, with adequate spices of course. In sticking to my philosophy of food should be fun I do use garlic, onion, lemon juice, spices, herbs and even continue to eat the occasional egg custard with non-caloric sweetener.
Why? Well, after the holidays my weight went up a couple of pounds but it seemed like I was much fatter than my weight. It wasn't coming down by my usual techniques so knowing there's a growing trend on the low carb forum I frequent towards eating meat-only, I figured I would give it a try. I've done it before, for about a week. It was ok, I lost a quick 5 pounds, but that was before my metabolism seemed to utterly derail about a year ago.
So I started again this time, thinking it would maybe be a week or two and I could shed some quick weight. Ha! I knew I was kidding myself. Nothing is ever quick about weight loss for me. I have the metabolism of a anesthetized tree-sloth. I can reduce my calories drastically and maintain my weight. I'm looking into possible hormonal reasons, especially involving leptin resistance or perhaps thyroid resistance, for this but for now just know that I'm a very disciplined dieter and things just don't work for me that should.
So I'm a couple weeks into this all-meat thing, I started before my monthly cycle. I seem to have about 7-10 days of a weight loss window because after that, hormonal changes happen and it all just stops. So my first 10 days of being a carnivore was just pretty much nothing happened. Now that the monthly cycle is over, I've managed to drop a few pounds. About 4 or so.
But the interesting thing with carnivory is how one feels about food. You would think, wow eating nothing but meat has got to be boring. But with a few cooking skills meat is utterly wonderful. So wonderful we usually make it the centerpiece of our meals, right? Or at least, that was what we did traditionally. When I'm carnivorous I do get hungry and very interested in eating. So I have my meat or eggs and then my interest in eating shuts off entirely and doesn't come back for a very long time, depending on how much meat I had and what type.
So a typical day of eating for me might be:
Morning: A nice sized Italian sausage with nose-searing mustard.
Lunch: A large pork chop with duck reduction sauce.
Late Dinner: Another sausage -- maybe a small bowl of custard.
At lunch I get so full I don't eat again until 8pm or later. And dinner is quite small, as is breakfast.
Now why am I not bored? Good grief, I have 2 meals that are nearly identical? Well, maybe this me or perhaps it has something to do with eating nothing but meat but I just don't get tired of it. When hunger comes it comes on pretty strong and the saying "appetite is the best sauce" is very, very true. Everything tastes extremely good when you're really hungry. I experimented with Intermittent Fasting for awhile and found that food never tasted so good as when you are really and truly hungry and have been so for awhile. Well, it seems my all-meat experience does the same thing.
Simplicity
One thing I think makes a diet successful is simplicity and nothing is more simple than eating nothing but meat and eggs. You don't get hung up on rules or counting anything. Also the meal preparation for me is usually extremely easy. I have my sous vide setup which I use daily, then just sear my meat. One time I had some lamb stew which was lamb meat, egg, lemon, spices. Wonderful stuff. I made the mustard crusted chicken, and have another batch ready to go.
With Sous Vide I can do things like prepackage the pork chops with a pat of compound butter (made with fresh thyme and roasted garlic) and drop it in the bath in the morning. At lunch I remove it and sear it. Warm my duck sauce in the microwave and serve it with that. I bought a bunch of super thick pork chops at Costco for a great price. When I run out of meat, I think I'll go for the lamb stew again.
Anyway, that is carnivory as I practice it, in a nut-shell. I feel fine. In fact, my IBS issues are non-existent when I do this so it leads me to believe there's something in the plant kingdom my gut really doesn't like that I haven't figured out yet. My energy levels are fine, for me, and my arthritis seems better. In some ways it makes me a little sad, I love eating plants, but if one feels better NOT eating them, it seems obvious doesn't it?
Well lets see how this goes, it is still early in the process.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Celebrating Saturated Fat
Anyone familiar with me knows I have no fear of saturated fat, what scares me is the crazy engineered "factory" fats that people eat.
Anyway, two important reports came out recently about the non-danger of saturated fats and were roundly ignored by the press. I'm not sure why the press ignores these, you'd think people would want to know?
But I'm going to collect and publish everything I find on the topic right here in this article and I'll update it periodically.
An excellent article from Men's health quoting lipid research Dr. Ronald Krauss (who used to be a lipophobe I believe).
Dr. Briffa blogs about 2 recent studies that exonerate saturated fat: Saturated fat does not cause heart disease
"Meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies evaluating the association of saturated fat with cardiovascular disease" -- The conclusion is that saturated fat does not contribute to heart disease. This is Dr. Ronald Krauss again, who Dr. Steven Guyenet describes as "one of the most prominent lipid researchers in the world".
Strange how quickly the popular press will jump on any schlocky science as long as it vilifies meat and fat but they pretty much ignore anything shedding light on the contrary. However, we have an growing independent media now amongst the people who blog and post on forums and such. There are many, many doctors doing this too and it is refreshing to have all these wonderful sources of truly independent thinkers available.
Update 1/20/2010 -- Later same day
Another article from Dr. Krauss, that Dr. Steven Guyenet blogs about showing that replacing saturated fat with refined carbohydrates is a bad idea. What's a refined carbohydrate? My definition is anything that's been processed in a factory. That would include so-called "healthy whole grains". They're full of lectins and phytates that actually prevent you from being able to absorb minerals and vitamins. Oddly enough, white rice might be a little better than brown rice, in that the bran contains a lot of the bad stuff.
Anyway, two important reports came out recently about the non-danger of saturated fats and were roundly ignored by the press. I'm not sure why the press ignores these, you'd think people would want to know?
But I'm going to collect and publish everything I find on the topic right here in this article and I'll update it periodically.
An excellent article from Men's health quoting lipid research Dr. Ronald Krauss (who used to be a lipophobe I believe).
Dr. Briffa blogs about 2 recent studies that exonerate saturated fat: Saturated fat does not cause heart disease
"Meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies evaluating the association of saturated fat with cardiovascular disease" -- The conclusion is that saturated fat does not contribute to heart disease. This is Dr. Ronald Krauss again, who Dr. Steven Guyenet describes as "one of the most prominent lipid researchers in the world".
Strange how quickly the popular press will jump on any schlocky science as long as it vilifies meat and fat but they pretty much ignore anything shedding light on the contrary. However, we have an growing independent media now amongst the people who blog and post on forums and such. There are many, many doctors doing this too and it is refreshing to have all these wonderful sources of truly independent thinkers available.
Update 1/20/2010 -- Later same day
Another article from Dr. Krauss, that Dr. Steven Guyenet blogs about showing that replacing saturated fat with refined carbohydrates is a bad idea. What's a refined carbohydrate? My definition is anything that's been processed in a factory. That would include so-called "healthy whole grains". They're full of lectins and phytates that actually prevent you from being able to absorb minerals and vitamins. Oddly enough, white rice might be a little better than brown rice, in that the bran contains a lot of the bad stuff.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Lemony, Meaty Stew
This stew is so fabulous! I got the original recipe from a book with 300 stew recipes but I've made a few changes. The original calls for lamb but you could really use any meat one would roast with or stew.
2 pounds of meat, cut into large chunks (they'll shrink).
Juice of 1 lemon
2 egg yolks
salt & pepper
Fresh herbs (optional) -- I think thyme, rosemary, marjoram might all be good choices.
1/2 cup of wine (I used red, but white is what the original recipe calls for)
1-2 large cloves of garlic, minced or pressed
3 Tbl of onion minced (I used half of a largish onion, and only sliced it, didn't mince)
1/4 cup of oil
In a nice stewpot cook the meat in the oil until browned. About 10 minutes or so. Throw in the onion and the garlic and cook until those are softened. Dump in the wine and reduce over high heat for about 10 minutes. This is the point I would throw in those fresh herbs. I used thyme this last time (heh!).
Cover and cook at a simmer over lowish heat until the meat is fork tender, which will be at least an hour, maybe longer. If it starts looking dry in the pot add water as needed. Mine never got dry.
When the meat is nice and tender, mix together the egg and lemon juice and beat well with a fork. Take the simmering stew off the fire.
Now take a tablespoon or so of the hot broth from the stew and add it to the egg mixture. And beat it in well. Keep doing that until you've slowly raised the temperature of the eggs. Then lastly pour the egg mixture into the stew and stir well. If you do it right you'll get an amazingly thick broth that's creamy and ever so satisfying. If you heat up the eggs too fast, you'll get bits of scrambled eggs in the broth.
Salt & Pepper to taste.
2 pounds of meat, cut into large chunks (they'll shrink).
Juice of 1 lemon
2 egg yolks
salt & pepper
Fresh herbs (optional) -- I think thyme, rosemary, marjoram might all be good choices.
1/2 cup of wine (I used red, but white is what the original recipe calls for)
1-2 large cloves of garlic, minced or pressed
3 Tbl of onion minced (I used half of a largish onion, and only sliced it, didn't mince)
1/4 cup of oil
In a nice stewpot cook the meat in the oil until browned. About 10 minutes or so. Throw in the onion and the garlic and cook until those are softened. Dump in the wine and reduce over high heat for about 10 minutes. This is the point I would throw in those fresh herbs. I used thyme this last time (heh!).
Cover and cook at a simmer over lowish heat until the meat is fork tender, which will be at least an hour, maybe longer. If it starts looking dry in the pot add water as needed. Mine never got dry.
When the meat is nice and tender, mix together the egg and lemon juice and beat well with a fork. Take the simmering stew off the fire.
Now take a tablespoon or so of the hot broth from the stew and add it to the egg mixture. And beat it in well. Keep doing that until you've slowly raised the temperature of the eggs. Then lastly pour the egg mixture into the stew and stir well. If you do it right you'll get an amazingly thick broth that's creamy and ever so satisfying. If you heat up the eggs too fast, you'll get bits of scrambled eggs in the broth.
Salt & Pepper to taste.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)