First Experiences with Carnivore Eating and Fermentation

My first week of eating the carnivore diet was mostly good with a few challenges. I never really cooked much meat at home before, so I had to learn. I’ll admit that I’ve had my share of very rare steaks and hamburger patties during this week until I bought a meat thermometer and learned to better control getting to medium doneness. The first steaks were a combination of very tough and half-raw, and I slowly ate my way through them, tiny bite by tiny bite. It was a serious work-out for my teeth and jaws, but I did enjoy the meat. I knew that I would get better at cooking them eventually. My hamburger patties ended up first too raw, then too dry, and they were hard to swallow. I started slathering butter on all my meats to make them go down easier. Well, I learned that the calories I eat should come 40% from protein and 60% from fat, so with the lean cuts and ground meat I had, that was actually not wrong, and it settled my stomach, too. I felt a little nauseous after eating the hamburger patties, and definitely enjoyed the tough steaks better. 

My energy levels were down at first, and I found it hard to cycle (my main mode of transport). The energy came back after a couple of days, and I even started losing a little weight (of course that’s just water at first). I felt good. Then, I slowly added other foods: cheese and some dry-cured chorizo and farmers sausage made great little snacks in moderation and provided some variety after eating only beef for a few days. Chicken and pork also entered my sphere again, and I had a better variety. The fried chicken livers turned out tasty and provided a lot of valuable nutrients. I was not hungry and had no cravings… well, except for the habitual desire to have some chocolate, but it has been fairly easy to resist. 

Now I am half way through the second week already and my meat cooking skills are advancing. More importantly, I feel that the meat I got from a different farm is much better, too. Eating has become fun again. 

On the fermentation front, I can report that I got some kefir grains and started making my own kefir from whole milk. I wish I could get raw milk, but that is, shockingly, illegal in Canada, so I have to make do with the pasteurized version. The kefir grains transform my milk into kefir in 24 hours, so I have to make new kefir every day to feed the grains and keep them alive. That’s a lot of kefir, but so far, I’m enjoying it, nice and tangy; I just have to figure out how to also make it a bit fizzy. 

About two or three weeks ago, I started my first fermentation experiment with a few plums. I let them ferment in a salt-brine, and after a week, I put them in the fridge. Recently, I cracked open one of the small glasses and tried one plum—very tangy and prickly on the tongue with a salty-savoury flavour rather than sweet. I was intrigued, and after the first unexpected shock, I came to quite like them. I’m planning on using the brine to marinate meat at some point. 

Clearly, plums (even if fermented) are not meat nor an animal product, but I already mentioned in my last post that there are different approaches to the carnivore diet. After reading books and following the carnivore proponents I had mentioned in my previous blog post in podcasts, I decided that Paul Saladino is making the most coherent case for his animal-based diet, and he includes some fruits and honey. I’ve also since had a few fresh plums and watermelon, but the focus will remain on animal products, mainly meat and some organs. 

Part of this dietary experiment has been learning a lot of things that I have been closed-off to before, because I didn’t believe that they could possibly be true. Why? Because I’ve been told too many times otherwise. The thing is, the more we hear the same thing from different sources, the more we will believe them. We get indoctrinated to a way of thinking that is widely accepted, and we stop thinking for ourselves or tuning into our own bodies (and minds) for answers. I’ve always been a bit of an outlier and done my own thing; it is in my nature to question everything. But I had also fallen prey to the whole foods and plant-based diet propaganda, and it’s difficult to truly consider anything that falls outside our own biases and beliefs. At this point, I am open to hearing it all and considering it all. 

What convinced me the most is that it’s not possible to be on a vegan diet without heavy supplementation, because purely plant-based foods simply don’t have all the nutrients we need to flourish and thrive. For example, vegans and vegetarians are often anemic (iron deficiency) and have low vitamin B levels. Just that alone should tell us that it’s not the most natural diet for a human being to just eat plant foods. 

I had already been introduced and sold on the concept that plants contain many compounds that are detrimental to our health. The general idea is that plants protect their own structural integrity (stems and leaves) and especially their “babies” (seeds) with biochemical weapons since they can’t just run away like a hunted animal. On the Gundry diet, I avoided the nightshade family (eggplants, tomatoes, potatoes, peppers), the squash family (pumpkins, squash, cucumbers, zucchini), grains and seeds, as well as most fruits due to their high sugar content. But I had lots of green leafy vegetables, salads, and cruciferous vegetables (cabbage, kale, broccoli). Well… it turns out there’s a lot more to it than I thought. 

First off, cruciferous vegetables are bad for people with thyroid issues, especially in their raw form. That’s heart-breaking, because I love to eat those, and I still want to eat that Sauerkraut I’m fermenting. But the evidence is clear; I just wasn’t ready to really hear it before—for example, crucifers contain goitrogens, which promote an enlargement of the thyroid called goiter. And they contain other plant toxins that have the potential of leading to hypothyroidism; even increased rates of thyroid cancer have been linked to cruciferous vegetables. That’s shocking, and quite the opposite of what I had believed. And there are so many other plant compounds that are not good for us; another major one that comes to mind are oxalates, which I knew before are to blame for kidney stones. Oxalates are prominent in things like green leafy vegetables and beets—more favourites of mine ruined in terms of health. 

But more revealing to me was Paul Saladino’s claim that honey and fruits are actually okay; even fruit juice has positive benefits, and we shouldn’t be too afraid of the glucose spike we get from fresh whole fruits. I’m so glad! I also like that he was able and willing to change his mind on this point and openly promote it. His mission is trying to live the healthiest life possible, and he backs his claims up with his own blood results, while also staying open to other people’s opinions and changes in his own perception. 

Bottom line is that nothing is really written in stone (I’m almost certain that it never will be), and that experimentation allows every individual to find what’s best for them. Sure, guided by the ideas that surround us, because I would never in my life have thought that it’s a good idea to just eat meat or animal products without the prompting of several people.

My personal plan is to continue eating only meat and animal products for a while, I’m thinking two months for now, and see how that affects me. At that point, I may add things back into my diet, one by one, to see how that goes. Or I’ll just stick with it if it goes well. I’ll update again when I start seeing any kind of impact (or if I don’t, I guess).