Category: Carnivore

Posts related to the carnivore diet

Posted on

The cost of my bone broth

Previously, I bought excellent bone broth from a source that provided broth made from local, regeneratively raised beef. I like it and would have no problem buying more. But I’m also cheap. At almost $11 for a sixteen-ounce portion, it’s pricey. I have no trouble supporting local businesses and want these folks to succeed. But I am cheap. Mind you, I still buy ground beef from them at a very fair price. I think their bone broth price is fair, too. It’s just that I can’t butcher cattle or store bulk beef. I can, however, make bone broth.

I’ve discovered, as I’ve noted, that I can make a single batch of bone broth with somewhere in the neighborhood of 3.5 lbs. of bones. I’ve been buying locally sourced, regeneratively raised beef bones at $5.99 a pound.

Yes, that sounds expensive, too, and there are much less expensive bones around I could use. I also save the bones from my bone-in steaks, but currently, I’m using more bone broth than bone-in steaks.

In my last batch, which was darn near perfect, I made eleven cups of broth for $21.48 and my time.

21.48 / 11 * 2 = 3.90545454545455

There’s the math. Instead of $11 for a sixteen-ounce serving, I can make $3.91 if I round up a wee bit or $3.90 if I don’t.

And this way, besides the savings, I know exactly what I’ve put into the mix. That’s a win-win situation in my books!

Posted on

Dry aging progress

As mentioned, I’m home dry aging a strip loin in my fridge using UMAI Dry Age bags. The color of the meat has changed in just the past couple of days.

The first image, dated October 28th, shows that the meat has darkened, but there’s still plenty of red, meaty color.

The second image, from today, has wholly darkened and looks more like wood than meat.

Normal.

There’s still a month to go to add up to thirty-five days. That’s scheduled for December 1st. Of course, I may go for a full forty-five days.

I’m really looking forward to seeing what’s left.

Posted on

More bone broth

Part of overdoing stuff during my recovery was buying bones for more bone broth. Once again, I got my bones at Whole Foods.

This time, I did my best to determine how much I could make in one batch and still have tasty broth. I went for about 3.5 lbs. of bones, which was just about right.

Here are the bones in a pot ready for blanching.

After bringing this to a boil, I let it simmer for a few minutes to draw out the impurities, and sure enough, it created a pretty ugly scum. That draws out everything you don’t want in your broth, which can taint the flavor. I didn’t cook it for too long though, as I wanted to be sure I kept all the tallow I could.

After that step, I put all the bones in my Ninja Air Crisper on the roast setting for about twenty-five minutes. I wanted to get them to a golden brown. As I’m still foggy with COVID-19, I didn’t get more images of all this.

After roasting, I kept the tallow, almost half a jarful! Yay!

Then it was into my Instant Pot. It took about eleven or twelve cups of water to cover the bones. I’ve got the eight-quart model, and it was filled to almost the mid-fill line.

I set the pressure cooker for two and a half hours and let it go. I’ve overcooked a batch once, and it never gelled. I was hoping this batch would gel.

Posted on

Aging…beef that is

I’ve been using an UMAI dry aging bag process a big strip loin for the last week or so. I’ve written about this before, so this is just an update.

I have discovered that I should have left the fat cap side up for 7-10 days, not 2 days. Oh well. But in looking through the help forums, this should be fine. Maybe I’ll gently turn it over again for a bit.

The meat looks like this today, a week or so after putting it in the fridge. You can see that the color is a lot darker than it was in the images below. There’s still a month and change to go! December 1st is the target date. Yay!

This is what the meat looked like when I first put it in the bag.

Posted on

Here is another update on my COVID

I’m feeling a lot better today, but still testing positive. I noticed that last night my appetite, which was always present but a bit subdued, came back, and I ate twice yesterday! Yay!

I had this single NY Strip in the evening, matching one I’d had earlier in the day.

Today I’m hungry again already, so I’ll be cooking shortly.

Posted on

Morning bone broth

Here’s some rich homemade bone broth in my pot with butter heating up for my morning dose.

And this is what it looks like a big mug, perfect for this use, though too big for coffee.

I’m upping my bone broth intake while suffering from COVID-19. I’m doing better in some ways, but I am still sick and feel it. The bone broth helps keep me hydrated, full of nutrition, and, because of the oils and butter, coats my throat to help with pain and scratchiness.

Posted on

Today’s carnivore feast…during COVID

Yes, I have COVID-19. It’s been a thing since Friday, which was the worst day so far. I started Paxlovid on the evening of Day 0 as the first day of symptoms is counted. By Saturday, my temperature had dropped, my O2 had returned to more or less normal, and the worst headache I’ve ever been gifted with had gotten manageable.

The good news is I’ve not lost my sense of taste, nor has my appetite fallen off much. That’s not quite true. I’m eating about half of what I had been eating. But it still tastes good. I think I’m a little blunted taste-wise, but this was yummy.

I’m also not expending any energy through exercise or even getting out of the house, so I’m sure I don’t need quite as much food. I can’t say much about how much I need to fight the virus, though. Heck, I might need more food and not want it.

Anyway, that was today’s steak. It’s a smaller ribeye that dry brined in my fridge for several days. It was delicious, even with COVID.

Posted on

Dry Aging at home!

I’m experimenting with dry aging beef at home in a regular refrigerator. Admittedly, mine is given over to beef, butter, eggs, bacon when I have it, and water. It’s still a regular refrigerator and does get opened from time to time every day.

I’ve used UMAI Dry Aging Bags to start the process on a fifteen-pound strip loin for NY Strip Steaks!

The process is easy but pretty specific. After bringing home the cryovac of meat, I had to wash the outside and my hands. I also put on gloves.

Next, you open one end of the cyrovac completely and drain the liquid. You don’t dry the meat, it helps “stick” the UMAI bag to the meat itself, which is important.

I put the UMAI bag around the opened cyrovac and then pulled the original bag out, leaving the meat in the UMAI bag. Next, I tried and failed to seal the UMAI bag with my vacuum sealer. These bags ARE NOT vacuum seal bags, and instructions are included. I did manage on my second try, though.

I popped it in the fridge on a cooling rack with the fat cap side up. This helps the bag seal on the meat side as it is pressed down by the full weight of the strip loin.

The image at the top shows the fat cap side after a couple of days. It’s hard to see, but the bag has bonded to the strip loin. Then, after two days, I flipped the meat over, the second image, and noted that the bag had bonded there as well.

That last shot shows the end of this Choice Grade cut of meat. NY strips are fairly lean. This stip loin shows good marbling for Choice, but I’ll still be eating the steaks, when they are ready, with some butter, maybe lots of butter.

And just when will they be ready? The standard time for this would be thirty-five days. That would be on or about December 1st. I’m looking forward to it. I’ll post updates as the color changes inside that bag, and it gets closer and closer to being totally delicious!

Posted on

Omigosh…so big…so not carnivore

I was chatting with a friend last night about what I used to look like at my heaviest and before my hip replacement (a direct result, imho, of metabolic abuse). I was very active and still am, but that just goes to show that getting a lot of exercise doesn’t necessarily qualify one as healthy. 

The shot on the right is from 2012, I probably weight 260 lbs. and had just finished bicycling down the Oregon coast over the course of a week. I would have that hip replacement a year and half later and go mostly low-carb. I’d lose that weight, then put most of it back on, while remaining mostly low-carb as my sensitivity increased and yes, I cheated from time to time. I did manage to keep my A1C in line thankfully.

The second shot is from a couple of months ago. I’m probably 185 in it, just as I am today. I’d been carnivore for almost a year at the time. And, while I’d had my knees replaced as the damage over the years was just too much, I’m still pretty darn active. 

I love the memory of that earlier picture, it was a wonderful trip. I really, really, really don’t care for how I felt back then or what I looked like.