I had diarrhea at first, but now everything is normal. Probably the best it's been in a long time.
I like the diet because it's simple and I don't get tired of the main things I eat. Originally I was going for mostly carnivore to see if I'd like it (I did), but wanted a little more variety. I have a bad sweet tooth, and things like fruit and honey work for that. Plus they're great if you're an active person. For some reason meat and fruit is a sweet spot (at least for now).
Carnivore is especially great. Always feel good after I eat, and mentally very good. Through trial and error the past couple of months I'm learning I like to eat two big meals a day. So something like 6 slices of bacon/sausage and 6 eggs for lunch/breakfast, and a pound of beef for dinner. Add some fruit, sardines, dairy and I'm becoming pretty content with it.
I tried having some vegetables, rice and nuts too, but don't really want them anymore. Similar to the issue with chicken and pork. I'll still eat these things if someone else makes them, however.
Kind of a ramble.
I did carnivore for 5 months pre covid. During covid I stopped because ground beef went up to 10 dollars a pound and I couldn't justify that. Never went back, but my average consumption of meat doubled and I feel weird if I eat less.
One of the things about carnivore that I learned is that meat is nutritionally very dense, but it is easy to under eat. After cooking burgers I would butter them, for example. Basically just butter everything except bacon. A pound of ground beef, after cooking it, is something like 850 calories for example. I was working a heavy manual labor job and eating 4 lbs of ground beef a day to maintain my weight.
Generally speaking, cooking meat well done destroys the vitamin C content. So I would attempt once every week or two to eat steak blue rare. When money was tight, medium hamburgers worked. The body requires vitamins differently on carnivore than it does on a grain based diet. People who eat tons of grains have to eat foods with tons of vitamin C or their teeth fall out. You're eating fruit, so you are probably fine, but just for your information if you ever decide to cut that out. Meat and fruit diet is plenty valid and a fine way to live.
Leaner meats like turkey and chicken are good for variety. Pork shoulder is generally very cheap and fatty. Cheese is nice. A jaccard will make a gross, tough cut of meat into something a lot more tender and palatable, same with a meat hammer.
Beef gelatin makes for a fine treat, my favorite dessert was diet root beer with heavy cream poured into it.
Pork is weird because if I smoke it or pan fry it, like with pork chops, I don't smell the feedlot, that foul odor. But if I cook it any other way, I do. Happened while doing carnivore and never went away. I smell it on grocery store pork but not from the pork we got from the farm five miles away. No idea why.
Dry rubs in my opinion work better and waste less than brines do. If for example, I were to season chicken or a brisket or whatever, I'd layer the spice on and let it sit in the frisge overnight for more flavor.
Every long term carnivore on the internet who still does it makes no special effort to eat organ meats, such as Shawn Baker. Every carnivore that made special effort to eat organ meats or raw carnivore or whatever weird nose to tail, guts, offal whatever, eventually quit the diet altogether. Saladino was one but there are others that I can't recall off the top of my head. Anecdotal, but something to think about. Regular medium rare steak will never steer you wrong.
Other ramblings. Get a pellet smoker. It makes any meat awesome and it is as easy as using an oven.
Jerky is fine as a treat, but it is too lean to consider it a meal. Biltong exists and I tried real hard to make it work, had a biltong box amd everything but the vinegar and other spices were unpalatable to me. Pemmican is an idea, but it's basically a greasy brick of powdered meat and fat and not at all satisfying to eat like actual meat.
