Reducing Costs on the Keto Carnivore Lifestyle Part 3

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Tired of expensive “keto-friendly” snacks and packaged products quietly destroying your grocery budget and your health? 

This is Part 3 of our popular 3-part series on slashing costs while thriving on a keto and carnivore lifestyle — packed with practical, real-world strategies that actually work. 

Stephen and Graham reveal the smartest ways to cut spending without sacrificing satiety, flavor, or results: 

• Ditch packaged keto snacks — why most are loaded with hidden inflammatory oils (canola, sunflower, palm), erythritol concerns, and low nutritional value. Learn to spot the marketing traps and choose real food instead. 
• Meal prepping mastery — turn simple whole-food ingredients like ground beef, eggs, cream, and real Parmesan into batch meals (beef au gratin, meatloaf, and more) that deliver 5–6 satisfying meals for just a couple of dollars each. 
• Intermittent fasting for savings — how dropping to 2 meals a day (or OMAD) naturally kills snacking, stretches your food dollar, supports ketosis, steady energy, and massive metabolic benefits. Includes CGM insights, avoiding the “keto flu,” and breaking a fast the right way. 
• Vacuum sealing hacks — extend the life of whole foods, leftovers, and prepped meals dramatically (even in glass containers) so you throw away far less and save serious money. 
• Budget carnivore staples — why canned sardines, tuna, spam, hot dogs from the butcher, ground beef, and eggs are nutrient powerhouses that cost pennies compared to premium steaks — plus creative ways to make them delicious.

You’ll walk away with actionable tips to eat fewer, higher-quality meals, reduce waste, avoid ultra-processed traps, and keep more money in your pocket while feeling energized and satisfied every day. 

Whether you’re just starting keto/carnivore or looking to optimize an established routine, this episode proves that eating this way doesn’t have to be expensive — it can actually be cheaper and healthier than your old habits. 

If this series is helping you save money and feel better, hit FOLLOW now so you never miss an episode, share it with a friend who's struggling with the cost of keto or carnivore, and leave a quick review: What’s your favorite budget-saving hack from this series? Your feedback helps more people discover real-food freedom! 

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Transcript

Welcome And Series Setup

Introduction 0:00

Welcome to Lessons from the Ketaverse. Join Stephen and Graham as they explore the keto lifestyle with tips, science, and stories to boost your health. This podcast isn't medical advice. Consult your healthcare advisor for any health-related issues. Get ready to fill your primal power.

Graham 0:18

Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of Lessons from the Ketoverse with Graham and Stephen. Stephen, it's so great to see you again.

Stephen 0:27

You as well, Graham.

Graham 0:29

All right. Today we are discussing part three of a three-part series on reducing costs on the Keto Carnivore Lifestyle. If you haven't listened to the first two parts, uh, they're uh, you know, in if you go to the show show in whatever podcast you're listening to, you can find find parts one and two. You don't have to listen to those before you listen to this one. There's really no particular order, but we think uh we've got some pretty good ones to finish off this three-part series. And uh without further ado, Steven, would you like to begin uh with uh the first on your list of R five?

Stephen 1:04

Sure. Uh so the first one is ditching and avoiding expensive packaged keto products and snacks. So uh you were you and I were talking uh offline in It's True, you know, the guys that were pounding out cigarettes are now pivoting to these um packaged keto products, and you're starting to see actually even in um some of the um secondary grocery stores, meaning the ones that um have um misfit foods, as I like to call them, at a lower price, there's an awful lot of um freezer spaces dedicated to keto products and snacks. But when you look at them carefully, Graham, they're not much better than the stuff we already know is unhealthy. Um and and that's because there's a lot of hidden ingredients, um, hidden in the sense that if you're a chemist, it's not hidden. If you're not a chemist, it looks hidden. Um and we we would like to point out, you and I mutually, that be careful about consuming too much erythritol. I actually consume kombucha, which is essentially a packaged keto product uh because I like the fizz in it. But um I I drink it sparingly because there have been some suggestions that um there are links to how it's it's affecting uh the brain and there's a possibility of increasing certain um medical outcomes. And again, we're not giving medical advice here, we're just commenting on what the article said, and that was that it could increase um the likelihood of stroke. So um, as well as when you'll note too that with some of these uh packaged keto products and snacks, snacks by their very definition, unless they're homemade, are probably something to avoid, especially if um you're trying to change your behavior and your tactics. These pretty packaged um items look like, oh well, this is great. This is keto. But in reality, uh they're they're they have very little nutritional value. You're better off if you you want to s in quotes a snack, um, get your case in from some some uh some yogurt or have some, because I do it, I know you're not um uh into the nuts like I am, but uh I'll have um some of the healthier ones. So I'll rotate macadamia and cashew and low yield because there is quite a bit of fat in them, and um and make sure that I'm consuming stuff that isn't gonna cause inflammation. I think that's the last point I'd like to make about packaged keto products. They may be they may be keto, but doesn't mean they're not inflammatory. So also look in the green ingredients to make sure it doesn't have palm oil and some other cheap items in them. Panola oil. Yeah, exactly. Uh sunflower oil, canola oil. That's those are the those are the three uh three horsemen from the apocalypse, you know, that you want to avoid when it comes to inflammation. Um, any thoughts that I may have missed on that from your side, Graham?

Graham 3:42

Yeah, well, I think you brought brought up a lot of good points, and it it reminds me of kind of the journey that I was on. And uh I would say before I sort of said, you know what? Um I keep following the front of the label and I keep feeling worse. And an example of that is um, you know, I you know, margarine is better than butter. And so, okay, well, maybe margarine isn't so good for me. Well, look at this. They've got a margarine uh with you know made of olive oil. I think, oh, I'm gonna have that because that's obviously healthy. And, you know, fast forward to a point where um I'm pretty good at picking up a package, reading the ingredients, and knowing exactly what impact that's gonna have on me. Um, it took a lot of work, it took a lot of understanding, and it took a lot of um skeptical, critical thinking um to understand, you know, uh what ingredients actually means sugar. If I see starch, you think, oh, that's not sugar. Well, it turns into glucose pretty rapidly. Um I see canola oil, I understand what that means now. And if you go and pick up that margarine that I've mentioned earlier, uh olive oil is one of the last ingredients on the list. The first ingredient on that list is canola oil. So the only way that I would know now uh to put that back down is because I know I don't want to put that in my body. And obviously, any everyone is um uh free to do what they want to do. But I think this sort of speaks to the bigger picture of the frustration that a lot of people go through uh when it comes to uh what's healthy to eat. There are uh food companies, people, uh real people inside food companies that spend all day and all night trying to make uh the food as addictive as possible. So you'll eat as much of that as you possibly can as they they can possibly get you to eat and then buy it again. That's their full-time job. Uh, and whether it's uh nutritious or not, um it that matters less. There isn't necessarily a person um you know on the beef council sitting there all day trying to figure out how to how they can get you to eat more beef, uh, trying to make the beef as addictive as possible. It's a natural food. Same with avocados, same with uh you name it, if it's a whole food, um they you know haven't done much, although you could argue with uh some of the fruits and vegetables, they have bred them over time uh to be more attractive and tastier. Um but I think uh the bigger picture here is um the frustration you feel over uh reading the front of the box, seeing uh some kind of you know heart-healthy logo and thinking I'm making a good choice for myself and my family, um, that frustration is real. Um and really the only way to try and create a self-defense mechanism for yourself is to understand the ingredients that you want to stay away from. And we've talked about this in the past. Um, so we recommend listening uh to some of the podcasts that we talk about this in. Um and at the end of the day, uh, once you have a really good or decent understanding of the ingredients you want to stay away from, let's say, you know, it's sugars and starches and maltodextrin and uh seed oils as examples, uh, wheat uh might be on that list, um, then you can pick the box up, forget about what's on the front, you can look on the back. Um, you're more than uh likely uh than not to see one of those ingredients or all of them. And it's so satisfying to put those items back on the shelf and keep moving on. And eventually what I found was uh there might have been one or two items in this in the center of the grocery store uh that I wanted, you know, really good quality olives is an example of that. Um, and I would stick to the outside of the grocery store. Uh and that noise and frustration just disappeared. Um, and it was a really satisfying uh uh uh point of my journey. Stephen, anything to add before we move on to number two?

Stephen 7:49

Yeah, I was just gonna say, just uh for the sake of the audience that may not have caught uh on on camera since we're doing this uh off camera, uh Graham was being sarcastic about the margarine. Um what he's referring to here is uh is that uh it's very misleading when you see the pretty little fold of leaves, like you were saying. So we are not saying you should eat margarine. As we've said in previous episodes, you can leave that stuff full on out in the summertime, and ants and flies and other things will not eat it because it is a petroleum product, and you don't see that more.

Graham 8:27

Yeah, uh try that with butter and it'll be eaten in two seconds. That's right.

Stephen 8:32

Um, I your dog too, by the way.

Meal Prep For Cheap Whole Meals

Graham 8:34

Oh, yeah. I stick, I stick with uh I stay away from the canola oil, which like I said was uh the first ingredient on that list, which means it's the number one ingredient. Um uh, you know, the the best butter that you can possibly find um is all is in our opinion, I think, uh a better choice. So well said. Um moving on to number two. This was something that took me a while to get my head around, even though um it's fairly obvious. And I think it was more the the effort involved in getting to the point where you get to be half decent at it, and that's meal prepping. Um, this is something I've never actually been good at. I can't think of a time where I was good at sort of um making uh some something in advance um that I could just take off and it was actually healthy for me. Um I was really good at uh following the instructions on a packaged good and sticking it in the microwave and following the instructions uh you know for 90 seconds, and then I'd have a warm meal. Um but at the end of the day, um that was contributing to my overall metabolic sickness. Um what I've got pretty decent at now is I know what ingredients I want um to put in my body. Um so I'll just use an example of um something that I came across recently, um, which is something that is made from ground beef, eggs, uh half and half cream, and um some Parmesan. Um and I'm talking the real Parmesan, the stuff from Italy that uh is hard, lasts forever, it's fermented, um the prep takes a long time. Um and you do have to you know watch uh how much you consume, but um, and people can look it look it up. It is the uh um the most dense protein uh you can buy um uh is um parmesan cheese. So it's very, very filling. Um again, you just want to uh make sure uh it's in moderation. I put that together into something I call beef ogratten. Um it's you know something you can find uh you know online. Uh it's it's no secret. Um but those four ingredients uh make for an incredible uh what kind of looks like shepherd's pie without the potatoes, um, and it's delicious. And I will make a big enough batch that um it will last me uh five meals, call it six meals. The problem is my family loves it, and often I'll go up the next day and it's all gone. Um, so you know, you gotta worry about that as well. Uh, that's a good problem to have, what by the way, because your family's eating uh what we what I think is uh healthy food and they feel better as a result. Um, but even meatloaf. Um, this is uh, you know, beef, uh, eggs, um, and a couple of other whole ingredients, and it turns into a delicious uh meatloaf. Doesn't look like the meatloaf on the box uh in the store. Um it you know, it doesn't it doesn't look very appetizing. Um but again, I'm making enough for four or five meals. Um, in other words, I've got some fast food to grab and eat. Um, if I do get, you know, a little bit like, oh, I don't have time, I've got to get something in me before I take off to this meeting or whatever commitment I have, I gotta fit it in. Um, but I don't want to take something on the go that's um, you know, more likely to be junk food. I want to stay away from all of that stuff. Um, I can have that on my plate and warm in five minutes because I prepped it in advance. And it's something that takes a little while to figure out, you know, how to make uh healthy foods from whole foods that you really like, that are filling, um, that are satiating, um, that are going to mean that you're not gonna need to eat for another 12, 16, even 24 hours sometimes. You go into a state of autophagy, you feel better, you exercise, and food becomes one less uh stressor. Um, it becomes something enjoying, but uh it does take some preparation. And there will be people who say, I just don't have time to do that. And I would argue uh the best uh response would be instead of saying that, just say it's not a priority of mine. And what you're saying is your health uh and your uh the the the amount of money you have at the end of the month uh is not a priority for you because I save a heck of a lot of money by making this in advance. It doesn't cost a lot on a per meal basis, it's a couple of bucks. Um, and it's I I would have that over any fast food uh or any um you know food in the in the middle of the grocery store. Um so you can say it's not a priority, um, but I have a feeling if I checked your social media feed, you've probably spent an hour or two this week uh scrolling, Doom scrolling through your social media. You could put it down, that would be good for your brain, and you've got the time to prep some meals, even if it's once a month. Um, it's a great start. Um, you can see how enjoyable it is, and at some point, if you do it enough, what I found is you get into a rhythm. Uh, you make sure that those ingredients are you know on the list and you always pick them up and get the good stuff, the the best stuff you can, and then it's there. And hey, I've got uh 45 minutes. Um, I'm gonna put this all together, I'm gonna throw it in the oven, I'm gonna let it cool, I'm gonna stick it in the fridge, and I've just made five delicious satiating meals that I know are going to contribute to my health.

SPEAKER_02 14:04

Steven?

Recipe Tools And Batch Cooking

Stephen 14:09

So uh for myself actually, I I have a few favorite meals and some that I've had to to adjust or give up uh from going full keto because um my mostly Swedish wife makes a killer Italian lasagna, and I haven't had it for a long time because for me, despite how delicious it is, noodles are sugar, sugar is noodles, um, it's the same thing as you said. And uh I don't need the glucose rice. So uh one stuff that I've started to to get into, and I shared one of those with you, uh, it would be making my own yogurt, which uh produces about two weeks worth uh of yogurt, which uh is fantastic. Uh and the Ruteruri uh style yogurt actually is very beneficial, as we talked about for um on the microbiome in areas that most most microbiomes can't get to. That's why that one in particular is very interesting. And I usually supplement it with regular Greek yogurt, kefir, and I do do, in my case, throw some berries in there, some flax, uh, some chia, and I let the chia swell up a little bit. Uh just helps with um absorption and it uh decreases the likelihood of a sugar spike from um the uh blueberries or the strawberries. And even I was surprised to find out the strawberries actually have a lower glycemic index than blueberries, despite the taste. They may taste sweet. So um that's one another one because I'm a big fan of Instapots, uh, having in my past life worked with them uh on the operations side. So um people may know there's roughly two million people on Facebook that make all kinds of amazing things in an instant pot. And since it's now just my wife and I, uh she'll make uh almost as good as her lasagna, a killer chili, and that lasts forever. So usually we'll make a big pot of it, and I'll actually freeze some of it um after because even after a couple of days, you're like, okay, I'm fully chillied out right now. And then I'll revert to freezing them, and they're always a treat. It's like uh like a Christmas gift. You open up the freezer and go, ah, I'm gonna have some satiating um soul food tonight. And that would be uh the chili. Any uh did that to inspire any ideas from you, Graham?

Intermittent Fasting To Save Money

Graham 16:20

You you uh reminded me of something that um I just wanted to share because it feels like a bit of a life hack. Um there's no affiliation, we're not sponsored by um this app um by any means. Um, but and I'm I'm there's no doubt there's other apps that do this kind of thing. One of the things that I always struggle with is okay, now I've got a rotation of let's say five or six different, slightly different kinds of meals that I really enjoy. So I'm I'm keeping it fresh, you know, I'm not having the exact same thing every day, but I'm having similar things every day with slightly different taste or texture. And once you get into that groove, um it's really easy to uh maintain it. Um, one of the challenges that I had was um you get you know different sized uh meats. Let's say um it's a beef-based or ground beef-based uh recipe that you're working on. Um you know, okay, I've got a scale. How do I figure out um to make sure that I've got the exact same right amount of beef that this recipe recommends? Um, here's a life hack. Um, apps like PESEL allow you to adjust the recipe based on a certain ingredient. So, what I have, let's say I have um a pound and a half of beef this week, and next week I've got two pounds of beef. I don't want to have to cut that beef off. I want to be able to make as much as I can. I'll just use a bigger uh dish. And so I weigh the beef, I go into the app and I actually say I've got two pounds of beef this week instead of one and a half, and it adjusts the rest of the recipes. So it uh sorry, the the rest of the ingredient, the amounts. Um, so it always turns out the same. So I just thought I'd throw it out there. It's PESO P-E-S-T-L-E. I think it's for iPhone only. Um, no affiliation. I'm sure there's other apps that do this, but I just thought um we'd uh throw out a little hack there. Stephen, you want to take number three?

Stephen 18:11

Sure. And I'm gonna say I have no uh we're willing to accept certain support from these apps and uh folks like Instant Pot, but uh that was a long time ago and I have no affiliation, so I should point that out as well. I'm just a fan um of the technology because you can cook a chicken in 10 minutes, you know, because it's a pressure cooker. Fascinating stuff. Um and there's tons of recipes and it's a very good community to belong to, which is um what I like because it gives you that variety. But yeah, moving on to my next one is probably as we know from previous uh videos where I kind of started, because as you know, my uh life did not begin in the um the region of the world called keto and carnivore. I actually thought I might get healthier by going uh actually vegetarian slash vegan, especially because my wife um was already vegetarian vegan, so I thought I'll you know give this a try. And as we said in previous videos, and not unlike my first question I responded to, as at least at that time, this was a few years ago, so approximately nine nine years ago, all of my food options uh were high starch uh food options with things that actually spiked my sugar as opposed to reducing it. I was also nutrition deficient, um, and that's not my opinion, that would be my natural path and my doctor's opinion. I was low in magnesium, extremely low in B12, like chronically low in B12, and I still struggle with that, I think, naturally, just the way my system is around absorption. It's obviously improving with uh the improvement in my microbiome. But the point is, and also as we get older, Graham, I think it's worth pointing out, us silver people that are in our 50s and soon to be 60s, we don't absorb protein to the same extent or the capacity of the number of grams that we can can consume. I think it's worth pointing out that sometimes it doesn't hurt to spread these out. And we'll do a different episode for everyone to talk about my diabetes hack that I've recently found that's um completely reversed. Um my my uh spot glucose and uh trending A1C, and I'm averaging about four, four point two by Canadian standards um daily. So there's no trace whatsoever. Even my Hume bracelet and no no affiliation, no endorsement tells me that I have zero chance of diabetes or rediabetes. So that's pretty exciting. So we're definitely gonna talk more about that. But the fasting is definitely a place where I started that probably helped me not get more like more sick because I was vegetarian. And then obviously, as I I dropped um in the course of I'd say 17 to 18 months, uh, as you and I discussed before, I went from 232 pounds down to 178. Um, so if you quickly do the math, you're talking 45 pounds pretty much came off my body off a six foot two frame. So it was quite noticeable and quite significant, and to the point where some people were like, Oh, you know, are you sick? I'm like, no, I've never been healthier. Thank you very much. And so that routine that which I I learned actually from a Canadian uh nerfologist, um, uh Dr. Fung. And um he he being a nephrologist, as we talked about previously, knew um that the only way that the body could heal itself is to give a uh break from from actually or one of the key ways, I shouldn't say the only way, one of the key ways um would would be to give it a rest and allow it to to digest and allow growth hormones to be uh released and allow the body to heal itself. And he had extraordinary uh results with people who who weren't getting sick anymore as a result, even though they may have already had kidney damage. So fasting 18 hours, um, it's funny because um uh where I progress to now, I'm probably closer now again to 12. And again, um I've established a new protocol that's had a Amazing impact on my sugar. So I'm going to share that in a future episode. But for years, uh I managed my weight down and kept my my numbers in the what do we call it the sixes, I would say, in terms of my um A1C trend, which is still pre-diabetic, uh, but at the lower threshold, depending on um who your doctor is and what they say. Some say 6.5 or over is pre-diabetiabetic, and seven is is um diabetes. So I was like 6.1, 6'2, 6.3. And um so some would say that's not even pre-diabet or diabetic. And now, of course, as I just said, my my trend line as of today is more around the 5.4 mark, but I'm last week with this new hack, I'm down around 4.2. So I don't need to do the fasting to the extent that I did, but I still practice it. And um fasting can be in terms of your window that you choose to eat in as well as what you choose to eat. So fasting is also some people who have have follow a particular um religion will tell you they may just fast on, you know, no red meat, just just you know, um fish, for instance. They may abstain from that for a period of time. Um that does build a certain amount of metabolic resiliency, as long as of course it's not uh candy floss and candy canes, that's not gonna build anything, it's gonna bring you down. And um, and I get to monitor this as we've discussed before because I'm I have the Hume system, I have the app, I have a CGM, so I see exactly what it's doing to my body, which again is very empowering. So for people who are going to experiment with uh fasting, there's tons and tons of data from Dr. Fung and others on how it works. Dial it into your own body, use technology to assist you because you don't want to wait. Um, at least I didn't want to wait three months for my doctor to say, surprise, your A1C is this, your A1C is that, but the CGM, I see it, you know, uh within 15 minutes of what my body is doing, which again allows me to use other hacks like continue or extend my fast uh or address why is my sugar elevated rate now? Well, it could be cortisol. My body's now actually going, hey, uh we needed to eat an hour ago. So it allows you to dial all those things in. So fasting definitely can be a significant thing. And it worked for me. It let me cut, you know, 45 pounds off. And yes, there were occasions when I did 24 or 36 hour fasts. I didn't do uh a five-day fast like uh the gentleman you and I were talking about that's a friend of yours offline. Um and but again, I would highly recommend, not giving medical advice, just a recommendation. Uh talk to your doctor about it. Make sure that um you're supplementing with water and um potassium and um sea salt just to make sure that you don't uh find yourself in a situation where you're getting overly dehydrated and sick. And I guess my last comment would be is don't be surprised if you start intermittent fasting because Graham and I have talked about this, you may get what's called the keto flu. Um, so uh it's not a real flu, it's just that your physiology feels like you don't you feel sluggish, and that's the detox process that's occurring. And then once you get over that, it's amazing uh that you will find that you have a lot of energy because you're switching um the the body from being glycogen dependent to actually processing and eating its fat. And in the processing of fat, which is a high, more a much higher caloric reaction to that process as opposed to the spike that you get with sugar, this is a steady flow of um high impact energy that your body has. And you can test this, whether you bike, whether you lift weights, whether you walk, whether you run, whatever it is that you do, uh stack wood, split wood like I do, um, you'll find that you can last a lot longer. And the only thing you might feel a need for is to refresh yourself and stay hydrated, which is a good thing to do.

Graham 25:56

Yeah. Uh and I and I think that's one of those things where um people who don't know much about um this way of eating or this eating lifestyle, they're gonna look at you like you have two heads because of course you have to cram as many carbs as possible in order to keep going. Um that's just not the case. The only way you're gonna find out is to try it for yourself. Um, no one uh is gonna convince you otherwise, including us, and we don't expect to convince you. I think we're here just to say um, you know, be safe and uh be your n equals one. Try these things, um, see what works for you. And I think at the end of the day, I used to probably snack and eat six, seven meals a day, probably more, um, just constantly um grabbing things, and you know, people won't include the chips or the cookies or stopping at Tim Hortons or you know, whatever fast food you're talking about. Um, they they will forget about those things. Well, those things are constantly eating. Number one, you're spending money, as we've talked about, I think in this series. Um, but number two, um, if you are you know having two meals a day like I do, um that's only two meals a day that you need to worry about. Um, you're not eating the rest of the time. And if you're not eating the rest of the time, you're not spending money on that food. And at the end of the day, we're we're trying to demonstrate ideas or ways that you can um save money. One of those is instead of eating six times a day with a bunch of snacks, uh two times a day uh with no snacks, is going to do wonders for you. And as Stephen said, um, that burning of fat, both your brain and your body, uh, the rest of your body, um, that that uh state of burning fat instead of glucose is ketosis. That's where the ketogenic diet comes from. Uh, and you really have to experience it in order to understand what it is. Um, and once you do, uh, there's a decent likelihood that uh you don't want to go back to uh feeling sluggish on glucose.

Stephen 27:50

I'm gonna take another one to add to that, Graham, if you don't mind, uh uh just to cut in for a sec. Also, when when you finish the fast, I should have mentioned it's critically important after you've gone through that process to ensure that you have a proper satiating meal with what we're describing, keto. So some I've seen some people and you you and I have said this before where they're like, yeah, I fasted for five days, man. I'm now having hamburger, pizza, fries, um, milkshake, um, probably like the everything that they are consuming virtually, especially like the milkshake and the fries, is just going to turn to sugar. It can take three or four days for your metabolic system to come back in line because it's such a shock from the good work that you did by doing the intermittent fasting to then going and consuming a meal that's high carb and really like don't go to McDonald's, don't, you know, that's not that's not the right thing to do. You're not treating yourself. You're putting your system that is already in um an elevated state through through this process of converting and detoxing to going to ketosis. You want to make sure that's highly nutritional. And over time, that will trend, as I've seen with my CGM as well as my results from Hume, it really trends very well in terms of my biomarkers and anti-inflammatory ones. So just be conscientious that it is um it is a cleansing or detoxification. Last thing you want to do is put a jug of toxins back into your system.

Stop Food Waste With Vacuum Seals

Graham 29:19

Yeah, and I think what we're talking about here isn't the five-day fast. Um, as you said, Stephen, uh that is something that you have to be very, very careful about and do a lot of research. You can't just jump into it. If you're gonna come out of that, you've got to be looking into how do you come out of it, things like bone broth and and at what stage do you enter more um, you know, proper whole foods and at what amounts. So that is not something that uh a rookie should get into. Um, but what you know, what we're what we're talking about here, just uh so people, our audience understands, is you know, I I my last meal is at 6 p.m. and I may not eat until noon the next day. Um for me, it's perfectly healthy and perfectly natural. Um, I am not hungry. I've eaten a satiating meal at 6. Um, I look at the clock and I think, sometimes I am hungry, you know, sometimes I think, okay, I'm ready to go. Uh maybe I've done a heck of a lot of walking that day, uh, or I've sat down and I've I've been doing um some real brain energy work, which does burn a lot of uh energy and you need to replace that energy through food. Um, but even you know, eating within that window, um, getting enough protein, getting enough fat so that your body can be optimal, um, that means that you're not spending a whole bunch of money eating every two hours. And uh that is, you know, think of it like money in the vending machine. Money's going out of your pocket every time you do that, um, whether it's a small amount or a big amount. Um, and if somebody's not eating between 6 p.m. and noon uh and the other person is having breakfast, lunch, and supper and snacks in between and a midnight snack, um, the the likelihood is that that second person is spending more money. Um so the long-term fasts, uh, you need to uh do a lot of research. You really need to understand whether it's something you want to get into. Um, and we'll certainly uh try and share those uh experiences uh with people that have gone through that in future episodes. Um, but know that uh this this is baby steps. Um think of that as university. Uh you got to get uh through you know kindergarten grade one, grade two uh in order to get to uh university level where you're starting to do uh different kinds of life hacks like that. Um I'm gonna do our second last one, uh, which is something that uh uh I I suppose I discovered by accident, um, but I'm uh sort of a logical and planning person. And sometimes I overplan and um you know I end up uh planning it so well that I lose interest in uh whatever I'm working on. Most of the time I see it all the way through, um, but I'm guilty of uh, you know, oh, I've got a plan in place. Uh, I'm I've got to buy this, I've got to build this, I've got to put this in place, I've got to change this in my life. And then I uh try it for a week and I move on to something else because it wasn't what I expected. Um, one of the things that I noticed, and um, it's frustrating uh because it is really money that you're throwing away, and that is the amount of food that we were throwing away. Um, part of it is uh planning, you know, what goes in the fridge or what goes in the freezer, you really have to know what's in there. Um I think this is one of the problems and one of the reasons why people ended up switching to foods that last forever in the shelf. Um, because I don't need to worry about those that Cheerios box. I'm not picking on Cheerios, but uh to me that's an ultra-processed food. I don't have to worry about um that breakfast cereal going bad. It can sit there for a month. I can have 10 breakfast cereals in my cupboard and uh they're not going to go bad. I don't need to worry about expiry dates. When you get to uh wanting to just eat whole foods, one of the challenges with whole foods is they go bad. They all go bad and uh they they all go bad uh quick in some cases quickly. And so what can you do um to take that stress away of, oh, as soon as that thing goes in the fridge, I've got to you know uh come up with a tactical um, you know, wartime implementation plan to figure out how I can maximize every one of those ingredients uh in order to uh not throw anything away. One of the life hacks that I found was um vacuum sealing. Now I'm I'm not a huge fan of the plastic vacuum sealing, um, although I'm certainly not against it. I think it works exceptionally well. Um, one of the things I don't love about it is you're constantly throwing away the plastic at the end. Uh, it's not so convenient. But uh more and more popular are these glass containers uh with a vacuum seal top on them. Um, and it's a vacuum pump uh that's a rechargeable pump. And what I found is you can take a whole food that may last three days. Um, and it's not uncommon for me to get 13, 14, 15 days out of that food. Uh you still need to be organized about what you put in the fridge and uh where it is. And uh you don't want a fridge full of vacuum-sealed containers that you don't know what's in them. Um, you do have to have a little bit of organization, but it takes the stress off a little bit. So um those uh you know, whole food vegetables, whole food fruits, or even that leftover meat, leftover um food that you've made, I mentioned that meatloaf earlier, I vacuum seal that. Um, and it will easily last a week, a week and a half in that vacuum sealed container. Whereas if it was out in the open or just in a regular container, um I would get significantly less time out of it. And that's because you are taking out the things that are going to uh attack it, the bacteria that make it bad. If you can create a vacuum inside, there's less to actually attack your food. Uh, and uh you have more time, which means you may be less likely to throw that food out. So when I invested in you know these glass containers with a vacuum seal, um, I did notice that we were throwing away a whole lot less food. Uh, number one, it's in glass containers, so it's easy to see what's in there. Number two, it's vacuum sealed. Uh, and we kind of have a sense for uh when something's gonna be thrown out, or you can uh write it on it or write on an app, or uh in some cases they have apps that come with them that you scan the item, say what it is, and set an alarm. Um, but either way, vacuum sealing can be something that takes a little bit of the stress off. Um and if you're not throwing food away, you're saving money. Stephen, do you want to take uh the budget staples for the last one?

Stephen 35:56

Sure. Uh so budget staples, that's an interesting one. Because a lot of times people talk about you know the expense of these snacks and and so forth, and they're they are quite pricey when you get right down to it. But when you comparatively look, and there's it's the best news about going after these things, there's likely no one else in the aisle. You can spread your arms and your legs because everybody avoids the aisle where the sardines are located or the spam, um, or even um just um canned fish in general, whether it's tuna or salmon or what have you. And um, they can make extraordinarily uh beneficial snacks uh as well as meals. Uh again, avoiding adding bread and other starches to it as we are typically um ingrained to do. So um, you know, certainly there's lots and lots of stuff on YouTube that I've watched recently on canned sardines and how that impacts the body, both in terms of its protein intake, metabolic response. The oils themselves are anti-inflammatory. Uh, and uh it's it's quite quite interesting. If you if you like sardines, uh they're really good for you. It's like cod liver oil. It may not be good or it may not taste good, but it it does good things. Um, and we've even talked about um uh castor oil and other things as well that you know I use on my face and it can be consumed. So again, um it's often the things in the island where no one else is milling about. Take a closer look and you're probably gonna find those sorts of things. And for the longest time, even like uh having grown up with very, I would say, uh um diminished economic uh capabilities as a family, we were pretty pretty lower middle class. So spam was was somewhat of a uh regular thing until it became uncool to have it. Same with head cheese, which is um you want to look it up what it was, and for years I ate that thinking it was actually cheese, and it's not. So again, none of those things hurt me. I I was an elite athlete like you were and uh am perfectly capable of doing the things that I needed to do to do as a result of my diet, despite the fact that we were in a lower uh income. We ate a lot of salmon and tuna and that sort of thing. And um and back in those days, you know, bread went bad after two days or three days. You couldn't find it like a Christmas gift back in the fridge three weeks later like we can today, and it doesn't have any green on it, because not even the green likes the bread. So um a big change there. But uh, I know you're you're a fan of hot dogs. I used to be, because I used to eat them all the time, but of course, with bread and tons of condiments, which wasn't good for me. And ground beef, you can do so many things with it, as you said, you know, add an egg, uh, make hamburgers the way mom and dad did you know 30 years ago, you know, that there was no such thing as a as a hamburger at at a grocery store. You bought beef and you made my mom had a you know a ring and she made the patties that way, and that she put um some some uh dressing in it sometimes. Other times it was you know, add some parsley and and some salt seasoning salts and some pepper and they were fantastic. So uh, but we've turned into a culture where one spam is given given a bad name. It's just uh it's like Kleenex, it's just a a name brand, but you can get it in different forms from different manufacturers. Uh and again, we're comparing these things to what people typically grab to your earlier comment about snacks, which are you know fruity candy and and and MMs and things like that that are oh well it's got peanuts or almonds, it's almond covered. Those those things are not good for you. They even got c carnova wax on them. So I think most of the time you should probably restrict that just to polishing your vehicle. What what say you, Graham?

Final Takeaways And Subscribe

Graham 39:54

Yeah, I think that's a a great summary of why these things maybe should be looked at again uh for people. Um canned sardines. I there's a a bit of an explosion of um, I call it the the latest viral uh sardine fasts and what have you. And uh why you know people feel so great when they eat sardines. Well, sardines are a fantastic protein. They're a small fish, so you don't have a lot of mercury and other uh metal poisoning um situations that you might with larger fish. Um sardines are a superfood when it comes to um omega-3. Um, and omega-3 is actually what you need in omega-3 is DHA and EPA. DHA is a protector of your brain. Um, EPA is a immune system booster, if you want to call it that, it's great for your body. And so if you're uh going to eat canned sardines, um, I usually grab them in you know the best water or the the ones that are priced a little higher in what I believe is more likely to be uh an olive oil that hasn't um oxidized. Um so you know, these are things to consider, um, but I would take oxidized sardines uh over a bag of chips any day of the week. Um so it's all about what's better than um what's healthier than spam. Um, you know, I I saw especially the other week on how it's made, because I was interested in are they putting a bunch of junk in there? Uh the ingredients are uh pork and water. Um now uh the rumor is they they never said what spam stood for. Uh the rumor is uh it stood for spiced ham. So maybe there are a couple of spices in there, um, but the ingredient list is actually super clean. Um, and so I would have spam over a bag of chips any day of the week. Uh hot dogs, I think you gotta uh read the ingredients when it comes to hot dogs. I picked up hot dogs and put them back on the shelf because I just don't want that much sugar. Um, I want the fatty hot dogs. Uh I'm less about these days the hot dogs that come in the plastic, and I'm more about dropping by the butcher, uh taking a look at the price of the hot dogs that they make um that I know are made from you know nose-to-tail uh beef that's been ground up uh super fine. And uh that to me is a fantastic option. It's slightly different than a hamburger. At the end of the day, it's the the same thing. It's just uh you know uh mixing it up a little bit, I would say. Um you mentioned you know ground beef. I uh I always sort of had this sense of, well, ground beef must be bad because it's you know$8.99 a pound or$6.99 a pound, whatever. Um, whereas the really awesome steak is you know$18.99 a pound or$29.99 a pound, or even more sometimes. Well, the reason is the the ground beef is made from the cuts that are so gristly, um, you know, so so full of connective tissue um that nobody enjoys eating that unless it's the you know the last meal um before death. And so at the end of the day, um it's grinding up uh, you know, and same with hot dogs, it's grinding up that connective tissue, um, which uh I highly recommend looking up uh what connective tissue is made of. That is a superfood vitamin for the body. And so you may actually get more, uh, in my opinion, uh, of what the body wants from uh a, you know, a ground beef that's sourced from a good butcher um than you would from a really expensive steak. And it comes back to that connective tissue and the benefits that that has for your hail, your hair, your nails, and every other part of your body. So I think what we're trying to say here is you know, um, sardines, if that sounds gross to you, well, a lot of people think it's gross. Some people absolutely love it. I find if I get a can of sardines and get a really good, you know, um uh French mustard. Something with some good ingredients inside, and I mix that up, all of a sudden it tastes pretty good. You can mix some sardines and grind them up, add some eggs and a couple other things that you love. Make little uh little cakes out of them on the fry pan. Um, and all of a sudden you've got something that doesn't taste like sardines anymore, but you are having a superfood. Um, and you probably serve it to your family if you got creative and they would have no idea that they are having uh the best vitamin on the planet in the form of something uh that doesn't look like uh dead fish. And so I think you know, Ken Barry does a great job of kind of going uh into detail on this on a recent podcast, and he's one of the influencers that we talked about uh in our influencers episode that we highly uh recommend checking out. It's uh it's our most popular episode so far, uh, and I think we understand why. Um, so at the end of the day, uh you don't have to buy the expensive steak. When somebody says I'm on carnivore, don't assume uh that, well, you can't do that because you can't afford the ribeye steak. Uh maybe they're having canned sardines, ground beef, some real hot dogs, some occasional spam, and uh, you know, eggs from uh a farmer um that sells them to him for cheaper than you can buy the cheapest eggs at the grocery store. And at the end of the day, you can be very healthy and not spend a lot of money on uh the keto carnivore diet. And I think that was the point of our three-part episode was it doesn't have to be expensive. Um, you do have to go through the journey uh for yourself. Um, sometimes you're gonna waste money on a piece of equipment that you don't use three weeks later and you kick yourself for it. Um, but nine times out of ten, you're gonna get to a spot where you're not spending a lot of money. And when somebody turns around and says, I can't afford that, uh, you have the secret. It can be uh, you know, in some cases, cheaper than um what you were eating before. Uh, you feel fantastic as a result. And can you really put a price on feeling great? Stephen?

Stephen 46:07

No, I think that's great. I think you summed it up very well. And I think that's a great encapsulation of this episode and what we were aiming to do. And certainly looking forward to uh any feedback that we get on on uh those topics. And if there's anything else that people want us to explore further, we're certainly interested in hearing from.

Graham 46:24

100%. Uh Steven, um uh so great to uh talk to you again, and thanks everybody for listening to another episode of Lessons from the Ketaverse.

Introduction 46:34

Uh, we'll see you again soon. Thanks for tuning into Lessons from the Ketaverse. Join Stephen and Graham next time for more keto tips and stories to fuel your health. Subscribe, share, and let's keep the keto vibes going.