Yolk, Beef, & Salmon Diet, does this sound like a good idea?

[panacea]

I've done some reading and I'm intrigued by the nutritional ketogenic diet, raw meat (zero carb) diet, and raw animal food diet principles, and want to combine them into an easy modern "very low carb animal food diet."

My plan is to get the benefits of being in nutritional ketosis, the benefits on digestion of eating less food mass because animal protein/fat is of higher quality and contains less fiber than plant foods, and the benefits of course of eating raw high quality bacteria-rich foods.

For this I am thinking of eating only high-quality organic/free range raw egg yolks (just the yolk, not the sac or the white), about 24 a day. Then I would eat about 13 oz of raw grass-fed grass-finished beef which is a 80/20 lean/fat grind, and every other day eat 1 raw wild caught atlantic salmon fillet and back off on the yolks some (the fattiest brand I can find which fits the wild caught parameter). On top of this I would also drink spring water as desired along with real sea salt (from ancient oceans which contains small amounts of calcium and potassium naturally) especially if I exercise, to act as a kind of electrolyte replenishing drink. All of the animal food would be divided into about 5 meals a day at first, working up gradually into 2-3 meals a day as my body learns to handle it.

The only major sources of carbs on such a diet would be the egg yolks, which contain 0.6 g of carbs per yolk, eating 24 yolks a day as my upper limit would put me at around 14.4 g of carbs per day, and whatever minute quantities I absorb from the raw beef and salmon. Still, that should keep me below 30 g of net carbs a day to remain in ketosis.

I'm waiting on a shipment of the beef to get here before I start, does anyone see anything wrong with my plan or something I'm missing?

[eveheart]

Is your carb goal of "below 30g per day" based on your past ketogenic observations, or someone else's recommendation? If this is based on something you read, then I suggest finding your own level. For some, 30g may be too low; for others, 30g would be too high. Also, timing of carb intake (spread out, not all at once) might be considered, based on your experience.

Also, how do you do with such a narrow choice of food? Some people are fine with it, but if you find yourself fighting the restrictions, be more flexible. I'd go crazy with just three foods, but then again, I don't eat a ton of variety, either. I like to adjust variety by season, sort of.

[panacea]

@eveheart
I'm going by multiple sources I read for the 30g/day limit, although (see meal plan below) I will basically be below 20g/day. I'm not diabetic or anything, so hopefully my tolerance is at least 20g/day.
I've been a slave to carbs my whole life. I tried cooked keto (mostly bacon and cheese) for a month and my carb cravings went wayy down and I can finally control my diet, something I've never been able to do before, I miss carb foods but I never want to go back to being a slave. I found that even just tasting a food rich in sugar, even if it's relatively low in carbs (such as low carb milk by fairlife), my carb cravings would come back. However, not as strong as they were before, so I'm able to beat them now, but I don't like having to fight them in the first place, hence why I decide to stay away except for the yolks (which don't seem to affect me that way).

A meal plan would look like this:

Day Type 1:
24 raw egg yolks (108g fat, 14.4g carb, 64.8g protein)
13 oz 80/20 raw ground beef (72.8g fat, ~0g carb, 62.4g protein)
Total: 180.8g fat, 14.4g carb, 127.2g protein

Day Type 2:
33 raw egg yolks (148.5g fat, 19.8g carb, 89.1g protein)
3 oz 80/20 raw ground beef (16g fat, ~0g carb, 14.4g protein)
1 fillet of raw wild caught sockeye salmon (12g fat, ~0g carb, 36g protein)
Total: 176.5g fat, 19.8g carb, 139.5g protein

And I would just alternate day type 1 and 2. Conveniently, after two days, I would know I need to buy/have 4.75 dozen eggs, 1 lb of beef, and 1 fillet of salmon for the next 2 days. Since it's raw and mostly egg yolks, it's a very liquid and extremely dense nutrient diet.

[panacea]

One thing I'm concerned about is the level of selenium from so many egg yolks every day. The "upper intake levels" for selenium in adults is 400 mcg, with my diet I would be getting about 283 mcg on day type 1, and 377 mcg on day type 2. These levels are below the FDA's upper limit, but far above the 55 mcg RDA... I don't know if that means it would cause problems.

To put this into perspective however, approx. 6 brazil nuts can contain 544 mcg of selenium, but I doubt people are eating that much every day like I would be eating yolks every day, and it's a known fact that a lot of people get sick from brazil nuts (probably because of the selenium).

[Iguana]

A meal plan would look like this:

Day Type 1:
24 raw egg yolks (108g fat, 14.4g carb, 64.8g protein)
13 oz 80/20 raw ground beef (72.8g fat, ~0g carb, 62.4g protein)
Total: 180.8g fat, 14.4g carb, 127.2g protein

Day Type 2:
33 raw egg yolks (148.5g fat, 19.8g carb, 89.1g protein)
3 oz 80/20 raw ground beef (16g fat, ~0g carb, 14.4g protein)
1 fillet of raw wild caught sockeye salmon (12g fat, ~0g carb, 36g protein)
Total: 176.5g fat, 19.8g carb, 139.5g protein

And I would just alternate day type 1 and 2. Conveniently, after two days, I would know I need to buy/have 4.75 dozen eggs, 1 lb of beef, and 1 fillet of salmon for the next 2 days. Since it's raw and mostly egg yolks, it's a very liquid and extremely dense nutrient diet.

Did our pre-fire ancestors engineered such meal plans?
Good luck!

does anyone see anything wrong with my plan or something I'm missing?

Yes and yes, I do! Guess what!

[dariorpl]

I don't think paleo people would've been throwing away the white.

[goodsamaritan]

I'm in agreement with Iguana.

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24 raw egg yolks a day?

33 raw egg yolks a day?

Holy crap, sounds like a cancer patient with liver issues.

How about you eat on instinct what you like from your current foods ( and doing your less carbs )... and then you chart your days.

I do not know what kind of activity you do... maybe you are just super active to consume that much eggs.

[TylerDurden]

We had a phase where almost everybody was a raw zero-carber and then suddenly almost no one was anymore. I have a suspicion that going raw, zero-carb requires extra abilities. For example, the Inuit, who were zero-carb(partially raw) have extra-large livers and larger volumes of urine which are apparently needed in order to properly digest the excess protein in their ancestral diet.

[dariorpl]

Didn't inuits have a high fat rather than high protein diet? From all the seals and walrus they would hunt. I have no idea, just guessing.

Also, I've heard that prior to contact with the more civilized europeans, the inuits were having all of their meats raw. Is this true?

[TylerDurden]

No, the Inuits always cooked some of their food, even prior to meeting Caucasians.

[eveheart]

I've been a slave to carbs my whole life....

That describes me, too. Now, I don't shun carbs in the form of non-starchy vegetables, but my daily carb intake is about 25g. This has been a great way to keep my binge-eating urges away completely. I've gone through a few variations and permutations in my variety and carb levels over the years, but the one constant has been keeping low-carb for ketosis.

As far as the lack of variety and general weirdness of eating those many egg yolks, I remember I over-quantified a lot at first until I got the hang of what I was doing. It's not bad to start with your calculations the way you have them set up now and branch out with small changes along the way when you feel like it.

[eveheart]

One thing I'm concerned about is the level of selenium

Selenium supplements typically have 200mcg per capsule, so your calculated levels aren't way high. Also, it might be that a "safe level" is different in real food vs supplements.

[panacea]

@people concerned with eating only the yolk
The practice of discarding some part of a food the way nature packages it is done for almost all raw foods nowadays even by instinctos or whatever - you discard the shell of the egg, you discard the shells of many nuts, many often discard the skin of fish (for parasites), as well as eyes/organs, people don't eat the hide of cattle (in regards to beef), etc, even though all of these are technically things a carnivore might eat whole in "nature." I'm discarding the white because too much of it may cause a biotin deficiency, and it doesn't contain the balanced level of nutrients I desire like the yolk does.

@zero-carb being high protein
my meal plan accounts for roughly 132g of protein per day, being a 6'8" tall young adult male with about 20% body fat, that is only slightly over what I need not to lose muscle mass, I wouldn't consider this "extra protein" that needs any special abilities to handle.

@eveheart's selenium response
Thanks, that makes me feel a little better, I'm going to see if I can't dial back the 33 yolk days to 24 and increase beef with added suet/fat intake to try and keep selenium down, although you make a good point about real food, there may be more than we know going on.

[dariorpl]

We discard the shells of eggs and nuts and the scales of fish and the hides of cattle because they contain no significant nutrients and are incredibly hard to break down by our digestive system. But the egg white contains valuable protein and other nutrients and is in liquid form, so it's easier to break down than any other food. Similarly, the eyes of animals are a tasty treat, and if the animal is healthy and raised properly, you shouldn't throw them away. Wild ocean fish and squid/octopus eyes are all I've tried so far, and I haven't been disappointed in the least. Much the opposite in fact, I now regard them as the most tasty and valuable part of the animal. Plenty of people eat the eyes of other animals. I know of someone who eats rabbit eyes, I haven't had the opportunity to. And of course sabertooth here eats pretty much the entirety of the animals he butchers.

[panacea]

People thought eating only the yolks was "weird", I was reminding them that sort of thing happens all the time.
People waste nutrients by cooking food that is edible raw, that destroys some amount of nutrients, which go to waste in the air.
People also "waste" nutrients by throwing some part of food away, although it could be argued that this "waste" eventually is fed upon by critters anyway, and is actually less "wasteful" than cooking.
You can also "waste" food simply by eating too much, and making your body use that fuel more inefficiently.
To me the idea of "wasting" food and having to eat the whole animal is an antiquated idea from times of scarce food resources. We have plenty of resources to eat now, but not enough resources to transport the food to all places. I am choosing to select only the best food sources I can get my hands on and afford, which means discarding the whites.

[goodsamaritan]

I eat the white part of the egg.  Sometimes.
Why? Because I don't feel like eating the whites all the time.
Instincts? Taste? Maybe.

[Iguana]

Many, perhaps most of us, don't like the eggs' white — but I do like it. Very seldom, when I had eaten a lot of whites and yolks (always separately, one after the other to make sure that I eat only what I need, in the proper amount) I discarded a few whites.

What is totally weird is deciding to eat 24 or 33 eggs everyday! Don't be surprised if you become yourself a giant egg after a few days! 

PS: The quality of the eggs is another problem. How and where on Earth will you be able to find suitable eggs in such huge amounts?   

[panacea]

Walmart is where I get them, I've never bought the white standard eggs in my life, but the brown free range ones from some brands seem perfectly fine, the yolks are vibrant in color and the sacs containing the yolk are strong (dont break by being handled), which is what I go by since I refrigerate mine.

Why does eating 24 or 33 yolks a day seem so crazy? People eat only ground beef for much of their calories and that seems along the same lines. Yolks are small in volume compared to the entire egg, it would take about 25 egg yolks to fill a 16 oz container. Considering that a gallon is 128 oz, a gallon of milk is over 5 times the volume of 25 egg yolks, would you think someone is insane for drinking 1/5 gallon of milk every day, since milk is even more lopsided nutritionally than egg yolks?

The reason I chose egg yolks as my staple and not beef - I can't find grass fed grass finished 70/30 grinds of raw ground beef conveniently where I live. Egg yolks contain more fat and less protein per gram than beef, so I can better reach my goals of not overconsuming protein each day by eating more of the yolks. Fish (salmon) are even more protein rich and fat lacking, so I have to increase fat somehow on days I eat the salmon. I want the salmon for the omega fats, and the diversity. I want the beef because it's nutritionally a perfect food (but too much protein as a 80/20 grind which is all I got), and the yolks are the best replacement I can find for "fatty high quality animal foods".

[eveheart]

Why does eating 24 or 33 yolks a day seem so crazy?

I wouldn't call it "so crazy." It's a little bit quirky from the "usual" style of egg eating offered in restaurants and cookbooks, but it's not like you are taking vows to eat two dozen egg yolks per day until you die. I would consider your two-day cycle to be a fact-finding mission. I've had some periods like that myself, most recently when I was troubleshooting a symptom that was bothering me.

Variety seems to be a matter of personal preference and availability. I would never consider procuring foods from afar (such as tubers from Africa or nuts from Asia), yet there is nothing really wrong with eating foods from other regions.

I don't know what your "before" carb level looks like, but many people like to dive into ketosis with a week or two (or six) of eating the way you have planned. When you actually start consuming what you planned to eat, you might get sick of it, you might not. I don't eat eggs so much and I can't get beef that I like, so I am living on lamb and fish and enjoying it to the fullest. Nowadays, I get lamb heart, liver, kidneys, and other parts from a halal market in my area. I asked about the ranch and checked it out, so it is grassfed and not supplemented with lamb chow. A quick check of the ranch is reassuring for me.

I make a distinction between authentic and therapeutic paleo. If I were a real cavewoman, I would probably never have gotten sick in the first place -or- I would already be dead. As sick as I was, I've done a great job with part-paleo eating and part engineered eating. I think you are on the right track and your direction sounds reasonable from the symptom you described.

[dariorpl]

FWIW, AV recommended as many as 60 eggs/day for boxers. Whole eggs though.

I myself average about 60/week, sometimes going up to 90/week. I only enjoy them as dessert when blended with dairy, fruits and honey, or  as savory when stirred or otherwise mixed with ground beef and a few pungent veggies like onion, garlic, hot peppers, ginger, horseradish, etc. I really dislike the texture of the white, so I only have them blended or stirred in a way that the texture changes into something I like.

[goodsamaritan]

FWIW, AV recommended as many as 60 eggs/day for boxers. Whole eggs though.

That was a lady who was on her death bed who was told to eat as much as she liked.  She probably had some sort of liver congestion.  I've seen that myself in a patient who had liver congestion.  It is some sort of instinct to decongest the liver.  Maybe Panacea has some sort of liver thing going on that needs to be addressed, why he is so attracted to eggs at this point in time.

[dariorpl]

No, besides that lady, I've heard AV also said that about boxers. In the case of that lady, AV recommended eggs because she wasn't able to digest any solid foods, I think.

[panacea]

There's nothing going on with me, liver included, I'm a young person in a normal health state with no direct ailments other than feeling a little off while being on a high carb diet and especially junk food diets.

I'm not even attracted to eggs, the cooked ones (scrambled) taste delicious but the raw yolks, while more bearable than many other raw foods, don't attract me at all. They simply have the correct macro nutrients I need (fat to protein ratio) and are packed  full of vitamins, omega oils, etc without any anti-nutrients or fiber to get in my way to speak of.

Not a single raw food attracts me currently except perfect fruit juices from fresh ripe fruit - which I don't consume because they bring out carb-cravings and lead to junk food consumption.

[goodsamaritan]

There's nothing going on with me, liver included, I'm a young person in a normal health state with no direct ailments other than feeling a little off while being on a high carb diet and especially junk food diets.

I'm not even attracted to eggs, the cooked ones (scrambled) taste delicious but the raw yolks, while more bearable than many other raw foods, don't attract me at all. They simply have the correct macro nutrients I need (fat to protein ratio) and are packed  full of vitamins, omega oils, etc without any anti-nutrients or fiber to get in my way to speak of.

Not a single raw food attracts me currently except perfect fruit juices from fresh ripe fruit - which I don't consume because they bring out carb-cravings and lead to junk food consumption.

Oh I see, the logical ratios type.

My 2 cents in eating raw paleo is eating what you actually LIKE... and TASTES GOOD... seriously bro, go and search for foods that you will ENJOY.  Taste various foods, varieties, sources, brands... etc.

Listen to some instincto and eat stuff you enjoy.

[eveheart]

Listen to some instincto and eat stuff you enjoy.

Why would panacea ignore his carb-craving symptom, which is the early-warning sign of inflammation that leads to adult-onset diabetes? What kind of "enjoyment" do you imagine one gets from intense carb-cravings, where you know that you just ate so that your stomach is full, but you are still ravenously hungry?