Life Without Crunch

I could go for a pickle right now.

Image Credit: Davin Eberhardt

This morning’s breakfast was eggs scrambled, gently, with milk, lox and cream cheese. No onion, yet. That’s for tomorrow. It was delicious, of course. And even better because it is our last breakfast of this weird experiment with food called carnivore. And thank goodness it lasted only four weeks. Now, to get through tonight’s dinner.

Animal products have been our only source of sustenance, with very little exception. Our freezer full of cow in every form imaginable, our extra milk and cream, cheese, and dozens and dozens of eggs all sustained us for the month. We ate animal protein, and only animal protein, for every meal. Well, salt. It satisfied us to where we barely had an appetite at all. Easy to resist snacking urges. There were a lot.

Thus, the topic of the post. It was life without crunch. And I missed that crunch. Every snacking urge desired crunch. Bite down and crunch, crunch, crunch to my heart’s content. Chips. More chips. Pretzels. Sometimes with dip, sometimes not. Nuts. Crackers of all sorts to eat with cheese, tuna salad or egg salad. Keep the cheese, tuna and egg but dump the crackers, please. We’re all carnivore now.

It got to be a bit ridiculous. On our quest to reach ketosis nirvana through meat (a not very pleasant gateway to weight loss and superhuman mental clarity), certain items, thought to be acceptable, were verboten. No carbs, but not meat; hence, the pickle reference. I admit that had me baffled.

Now that we will soon be free from this animal protein prison, I’m thrilled I can finally eat onions again, the crunchy kosher pickles I’ve always loved and assorted low and no carb foods. To dip? Celery sticks. At least until I declare a carb vacation for myself. Yes, that is a thing, I’m told.

Dessert? Would you believe home whipped cream on top of hard-boiled eggs? No, I didn’t go there. But I dreamt about it.