Awhile back I wrote an article titled 5 ways to eat more greens, so I thought a good follow up to that would be to write an article on 5 ways to eat more meat. Now I know some of you may be saying, wait why should I be trying to eat more meat, isn’t meat gonna kill me? Quite the contrary. More and more studies are coming out praising the healing power of meat, not to mention the whole community around the hashtag #meatheals.
This may come off weird when the culture is very much anti animal protein and pro plant protein, but the best thing for us to eat is animal based protein. I’ve been experimenting with consuming more meat and as a result I have felt calmer, more rested, less bloated and more satiated after meals. So I challenge you to eat more meat and hopefully these ideas below can help you do that.
1. Add a steak to your breakfast
This is hardly a new concept. It’s on breakfast diner menus everywhere, steak and eggs, but how often have you tried it? I’ve been getting these thin sliced ribeyes from Costco and cooking them up in butter and eating them along side my eggs. Ribeyes are delicious and I felt fuller for longer than just eating my typical eggs and bacon. So now sometimes my breakfast (around 11am) is steak, 3 eggs, bacon, cheese and an avocado. Try is yourself, you won’t be sorry.
2. Make your own jerky
Now I happen to have just posted a recipe on how you can do this and all you need is a dehydrator. It’s such a good investment because lean cuts of beef are relatively cheap so you can make a ton of jerky for way less than the cost of jerky you would buy in a store. Making your own jerky is also great because you get total control over the ingredients. Most store jerkys have soy, wheat and a ton of sugar. If you make your own you can replace all that junk with coconut aminos and raw honey or coconut sugar.
3. Snack on burgers
I know this sounds weird, but if the afternoon comes around and you’re starting to feel hungry – what do you typically do? Reach for a protein bar or granola bar or eat nuts or something worse like chips blah blah. Try this – buy a bunch of frozen burger patties and the next time you’re hungry in the afternoon, grill up a couple burgers and throw some cheese on it and some primal mayo. I’ve been doing this instead of snacking on other stuff and I feel way better, less bloated and fuller for longer.
4. Eat canned fish
I literally can’t count how many times I’ve written about eating canned fish. I love it. It’s great for you and it’s relatively cheap to buy. I’m talking about, sardines, tuna and salmon. Again if you’re feeling hungry in between main meals you can snack on these. They’ll fill you up because of the fat and protein and they’ll give you a good punch of omega–3s in the natural form. If you’re eating a bunch of non-grass fed beef too this is a good way to offset that omega–3 to omega–6 ratio gap that may happen if you aren’t eating strictly grass fed beef.
5. Full fat yogurt for dessert
Ok I know this isn’t meat – but it is a good source of protein if you can handle dairy. Now I’m talking about plain full fat yogurt. If you get those sweet cravings after dinner like I do from time to time and dark chocolate isn’t cutting it. Grab some full fat plain yogurt and top it with a little raw honey and you’re good to go. If you can get your hands on some paleo granola too – even better. This is a great dessert and relatively low in carbs compared to whatever else you could be eating for dessert.
Hopefully this gives you some ideas on how you can incorporate more protein in your diet. I know for me this was a good thing because after I calculated how much protein I should be eating, 1g protein/lb bodyweight – I for sure wasn’t eating enough protein. After incorporating more protein and cutting carbs even lower, I actually gained weight (I’m assuming in the form of muscle because of appearance and performance). It’s what my body needed and I feel better than ever. So try eating more meat and let me know how it goes in the comments below. Thanks for reading!
