Good butcher in Dublin

If you are on a low carb diet you need a good butcher. I have tired of supermarket meat having been disappointed by its quality too often. An extra euro makes all the difference in taste and I think butchers know how to select and age meat in a way that a supermarket can never compete with.

I have tried several butchers over the years, but the best I have found so far is FX Buckley on Dublin's Moore Street. Because they are in the city centre and have wide range of customers from around the world, they stock a huge variety of meats. They do excellent steaks - aged to perfection - very good lamb chunks for curry and everything else that even an adventurous cook could want.

The staff are friendly and really know what they are doing. I buy large squares of pork skin to make pork scratchings. Meat freezes well, so we always have a ready supply with me making a weekly visit here.

They also operate a chain of restaurants in Dublin which specialise in steak. I have not eaten at them yet, but have heard very good reports.

Meat can be a key part of a low carb high fat diet, so take the time to find a good butcher and you will not bother with supermarket meat again.

Fried liver and bacon

Liver and other organ meats are a great source of vitamin D. These recommendations from the Food Safety Authority of Ireland specifically list organ meats as one of the key dietary sources. The importance of getting enough vitamin D3 cannot be overemphasised. To get the technical details of this watch this seminar presented by my friend Ivor Cummins - the Fat Emperor.

I live in Ireland - known for its cloudy skies. Most Irish people don't get enough exposure to the sun to make sufficient vitamin D3. So we need to supplement and eat foods which are rich in vitamin D3. Remember to get as much exposure to sunlight without burning as you can. This may well be the best source of D3 you can get.

This is a delicious and simple way to get some D3 into your diet from natural sources. It is all low carb and is very inexpensive to make.

Fried Liver and Bacon

2 Slices of lambs liver

1 onion, chopped roughly
A handful of mushrooms, chopped roughly
2 Rashers of unsmoked back bacon, cut into strips
Lard for frying
A splash of cream if you have it

Heat the lard on a large frying pan. Cook the onions and mushrooms until soft and slightly browned. Then slice the bacon into strips and cook this in the same pan with the mushrooms and onions pushed to the side. Switch off the heat, mix in some cream and serve immediately.

Low carb non egg breakfast

Most low carb advice contains the line 'eggs for breakfast'. Most of the time this is fine, but this is something different when you don't feel like an omelette.

Non cereal

2 tbsp of linseed
1 tbsp of chia seed
1 tbsp of sunflower seeds
1/2 tbsp of sesame seeds
1 tbsp pumpkin seeds
Natural yogurt
A handful of berries

I mill the linseed in a small grinder for a couple of seconds, But I leave the rest whole. I think milling the whole lot makes the mixture a bit pasty. It has a nicer texture with most of them whole.

Mix it all up in a cereal bowl making sure you have enough yogurt to make it nice and easy to spoon.

The quantities are rough here, but this works out well for me. Blueberries are good as well as raspberries. Grapes a no no though as they have too much sugar. You can sprinkle sliced almonds over the top if you like.

Remember that it's ok to have nothing at all some days. The mini fast will do you good. But failing that this is a break from eggs.

Low carb high fat reading list

Switching over to LCHF is best done by convincing yourself that it works. I find that reading papers, blog posts and books is one of the best ways to do this. I will start a list here of things that I have read which I found helpful. I will add it to it as I read more.



First up is Why we get fat by Gary Taubes. This book is not too technical, but gets into enough detail to explain why we do indeed get fat. If you are not familiar with any of the science behind LCHF, this is a great place to start. Much of what is reveals is contrary to popular advice, but popular advice does not seem to be working. The advice of this book is simple to follow and does work.

Real BBQ in Dublin City - Pit Bros

The low carb options just keep getting wider. Maybe we will finally make the mainstream? Well maybe not quite yet.

Anyway, eating out low carb is a bit like being a non smoker when some pubs in Dublin first started to experiment with idea. You wanted to visit those pubs, but could you convince your smoker friends?

Carbs are the new fags and some people don't think they have eaten lunch unless there is a heap of grass to go with it.

Pit Bros on Dublin's Georges Street will keep your addicted friends happy. They serve delicious BBQ meat - pork, beef, sausage and chicken. And if you like it can come with a bun or a heap of chips.

I had bbq pulled pork with slaw and sweet corn. I know, I know. Sweet corn is, well sweet, but It is not the worst sin you can commit and the low carb sides were limited. The slaw was fridge cold, but I can't really blame them for trying to not poison me. It was also not slathered in too much dressing and did not taste sweet. Very good.
The pork was smoky and juicy and not covered in sauce. They seem to use rubs here rather than drowning the food in brown goo. Don't get me wrong I used to love that brown goo, but that was the old me :)

Well worth a visit and pretty inexpensive for what you get. The decor is a bit too rough and ready on purpose and the seats were designed for someone with more bum padding than me, but these are just quibbles. And oh yeah, this is a very big portion of food. Way too much for my lunch, but work was paying and I don't leave food behind.

More low carb delicousness in Dublin then. This is getting easier.

Great Omelette on Dublin's Northside - Lemon Jelly

Lemon Jelly has been in Dublin for a long time, but on Millennium Walkway it was getting a bit tired. It got a make over recently and I decided to see if they had anything low carb on the menu.

The interior looks great and is lovely and bright. They are big on crepes, bagels, paninis and the like. Big no nos on a low carb diet. But they have great omelettes. There are a few to choose from and they come with a side salad. Just ask for the salad with no dressing and you are good to go. Good coffee rounds out a decent low carb lunch.

I normally have eggs for breakfast and 2 omelettes a day is pushing it even for me, but if that is the only fault I can find, they have done a good job on the low carb front.

Bunsen - Great Burger Place in Dublin

Finding low carb food when you are eating out can be a nightmare. More and more menus however are including low carb or paleo options. One such is Bunsen on Dublin's Essex Street, Temple Bar.

I was there last Saturday afternoon for lunch with my son. We always go to the same burger place, but decided to give this a go as it had just opened. I had a double burger without the bun. Usually this means what it sounds like. In Bunsen though, it comes wrapped in iceberg lettuce. This means I was able to eat it like a real burger without a knife and fork.

The flavour was fabulous. The burger did not come with any ketchup, but it was on the table if you needed it.

The menu is tiny, but what more do you need - great burgers no rubbish. I am not saying it is a good idea to eat burgers for lunch every day, but for a low carb treat, this place is great.

Organ meat for lunch!

This does not sound like the sort of thing that you would want to eat for lunch, but is tasty, but very rich.

Fried lambs kidney

Serves 1

Ingredients

1 lambs kidney
half an onion shopped small
2 large mushrooms chopped small
Large knob of butter
1 rasher, rind removed and chopped small
Dash of fresh cream

Method

Melt the butter in a thick bottomed saucepan.
Fry the onions, mushrooms and bacon until soft.
Slice the kidney down the middle and cut out the hard core
Chop the kidney into small pieces - about 10mm
Add the kidney to the pot and continue to fry until cooked. The kidney only takes about 4 minutes.
Add the dash of cream and stir the pot vigorously to scrape the caramelised bits off the bottom.
If you are not eating low carb, this would be great on a piece of toast. Otherwise, just tuck in.

Vitamin D3

Low carb has been a great revelation for us. We have lost weight, feel better and are not constantly 'feeling peckish'. We have found another important factor in health and its importance is much greater than I would have thought.

We watched a video from our friend Ivor recently. In it he talks all about vitamin D3. We used to get it from the sun, but living in Ireland does not provide enough of that. So we need to take supplements. I have started taking 4000 IU per day. My wife is starting with 3000.

You should satisfy yourself that this is the right thing to do, but as with all of Ivor's work the evidence is overwhelming. Much of modern medicine exists on a thin layer of evidence, so to come across something this concrete is great.

We will be looking for the best source of D3 pills over the coming months. The most recent ones we got were from Holland and Barrett and Boots. Both are the chalky type, so we are looking for liquid tags next. And based on the doses we are taking we need more than 1000 IU tabs.

Here is Ivor's video. It is well worth a watch.