Can You Do a Carnivore Diet on a Tight Budget? 

Why does carnivore on a budget matter right now?

The economy is rough right now. Money is tight, and I'm afraid it might get worse. Even our family buys most of our meat at Walmart, the supermarket nearest to us. We don't buy the expensive stuff either, and we have been eating more and more ground beef and less and less ribeye, because the prices are offensive.

For some people, money is so tight that they literally cannot afford beef. What may shock you is that you can do a carnivore diet eating very little beef. If you can't afford ribeye or grass-finished beef, that's okay. There are other meat and egg options.

The prices below are what I saw in our Walmart on the day I filmed. Your store, your area and the current sales will be different.

Is ground beef the best budget option?

If you can afford it, ground beef is the very best option. It was $8.97 a pound, which is still pretty high. Don't buy the little 1 lb packs. Buy 5 lbs or 10 lbs at a time, and you'll pay less per pound.

What is the cheapest meat for a carnivore diet?

Chicken is where the real savings are:

• Bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs: $1.17 a pound for a pack of about 5 and 3/4 lbs
• Bone-in, skin-on chicken legs: $2.54 a pound
• Chicken leg quarters, with the thigh and leg still attached: a 10 lb bag for $7.84, which works out to about 74 cents a pound

The leg quarters don't look as pretty, and you'll have to cut them up yourself. You're going to do a little work to save some money. That bag is a lot of meals, it is carnivore, and it is going to improve your health over the junk food in the middle of the store. With bone-in chicken you can also make bone broth from the bones, so you get a second product out of what you bought.

Are cheap eggs as good as expensive eggs?

In my opinion, the cheap eggs are 99% as good for you as the eggs with all the marketing on the carton. Added omega-3, this, that. Very often they just feed the hens beta-carotene to make the yolks more orange. It's a trick.

The expensive eggs might be slightly better for you, but that doesn't make the cheap eggs bad. I found 60 eggs for $7.13, which is about 12 cents an egg. If you're worried you don't have room in a little apartment fridge, don't be. If you eat like a carnivore, those 60 eggs will be gone pretty quick. Do the cheap eggs have slightly less omega-3, and are the yolks more yellow than orange? Probably. That just makes them slightly less good, not bad. If you're on a budget, buy these eggs.

Can you eat pork on a budget carnivore diet?

Yes. A family pack of pork chops was $3.38 a pound. Did they trim too much of the fat off? Yes. Is pork a tiny bit higher in omega-6 fatty acids than ground beef? Yes. Is it cheaper? Yes. Can it be part of your carnivore diet if you're of limited means? 100% yes. You can eat it every single day. Buy the bigger family pack, because it's cheaper per pound.

The best thing we have found is pork steak, also called pork butt steak. If you really want to grill a steak, pork steaks were $1.95 a pound. Is it as healthy as a ribeye? In my view it's maybe 1% less healthy. Compare that to the price of ribeye. You can eat a pork steak every single day, and it's going to improve your health, not worsen it.

Which cheap foods give you the most nutrition?

Chicken liver is a literal superfood for about $1.50 to $1.60 a pound plus tax. Figure out how to like it. Neisha has a great recipe on her channel for cooking it. You can eat it every day.

Chicken gizzards were $1.36 for 20 ounces. A lot of people don't like the chewy texture, and they're not the superfood liver is, but they are super high in protein and also have collagen. If you're buying a collagen supplement, try chicken gizzards instead. In my opinion, chicken skin is the best source of collagen building blocks in the world.

Are bologna, hot dogs and Spam okay on carnivore?

If they are all you can afford, yes. A 5 lb stick of bologna was $1.93 a pound. Don't buy it in the pretty little container. Buy the big stick and cut it yourself. Are the ingredients perfect? No. But in my view it is 99% meat. If you're on a budget and this is all you can afford, you can live on it with egg yolks, and you'll get much better nutrition than from the boxed stuff in the middle of the store.

A pack of 24 hot dogs was $4.46 on a Fourth of July sale. The ingredients aren't perfect, but they're mostly meat, and they are going to improve your health compared with all the other junk in the store.

Spam was $2.28 a can, and the Great Value luncheon meat was $1.84 a can. If you buy the 60-count eggs, the egg yolks give you the vitamins and minerals you need. The chicken liver gives you the vitamins and minerals you need. Then you can fill up your belly with the cheap luncheon meat. In my view, it does not cause cancer and it is not bad for you. It's just less good than grass-finished ribeye.

Why should you always ask "compared to what?"

You have probably heard someone say a food like luncheon meat is "not good for you." My question is always: compared to what? Compared to grass-finished ribeye at $29 a pound, yes, it is less good. That doesn't make it bad. If you eat it instead of Lucky Charms, it is a health food. It's all relative.

Is canned fish a good budget carnivore food?

Yes. I usually tell you to shop the outer edge of the store and stay out of the middle, but the canned fish aisle is the one aisle you can go down.

Grocery stores put the expensive stuff at eye level, because it's easy to reach. Look down. I found canned tuna on the bottom shelf for 19 cents an ounce. You'll need a can opener, which they sell for about a dollar fifty.

Don't buy tuna packed in olive oil. In my opinion, much of the olive oil on store shelves has been cut with soybean or canola oil, and I don't believe they put pure virgin olive oil in your tuna. Buy it in water, drain the water off and add some mustard.

Canned tuna does not have enough fat. Add fat with egg yolks, or save the grease when you cook your pork. That grease is a health food, it makes your tuna taste better, and it gets you the fat your body needs.

What fat should you cook with on a budget?

Until you have money saved up for bacon, buy a bucket of lard. It is hydrogenated, but that is not the same thing as hydrogenated vegetable oil. In my view, hydrogenated lard is still a health food. It was 14 cents an ounce, and you only need about 1 ounce to cook a meal. Everything else in that aisle, the bottled seed oils, I call cancer in a bottle.

The other fat to cook with is butter. Be careful, because a lot of products are made to look like butter. If it says butter with canola oil, never buy it. There is also no point in buying name brand butter on a budget. The name brand I looked at was 58 cents an ounce, and the store brand was 39 cents an ounce. Is the name brand nearly twice as good for you? No. Maybe 1% better. I love Kerrygold, but at almost 60 cents an ounce, don't waste your money if you're on a budget.

Is "plant butter" real butter?

No. There's no such thing as plant butter. Butter comes from the milk of a cow, a goat or a sheep. It does not come from plants. Products like this, even when they don't say margarine, are margarine made with vegetable seed oil under another name. That's marketing. Don't fall for it.

What can you eat when you want something crunchy?

Every now and then you just want a little crunch. Get some chicharrones, also called pork skins or meat rinds. They are on the pricey side, about 73 cents an ounce for a 4 oz bag, but you can eat one or two with tuna mixed with cheap mustard, which has zero sugar. That little crunch can keep you from going crazy while you save up for better quality meat.

Are protein chips a good source of protein?

No. A lot of people eat protein chips and protein popcorn thinking they're protein maxing. In my view, what they're really doing is junk maxing. These are junk foods with some whey protein added so they can make a health claim. Real protein is over in the meat, egg and canned fish sections, and it's much cheaper there.

Where should you shop for cheap carnivore food?

Go to whatever your discount supermarket is, not the bougie supermarkets, which will obviously cost more. If Walmart is all you've got, go to Walmart. Even the cheapest meat from a discount supermarket is a health food compared with what most people eat.

When you can do better, do better. Until then, do the best you can with what you've got in your pocketbook. Cheap carnivore will improve your health.