Have you heard of the Animal-Based Diet? I’ve mentioned in passing that my family eats a largely animal-based diet, but what exactly does that mean? In today’s post and in honor of the completion of Heart & Soil’s AB30 Challenge, I am diving into how my family enjoys an Animal-Based Diet and how it helps us feel our best.

What is an Animal-Based diet?

The Animal-Based diet is exactly what it sounds like. Animal-based foods are the foundation of your plate. So, instead of large bowls of pasta or rice or even leafy green vegetables, you prioritize good quality meats (especially ruminant animals like beef, bison, venison, and goat), organs, eggs, raw milk and other dairy products like cheese, kefir, yogurt, raw honey, and what are considered to be low-toxic fruits or vegetables. Below is an example of how Heart & Soil recommends building your plate on an animal-based diet:

Now I know this is extremely different from what the FDA recommends and what we are all familiar with, but if you have been here for a while, then you know I’m not particularly fond of the FDA. When I was a kid, low-fat was the answer to everything, and even to this day, a lot of recommendations still suggest low-fat options for pregnant and breast feeding mothers. But low-fat is the exact opposite of what you want! Our bodies need fat to thrive, not ultra-processed flours and grains! This is why I am a big proponent of taking the traditional food pyramid and swapping it out for an animal-based one as you can see below:

If you are wondering how an Animal-Based diet is different from Carnivore? Heart & Soil offers a great blog post on this exact question here.

Quality Matters: Sourcing Your Animal-Based Foods

One of the criticisms about eating an animal-based diet is that it is cost prohibitive. I won’t lie: it is more expensive than buying your local grocery store meat and various processed foods. But, if you invest in the quality of your food now, you may save yourself a lot of money with doctors and prescriptions in the future. Food is medicine, and if we can feed our families fresh, regeneratively grown and sourced foods, then it is not only good for our planet, but it is good for our health too.

What to Look For

When it comes to finding good quality foods, you want to prioritize ruminant meats like beef, bison, venison, or lamb over chicken and pork. This doesn’t mean you can’t have pork or chicken when following an animal-based diet, but it is best to prioritize the ruminant meats, especially for fatty cuts of meat.

• Traditional Grain Lot Fed Beef -> Grass-Fed & Finished Regeneratively raised Beef
• Traditional Pork -> Low PUFA (Poly-Unsaturated Fatty Acids) Pasture Raised Pork
• Traditional Eggs -> Pasture Raised Organic Eggs – preferably corn and soy free.
• Traditional Chicken ->Low PUFA Pasture Raised Organic Chicken

This doesn’t mean that you have to go all in or nothing. It’s all about a slow change, swapping things out over time. When I first got married, I bought most of our meat from Costco, and they do have some good grass-fed ground beef at an affordable price, but it typically isn’t grass-finished. I switched from Costco to Butcher Box – thinking I was getting better quality meat at a better price. Looking back on it, it might not have made much difference. After even more research into various local options and their quality, I switched to Buck Creek Meats. This is a family-owned company out of Wichita Falls, Texas, and they deliver meat boxes straight to your door just like Butcher Box. They offer pasture raised low PUFA chicken and pork, and 100% grass-fed and finished beef and lamb.

If you are interested, check them out here and use my code Ladenbod for 10% off your first order.

Another option for sourcing good quality meat is to invest in a cow share or other meat share. Buck Creek offers options for a 1/4, 1/2 or a whole cow, pig, or lamb. We recently invested in our first cow share through CT Ranch and we have loved it. One of the perks of a cow share lies in the fact that if you like the more expensive cuts of meat but not the price tag, you can get all of your meat for the same price per pound. So while grass-fed and finished ground beef at the grocery store may cost you between $10 and $12 a pound and the Filets or Ribeyes cost you upwards of $20, $30, or more per pound, a cow share gives you ground beef, ribeyes, and filets for the same price per pound. So while it is definitely more money upfront, it saves you money in the long run.

If you are not in a place to purchase a half or whole animal or don’t have the freezer space, another option is to buy products directly from the company. So, for instance, rather than buying Force of Nature products at your local grocery store, buy it straight from the company – typically for at least $1 or more off the sticker price, especially if you set it up a subscription. If you can afford to buy in bulk, you will typically save money in the long run.

What Our Eating Looks Like in a Day

First, I want to preface this by saying, my kids are not strictly animal-based. I do my best to prioritize animal-based foods as the foundation of their diet, but I am not super strict; and yes they do get to enjoy pasta, homemade sourdough bread, and homemade cookies from time to time. When they do have these foods in their diet, I make sure that the quality of my flour and other ingredients is the best that I can find. For instance, the pasta that I give them and the flour that we use are from Sunrise Flour Mill, a mill located in Wisconsin that produces organic heritage wheat. For more of my favorite ingredients, check out The Ladenbod List.

Now back to our animal-based lifestyle.

Breakfast

For breakfast, we typically have eggs one way or another everyday. Some days, I make scrambled eggs mixed with whole fat cottage cheese and cooked in coconut oil with a side of pasture raised, organic breakfast sausage. On other days I make fried eggs in butter with the yokes runny. One of my kids’ favorite breakfasts are animal-based pancakes – a mix of one mashed banana and two eggs, scrambled together and cooked in butter. The recipe is from Heart & Soil and you can find it here. Our breakfast sides change depending on what we have, but typically it includes avocado, fresh berries, bananas, or other fresh fruit.

My husband does not typically eat breakfast, but he will enjoy breakfast sausage with a drizzle of maple syrup on the weekends. For me, I typically have the same thing as the kids or I heat up leftover steak to enjoy with some runny fried eggs and avocado. Both my husband and I enjoy our morning cup of coffee with fresh raw cream, raw milk, and a spoon of Perfect Supplements Collagen.

Lunch

Our lunches almost always consist of ground beef from our half cow share, raw cheddar cheese and avocado. Depending on what fruit we have on hand, I will throw in some organic pineapple sauce or organic mango sauce, or maybe some organic mandarins. To switch it up a bit, the kids always have the option to drizzle something on their ground beef, whether that is Fig Balsamic Vinegar from Kassandrino’s, unsweetened ketchup, a drizzle of organic maple syrup, or raw organic honey from Lineage Provisions. This gives them a bit of variety while getting the nutrients their bodies need.

Typically at either breakfast or lunch, I will give them organic pineapple, mango, or apple sauce and mix in some extra Vitamin D drops, one to two capsules of Heart & Soil’s Beef Organs, and 1/2 a tsp of Green Pasture’s Fermented Cod Liver Oil. During the winter months, I also add 8-10 drops of Briar Rose for additional immune support.

Dinner

Dinner time includes more red meat, often more ground beef either as burger patties or just ground up, or whichever cut of steak I pulled from my freezer for the week. On the side, our meals often look a lot like our lunches, or I will also cook up some roasted squash or other low toxic plant food that is in season.

Snacks

Snack time almost always consists of fruit. The most common snack in our home is sliced apples with raw cheddar cheese or bananas. My kids also absolutely love Fresh Bellies’ Two to Mango and organic dried Mulberries, especially for on-the-go. And you will almost always find my oldest son drinking fresh raw milk from CT Ranch throughout the day. Some of our other go-to snacks – whether as a snack or part of their meals – include Double Cream Good Culture Cottage Cheese, organic greek yogurt from CT Ranch, or Alexandre Farms 100% Grass-Fed A2/A2 Organic Whole Fat Yogurt Extra Cream Top.

One of my personal go-to snacks as a busy mom of three is a protein shake using two cups of our delicious raw milk, one scoop of Perfect Supplements’ collagen and a serving of Lineage Provisions’ Animal-Based Complete Protein Powder in Chocolate. This is so easy to throw together and it leaves me full and satisfied as I take care of my family and home. The best part? Even my kids love it! Every time I mix it up, my daughter asks for some of my chocolate shake, and trust me, I’m not saying no to that!

My Go-To Animal-Based Grocery List

In case you are wondering, below is a list of the foods I find myself buying on repeat from our local grocery store as a family of 5 on an Animal-Based Diet. Our meat, eggs, milk, and cream all come from our local farmer, CT Ranch.

• Grass Fed Organic Raw Cheddar Cheese (our favorite is Sierra Nevada Cheese Company / Organic A2 Cheese like Rumiano)
• Alexandre Farms 100% Grass-Fed A2/A2 Organic Whole Fat Yogurt Extra Cream Top
• Alexandre Farms Grass-Fed Whole Milk Regenerative Organic Probiotic Kefir
• Organic Grass-Fed Butter: My favorite brands include Truly Grass-Fed Butter, Zeal Creamery, and Straus Family Creamery Organic European Style Butter.
• Organic Fruit including: Apples, Bananas, Strawberries, Blackberries, Blueberries, Raspberries, Mandarins, Pineapple, and Mango – I try to stick to what is in season as often as possible, but my toddlers think strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, and blueberries should always be in season.
• Organic Avocados
• Organic Lemons for an evening cup of raw honey lemon water
• Masa Tortilla Chips and Vandy Potato Chips
• If I am in need of a sweet tooth pick-me-up – Ice Cream for Bears found at Sprouts is incredible and uses only raw honey to sweeten their products.
• Organic Dates
• WildBrine Sauerkraut and Kimchi: Unlike a lot of brands on the market, this one uses organic ingredients and uses just salt instead of vinegar to ferment the vegetables. I recently learned that if you want the probiotics you are told about from fermented foods, then those using just salt are better than those using vinegar for that beneficial bacteria.
• Grillo’s Pickles: While these do not specifically say organic, they are the only pickle that I can find near me that is not filled with random ingredients like natural flavors. Please tell me why a pickle needs “natural flavors” added to it?

Try It For Yourself!

I cannot express enough how good my husband and I feel eating an animal-based diet. Obviously this is not medical advice and this is just from my personal experience and everyone is different, but I don’t think you can go wrong with giving this way of eating a try. I find myself feeling extremely satiated after meals and craving real food instead of the constant sugar cravings or carb cravings. Occasionally I will make homemade sourdough for my family and while I still absolutely love it, I don’t feel my best with it – even using my organic heritage wheat. If you or someone you know is struggling with the food they are eating and their health, I highly recommend giving this lifestyle a try. And while Heart & Soil’s AB January Challenge is over, you can do your own challenge any 30 days of the year! Or if you want a little extra encouragement, they will be back in August for another round of the AB Challenge.

If you have questions or comments, drop them below or shoot me a message!