What does a carnivore do when she’s had minor oral surgery, under strict orders to eat nothing but soft foods? Why, make shredded beef, of course!

(There’s only so many dishes of scrambled eggs one can eat.)

This recipe is based on one of my favorite dishes in the entire world, Nom Nom Paleo’s Crock Pot Kalua Pig.

Easy Shredded Beef

Ingredients:

• 1 beef roast, preferably over 3 lbs. I’m not sure that the cut matters all too much, but for the record I prefer a cross-rib roast over a chuck roast.
• 1.5 tsp salt (or maybe less). You really don’t want too much.
• NO LIQUID. None. Not even a little bit.

Method:

Plunk your roast into the crock pot. Sprinkle it evenly on all sides with the salt. You seriously want just a sprinkle, since the salt will concentrate during the cook time. Put the lid on the crock pot, and set it to low if it’ll cook all day or high if you’re impatient.

5 – 9 hours later, you’ll have a beautiful roast swimming in its own jus. Grab a pair of tongs and poke your roast; if it falls apart immediately, it’s done. Give the beef a couple of stirs to “shred” it into the jus. I’m sure you could skip this step, but I then turn the crock pot down to warm and let the beef stew in its own juices for a couple minutes. At this point, you can add additional salt to taste, if needed.

Voila: super-easy shredded beef with two ingredients.

I’m convinced that this recipe is as good as it is because of the lack of added liquids, which would dilute the natural juices exuded by the roast as it cooks. Unlike the Kalua Pig recipe, the amount of juice from a beef roast is exactly the amount needed to season and moisten the shredded beef. Such a lovely synergy.

Ok friends. This is the food that I’ve been subsisting on for most of the last month.

It’s not ribeye steaks or even beef roasts, although many carnivores will tell you that they subsist mainly on these things. I’ve found that my own personal leaky, scarred-up, overly bacteria infested gut likes ground meat much more than whole cuts.

Ground beef certainly isn’t as sexy as a good NY strip steak, but I’m more interested in “healing” than in sexy at this point.

Anyway, I finally hit on a good balance of fat/lean and beef/non-beef that doesn’t make my ankles swell and that’s versatile enough to eat for lunch and dinner and sometimes breakfast.

This meatloaf is good both hot and cold, and it’s also delicious if you shingle bacon over the top of it before you cook it. When I’m in a permanent dwelling, I’ll cook up a few batches in 11×13″ pans. When I’m in an Airbnb, I’ll grab some disposable aluminum roasting pans and line them with foil (so they can be reused).

Carnivore Meatloaf

Serves 1, usually a day’s worth of eating

Ingredients

2 pounds 80/20 ground beef

1 pound 80/20 ground pork

Salt to taste (I like Hawaiian red sea salt the best because it brings out the pork flavor, but use whatever you have on hand)

Method

Preheat the oven to 425.

Put ground beef into your baking dish. Sprinkle with salt. I usually use about a tablespoon of “large grain” salt and half that of fine grain salt, but use however much you like. Some people don’t even use salt. I am not one of those people.

Knead your beef and salt together. Then, add the pork and knead into the beef so the whole thing becomes “berk” or “poef.”

Smash your mixture into the bottom of the pan so that the meat wad fills all the corners and is relatively flat.

Place in the oven. Cook for ~30 minutes or until the juices run clear out of the center. There will be a swimming pool of fat and juices around the meat. It will also shrink out of the corners.

When you take it out of the oven, use a knife to cut into pieces to make meatloaf bars. These are super-easy to travel with.

Let your meatloaf cool in its own fat. It’ll soak up some of it, which will make a richer and more filling eating experience later.

Chow down cold or hot.

Enjoy!