Keto made easy

Cheap Fatty Cuts of Meat for Keto

Quick answer: The cheapest way to get fat on keto is to buy it already attached to protein. Chuck roast, pork shoulder and chicken thighs are the cuts KetoDick names, and they've been unpopular for years, which keeps them cheap. Cook them low and slow, batch them for the week, and you get protein and fat together for less money than specialty oils, special butters or fat bombs.

In this article

Why fat that comes with protein beats fat on its own

Keto works by keeping carbs low. Fat is what fills the space, especially in the first few weeks while your body learns to run on it. But fat on its own, a spoonful of coconut oil or a fat bomb, feeds you calories and nothing else.

A fatty cut of meat gives you the fat and the protein in the same bite. Protein is the part of a meal most linked to feeling full (more on that below). So a pork shoulder does two jobs, and a fat bomb does one.

KetoDick puts it as a nutrition problem. His biggest worry with a lot of keto content is empty calories, and he points at fat bombs made from "big globs" (from the video) of coconut oil, butter and cream cheese (video cTGYIFOTPl8). He also tried them himself early on and found them "generally gross" (video 9Hk0jRb_9Es).

The cuts to look for

He wants people talking about how to cook "beleaguered" (from the video) fatty cuts that have been unpopular for twenty or thirty years, and he names chuck roast, pork shoulder and chicken thighs as examples (video DWI8qQl5BbY). His point is that cooks who know what they're doing prize these cuts, and they come with "robust nutrient profiles" (from the video) built in.

What they have in common:

Lean cuts work too when they're on sale. In his meal-prep demo he used lean pork chops because they were cheap that week, and added butter to make up the fat (video hHFu6L-yedE).

How to buy and cook them: seven steps

  1. Shop the sale, not the cut. He bought a 2.8 lb pack of pork chops because they were on sale that week (video hHFu6L-yedE). Whatever fatty or tough cut is marked down is your cut for the week.
  2. Use the basic slow cooker you already have. His was a bottom-of-the-line model. No pressure cooker required.
  3. Season with dry stuff and a splash of acid. He added a dash of apple cider vinegar, a little hot sauce, salt and a salt-free seasoning blend. He calls dry seasonings close to free calories that replace sugary sauces (video hHFu6L-yedE).
  4. Add fat only if the cut is lean. Chuck roast and pork shoulder bring their own. Lean chops got a whole stick of butter in his pot.
  5. Cook more than one protein. He suggests cooking chicken and beef the same way, so you have a fridge "tasting tray" of ready protein. His reason: grazing is what gets most people (video hHFu6L-yedE).
  6. Serve it simple. Shred it over cauliflower rice, roll it in a low-carb tortilla with salsa and cheese, or put it next to eggs and vegetables.
  7. Write it down as a go-to meal. He asks viewers to settle on three to five go-to meals with their macros worked out (video hHFu6L-yedE). Once a cheap cut is on that list, you stop deciding what's for dinner every night.

The arithmetic on one batch

His figures from the demo: 2.8 lb of pork chops at $1.99 a pound came to about $5.57, "numerous meals for under $6" (from the video), plus roughly a dollar of seasonings (video hHFu6L-yedE). The butter was regular store butter, not grass-fed.

Back of the envelope: he said the pack held nine chops. $5.57 divided by nine is about 62 cents a chop before the butter. Prices change by store and by year, so run the same sum on whatever is on sale near you. The method holds even when the numbers move.

Adjusting fat as you go

Fatty cuts fit best when you need the fat. KetoDick splits keto into three phases (video NUJNFG6lLWw):

Phase What fat is for How fatty cuts fit
Introductory (first weeks) Keeping you fed while your body adapts Eat them freely, to fullness
Weight loss Filling real hunger only Choose leaner cuts or trim, skip added butter
Maintenance Replacing body fat you no longer burn Back to fattier cuts and sauces

That matches his own meal-prep video. His weight-loss-phase examples there are lean protein with high-fibre, low-fat sides, like chicken and broccoli or white fish and kale, and he says thickening the butter sauce is for maintenance (video hHFu6L-yedE). So "fatty and cheap" is a great default, not a rule for every week.

What the research says

There's no study on the evidence pages comparing chuck roast to fat bombs. What the protein literature does say is that protein is the part of the plate tied to fullness:

So a meal built around a fatty cut brings the nutrient most linked to fullness. A fat bomb brings almost none of it. The research does not say anything about the price of either; that part is kitchen arithmetic.

KetoDick's take

He separates "good for general health" from "needed for keto." Grass-fed butter and MCT oil may be fine if you can afford them, but they aren't required for ketosis (video DWI8qQl5BbY). In 35 days he'd had one dose of MCT oil; he got into ketosis with real food.

He also pushes back on the idea that keto needs a special shopping trip. "You can be keto at Walmart," from the video, is his answer to anyone who thinks they can't do keto because they can only afford vegetable oil and a regular supermarket (video DWI8qQl5BbY). And in the pork-chop demo he jokes that if he were a rich man he'd only eat grass-fed butter, then uses the regular stuff (video hHFu6L-yedE).

On fat bombs, his view is that they're fun to make videos about and get views, which is part of why you see so many recipes (video xyEZL0HuejI). Fun is fine. Just don't mistake them for a requirement.

Key takeaways