Enjoy eating meat 🥩? That reason alone is enough to come to Argentina 🇦🇷.
People still find it funny when I tell them a big reason I live here in Buenos Aires is because of the high quality of the meat. I feel great off this diet.
When I was renting in Australia, I regularly used to hear from my vegan female housemates in a whiny Aussie accent saying “Jordan’s cooked meat again in the house, hasn’t he”.
Vegans. They are torturous to be around. It consumes their whole identity, they look sick, and they usually come with a woke-left leaning political view that is passively forced upon you.
No self-respecting male should ever date one. I’ve covered this before.
One way to avoid them? Move to the local barrios (neighborhoods) in Buenos Aires.
I’ve managed to do this, and it seems they don’t seem to exist in Villa Crespo, which is away from the young university crowd/woke US liberal hotspot of Palermo, where I first lived when I moved to Buenos Aires.
Although, it is a bit rougher here in Villa Crespo. The apartment building regularly gets burgled (they robbed every apartment on my floor except for my apartment when I was in Europe), though I still prefer it here. The local traditions in Villa Crespo are why I love travelling so much.
Let’s get into the facts about eating meat and why it’s so beneficial to your health. This is a summary from Dr. Shawn Baker’s book - The Carnivore Diet, and although the theme is somewhat biased, he does an excellent job of summarising scientific analysis by comparing our digestive systems with the rest of the animal kingdom.
For example, human stomach pH is typically 1.1 - 1.5, highly acidic and on par with that of a lion’s or a vulture (an animal that needs a pH so low so it can digest carrion, i.e. meat). The percentage of the human digestive tract mimics that of a cat or dog (obvious carnivores).
Dr. Baker simply highlights that the human digestive system is mostly suited to absorbing minerals and vitamins through meat, which to me makes a lot of sense. Although it’s highly debated, evidence suggests our hunter-gatherer lifestyle led to the hunting of large megafauna which coincided with a pivotal time in human history when we became much more intelligent, and physically bigger, with the increasing availability of meat in our diets. The evidence suggests that our bodies are designed to eat meat in order to achieve optimal health.
Now, I am by no way as extreme as these carnivore guys. I love eating everything, life is too short to miss out on carbohydrates through the consumption of some of life’s pleasures such as; fresh bread, beer, pizza, etc. However, through trial and error meat has become 70-80% of my diet, including liver and eggs. Don’t ever let people say eggs are bad for you when 20% of your brain is made up of cholesterol.
I feel my healthiest eating this diet and it’s a piece of piss to eat this well in Argentina.
Steak is the Buenos Aires street food. I live off steak here and aim for one per day (the novelty still hasn’t warned off). Steak is sold at parrillas. “Parrilla” is a Spanish term for grill, which also can be interpreted as a grill house/restaurant. These restaurants can be fancy as fuck (Don Julio Parrilla, which is one of the world’s top-rated restaurants in Palermo, Leo Messi eats there) or normal prices (for Argentina) in beautiful old buildings, which you see once you move outside of gringo barrios.
In general, you will end up walking past at least 2-3 parrillas every couple of blocks in Buenos Aires. I love eating at local parrillas around my local barrio, Villa Crespo. Some of them feel as if you’re stepping back in time, and have been owned by families for 50+ years.
My favorite at the moment is on the busy street of Avenida Corrientes called Parrilla Estacion. Apparently, it was shit before, but the new owners have taken over and now it’s bloody awesome. A steak in these types of lower-end parrillas should not cost more than $10 USD.
My preferred cuts anywhere in Argentina are bife de lomo (eye fillet) and ojo de bife (rib eye). I also live off meat from the carneceria (butchers). It’s too cheap here, it feels like they give it away by our Western price standards. You can get 1kg of ojo de bife (rib eye) for ~$5 USD, or another favourite which is carne picada (ground beef) for ~$2.5 USD per 1kg.
One great thing about apartment buildings in Buenos Aires is that just about every single one has its own parrilla on top of it that anybody who lives there can use. All you need to do is go to a local carneceria, buy the wood (they sell firewood in butchers here) and a heap of different Argentine meat cuts, and invite friends over. This is called an asado (BBQ) and it should always be accompanied by a few Argentine malbec red wines, another great product they basically give away in the country.
This was one of the first things I did when my Dad visited me here in Argentina (all the way from Tasmania). All Airbnb’s you rent in an apartment building in Buenos Aires will likely have a parrilla you can use, I highly recommend trying it out for those of you who want to come here. There are some epic asado Instagram accounts you need to follow. One of them is Locos X el Asado, with 3.2M followers. Argentine asado is the best BBQ I’ve experienced in all my world travels.
The chances of running into a vegan are diminished if you avoid the gringo hotspot of Palermo in Buenos Aires, and you get a glimpse of what I think (still a rookie here) is real old-fashioned Argentine food culture.
A big part of the reason I live in Buenos Aires is the incredible quality of meat. People find it so confusing when I tell them this. One dude I know is always cracking jokes about it, but I find it’s not as funny as he thinks. He’s pretty woke and follows the WEF/WHO agender, go figure.
When you look at the evidence presented in sources such as Shawn Baker’s - The Carnivore Diet, plus many other such books on a carnivorous diet written by medical doctors, it’s not as silly as most people think it is.
It certainly makes a lot of sense to me anyway. I feel great living off this 70-80% meat diet with regular intense exercise, and I honestly can’t remember the last time I was sick either (touch wood). Argentina is great if you value your health and love meat in the form of this type of lifestyle.
That’s it, hope you enjoyed that, and as per usual, thanks for reading, legends.
Cheers,
Jordan - Geólogo Trader.
Is cooking with beef tallow a thing here? I would think it would be the best oil to cook with.
Didn't see any in Coto.
Maybe the butcher sells it by the jar or tub?
I'm headed down in November. Really looking forward to some great steaks and red wine. Awesome photos and tips