Keep in mind, in case it's relevant, all my pork products are wild-caught, and my beef is all grass fed. All comes frozen. I've been eating all my fats raw.
I love the strip of fat that I trim off the outside edge of pork chops (I give the muscle meat to my friend), particularly the parts which I have to chew and chew and fat comes out when I do so, which has a melts-in-your-mouth bacony taste. It smells kind of gamey.
Today I got four pounds of hog back fat and three pounds beef short ribs. I tried first the former (and then a teeny taste of the latter, which seemed basically the same). Waxy and like candy. No gamey smell or bacon-like qualities. It reminded me of something ... old ice cream ... dense white chocolate .... But I didn't really like it and lost my appetite after only a small amount. Then my stomach felt like "yuck, I wish I hadn't eaten that." And seemed to result in symptoms that I get when my body has difficulty with animal products.
So first of all ...
Why do these external fats seem like how I've heard suet described and not like other external fat I've had raw? Nourishing Traditions says pork fat is 40% saturated, that beef fat is 50-55% saturated and that suet is 70-80% saturated, and I assumed that the texture, etc, reflects saturation level, isn't that right? How can I make sense of all this?
Also, why doesn't my body like them as much as the other kind? How can I make them more digestible/become more able to handle them? Why is it that I'd enjoy eating large amounts of the ribs barbecued or of fatback made into cracklings? Does fat contain any anti-nutrients or bioaccumulated plant toxins that are destroyed by heat? Or does cooking break down tissue or somehow make it easier to digest?
