Homemade organ mix

[mango]

Hi Folks, I had a question for you about my transition over to the raw world.

Right now I'd say that I eat about all of meat about 70% raw, but still lightly cook my GB on each side (for under 60 seconds).
Day by day I'm increasing this % by cutting down the amount of time it's cooked and feel like I've made some serious progress lately - definitely thanks to all for the thread with the video clips of you all eating your raw meals!  

After reading up on the benefits of organ meat, I decided to eat raw beef liver but didn't enjoy the taste very much.  I got the idea that perhaps I could purchase several different organs and blend them up into a ground beef texture which I could consume raw before each meal.

I figured that if I'm consuming only meat, that it would make sense to consume organ meat in a similar ratio as to how the animal is actually composed of.  I got this idea from reading Lex's journal and figured that a similar ratio of about 10% organ meat would suffice for me as well.

So a few days ago I mixed up .4lb beef kidney, .4lb beef liver, and .2lb of lamb heart (all grassfed of course) in my food processor.  The texture of this mix was a little more liquid than normal GB, but that actually made it easier to swallow it down quickly.  So I'm pretty happy with this overall since I'm eating it 100% raw and noticing an increased energy and better digestion.  But just had a few quick questions:

- Do any of you create similar blends? If so, what animals/organs do you mostly consume?

- Is there any disadvantage to blending up organs and storing them in this form in the fridge for 1-2 weeks?

- Would you recommend mixing different animal organs in here, such as chicken liver for more folate? or are these 3 organs (beef,kidney,heart) pretty much a good solid base. I will probably stick to all beef organs next time if so.

- Is there any worry about this raw mixture going bad in the fridge or losing its nutrients? I eat about 12 oz of high fat GB twice a day, and am consuming about 1-1.5 oz of this organ mixture with each meal, so I imagine it will stay in the fridge for 1-2 weeks.

- Do you think this ratio of 10% is suitable for a 30 year old male, or would I benefit to increase it slightly?

Thank you very much in advance for any feedback or advice for you may have

[eveheart]

I believe that taste and chewing are an important parts of digestion. The taste in the mouth is the signal for the rest of the digestive tract and related glands to begin the appropriate digestive process. The action of chewing triggers certain processes, too. For these reasons, I don't blend or grind my food. A "down-the-hatch" approach doesn't make sense in terms of food selection, either. Hiding the taste of a food masks the information that instructs you whether or not to eat that food.

I'm not saying that grinding is absolutely wrong, just giving reasons why I don't grind my food.

P.S. My favorite liver is from lamb.

[cherimoya_kid]

I believe that taste and chewing are an important parts of digestion. The taste in the mouth is the signal for the rest of the digestive tract and related glands to begin the appropriate digestive process. The action of chewing triggers certain processes, too. For these reasons, I don't blend or grind my food. A "down-the-hatch" approach doesn't make sense in terms of food selection, either. Hiding the taste of a food masks the information that instructs you whether or not to eat that food.

I'm not saying that grinding is absolutely wrong, just giving reasons why I don't grind my food.

P.S. My favorite liver is from lamb.

I largely agree with eveheart, but as long as you aren't doing anything extreme as far as amounts of food or ratios of specific nutrients, it's unlikely to cause any major issues. However, in general, I do eat mono-style, and I don't blend or grind my food.  Even if I do mix foods, it's pretty much always just mixing 2 or 3 types of meat/fish together, and I just cut them into chunks, never blending or grinding.

[mango]

Thanks for the feedback, that makes a lot of sense.  I hope in the future to get to a point where you all are at,  for now my goal would be to get my main meat consumption closer to 100% raw, and mainly am consuming the organs in this ground form to help with recovery from previous health issues.

[PaleoPhil]

- Do any of you create similar blends? If so, what animals/organs do you mostly consume?

I sometimes mix crumbled-up grassfed marrow or chopped grassfed suet into grassfed ground beef. Sometimes I mix in some raw fermented honey or top it with raw fermented sauerkraut and pickled horseradish. Sometimes I eat greens with it (as do chimps, BTW :-D ).

- Is there any disadvantage to blending up organs and storing them in this form in the fridge for 1-2 weeks?

Tyler and Aajonus recommend airing out jarred meats every day or two, I think. I sometimes let jarred fridge meat go longer without airing, but I have been eating mostly raw for quite a while, so maybe I have developed unusually robust defenses against bad bacteria or something. You would probably need to stir it up to expose it all to air.

- Would you recommend mixing different animal organs in here, such as chicken liver for more folate? or are these 3 organs (beef,kidney,heart) pretty much a good solid base. I will probably stick to all beef organs next time if so.

It's probably not necessary (Lex Rooker doesn't--see his journal), but it probably would diversify your nutrients some. You could run your diet through Fitday.com to see what nutrients it's low in.

- Is there any worry about this raw mixture going bad in the fridge or losing its nutrients?
Not likely to spoil (very stinky bad bacteria or mold) if you air it out frequently enough, though it will eventually ferment (aka go "high," meaning develop lots of good bacteria). Some nutrients are lost but others are likely gained as the bacteria digest the meat. My guess is that one can go overboard with fermented foods, but I don't know what the optimal max is.

- I eat about 12 oz of high fat GB twice a day, and am consuming about 1-1.5 oz of this organ mixture with each meal, so I imagine it will stay in the fridge for 1-2 weeks.

If you keep airing it out, it might last months, though I'm guessing again, as I've never tried it that long with highly ground meat, just chopped chunks of steak and liver.

- Do you think this ratio of 10% is suitable for a 30 year old male, or would I benefit to increase it slightly?

That's a good question for Lex Rooker and a Fitday.com analysis.

Another reason Eveheart's point is a good one is that exercising/stressing your jaw and facial muscles, connective tissues and bones is helpful, just like it is with weight lifting, sprinting, etc. If your digestion can handle it, it's best to chew at least some tough foods, to give these tissues a workout. I try to remember to include some raw beef jerky, crunchy/chewy raw veg, raw nuts and bones to chew/gnaw in my diet at least now and then, in part for this reason. For more info on this, see

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2009/12/malocclusion-disease-of-civilization.html

and

Mike Mew BDS, MSc — Craniofacial Dystrophy: Modern Melting Faces

[mango]

Thank you PaleoPhil for the detailed response.
Regarding chewing, in the sticky for newbies it was stated that:

"AV says that the ptyalin in your saliva retards the action of protein digesting enzymes so you should expose the least amount of surface area of your food to saliva in your mouth for optimum digestion, which translates to minimal chewing.In other words, unlike with cooked-foods which need to be chewed due to a lack of enzymes in them, raw foods can and should be bolted down with minimal chewing"

Given this, wouldn't ground beef be an optimal food source, especially for someone overcoming previous digestion issues?

Part of why I rely on grassfed ground beef for 100% of my meat consumption is due to the cost.  I can reliably get 1lb packages of 75/25 GB for under $6/lb whereas muscle cuts could cost almost twice the price.  And given that I'm on a ZC diet it would seem optimal to get nutrients from all different parts of the animal, instead of a specific muscle cut, wouldn't you agree? 

Thanks again to you all for your replies.

[raw-al]

We do not like the taste and texture of ground anything. Initially we did and of course it is cheaper.

I used to chew enough for it to be swallowed but I am following my wife's example of chewing it till only the gristle remains which I don't eat. I seem to require less food.

[PaleoPhil]

You're welcome, Mango. I mean no disrespect to Aajonus or anyone else, but I weigh my own personal experience and the weight of the total evidence from all sources above the dictates of any single diet guru (BTW, Lex has reported in his journal his very bad experiences from following the advice of gurus and Lex and Tyler frequently and wisely discourage folks from becoming excessively enamored of any single guru, often to no avail--I think of them as anti-gurus If you're going to follow a guru, make it an anti-guru who chastises you for doing it  ). Aajonus reported that his stomach acid production was destroyed by medical treatments, so I wouldn't rely solely on his example for how soft of a diet to eat. Is there any evidence of any society in human history that relied completely on a totally soft diet? Even the wolf that bolts its meat first tears it from the carcass with its teeth and rends animals to pieces, consuming most of them, even small bones and hide. It doesn't swallow pre-cut bits of meat or piles of mush. So if you're going to bolt, perhaps it would make sense to tear off hunks of meat with your teeth, and gnaw a bone some, rather than cut bits off with a knife?

My diet is softer than most, and a totally soft diet can be useful as a temporary therapy for people with severely poor digestion and other issues, but I've seen no evidence for it as a long-term natural norm. Check out the video if you don't believe that there might be long-term downsides to a totally soft diet. Even adding suet to ground beef, like Lex does, adds some amount of chewiness and I recall Lex saying that he prefers a coarser, chewier mix, which I think including "chili beef" chunks and a "pet food" mix that includes bits of bone chips and gristle or such also helped with. Lex's journal is a must-read for anyone interested in ZC or near-ZC.

Another alternative would be to chew on some non-food item from time to time. I suspect that humans would benefit from hide-chews and chew-toys, just as dogs do that are forced by their owners to eat a soft pet-food diet--just don't let anyone catch you doing it. LOL

given that I'm on a ZC diet it would seem optimal to get nutrients from all different parts of the animal, instead of a specific muscle cut, wouldn't you agree? 

Yup, and marrow bones, suet and organs tend to be cheaper than muscle meats.