salt-cured fish

[yuli]

Is home made sea-salt-cured fish considered raw?
Whatever your answer I'd be curious as to the reason you think why.

[TylerDurden]

Salt isn't palaeo so not appropriate. Besides, the whole notion of raw is to avoid processing as much as possible, even if the end result is raw or rawish.

[yuli]

Hmmm I found so much sea-salt congregated on the rocks while camping this summer, I am not sure how gathering sea salt that is not paleo... since from what I know paleo is a diet of things that can be found and gathered in nature and eating them without processing, and sea salt is easy to gather from rocks, very easy, at least where I was!
The fish is raw to begin with, then all I am doing is placing/mixing the raw fish on the salt and letting it sit there a while. If that is considered processing, then shouldn't dehydration of fruits and meats should also be considered processing and not paleo (since its even more of a process to dehydrate fruits then slob some salt on a fish)?
What about raw honey added to fish - that should also be not paleo then, honey is harder to find then sea salt in some areas i can never find any honey lol....
Not trying to be picky just interested in scientific reasons or any other explanations. 

[TylerDurden]

Dehydrating isn't palaeo either. Of course, many of us make compromises of various kinds.

As far as salt is concerned, for regular consumption of salt in most places, in the ancient days, one really needed salt mines which only came into existence in the Neolithic era.

[yuli]

OK I see what you mean...
I think it really depends on the location you were living in then.
This summer I could have gathered heaps of salt from the dried rock puddles if I wanted too (but I didn't want to spend my vacation doing that ha ha), in those more primitive times people didn't have jobs or much other things to do (besides surviving) other then foraging and hunting the natural land so I imagine they could have gathered lots of it without the use of salt-mines IF they lived in the right area.

Also we eat raw beef one day then only salmon the next day if we so want etc (oh what choices we have) ... it not like the people back then had a choice, so I guess eating TRUE paleo is eating ONLY the things available where you are at the moment (if I did that I should move out of the city ASAP). Using this logic to be TRUE paleo I also can't eat pine nuts cause they're not growing here, that will NOT do for me I love my pine nuts, and am happy modern technology has a way to bring me raw foods I wouldn't otherwise be able to get.

So I guess I am asking in the terms of health-wise modern raw eating rather then TRUE paleo, has anyone who eats completely raw (not necessarily true paleo but just all raw or almost-all-raw) experimented with salted fish? Where there any adverse effects?

And does anyone know a scientific reason of exactly how raw unsalted fish differs from salt-cured besides the fact that it has more salt and less moisture? Also I like salt water fish and those live in the same salt water that we can get sea-salt from so it kinda makes sense.

[TylerDurden]

I don't know about salted fish, but my own experience re raw, salted meat was seriously negative. I got some sort of weird, blood-sugar(?)-related reaction if more than very, very tiny amounts of salt were used.

[yuli]

Really? That's interesting, I guess we all react to salt differently, just like some people can eat more veggies and fruit then meat and others have to eat mostly meat to feel well.

But you know, pulling a fish out of the salty ocean and eating eat right away it may have lots of salt on it 

From what I know unprocessed sea salt has many benefits (as long as you don't gorge on it):
- Many minerals - iodine, zinc, manganese, potassium, calcium, magnesium, and iron
- lowers blood pressure
- slowing down the aging of skin
- maintain the electrolyte balance
- powerful antihistamine
- helps to balance blood sugar levels

I have been doing the raw diet and I do use sea salt, not having any adverse effects, in fact I feel very good ingesting some sea salt each day.
And salty raw fish is soooo yummi!
Which is why I was wondering in the first place.

[goodsamaritan]

I do paleo diet not because I'm interested in mimicking old theoretical living conditions.

I'm just interested in being healthy.

I subscribe to salt being a not so desirable item to eat.

I'd rather get my organic sodium from raw meats and raw vegetables.

[kurite]

I use to eat sea salt on my meat and noticed when I was doing hard exercise I cramped regularly (not while on SAD). When I stopped adding the salt, I stopped cramping. It still doesn't make sense to me that if I eat excessive salt on raw paleo I cramp but not on a standard american diet.