First steps in Raw paleo world

[Boris]

Hi all,
Ive been living paleo for about 4 years now. It has changed my life in so many ways. Coming from a life long struggle with a weak immune system, allergies, asthma, eczema and a bodycomposition i couldn't seem to  keep under control, resulting in depression and severe food disorder. 4 years ago i weighed 58 kg (on 1.75 height) Now i´m proudly 80 kilo, lost my asthma and skin problems and am happier than ever. Nevertheless im still looking for perfection. Common sense tells me that it just cant be right to eat everything cooked. My digestive tract still needs improvement and often i feel like the cooked foods i eat don't give me the energy they should. Ive been trying out raw paleo for 5 days now and its been very exciting. Never really ate raw meat before and besides the psychological effort it takes, the physical feeling is really good. I do notice that in my head im more comfortable with eating raw fish than raw meat. It feels like i have a clearer head and that the foods give me more energy. Ive been trying to get some reliable info on raw animal consumption, but am rather disappointed on what i find. I have lots of questions like:
-does quickly searing meat, leaving it practically raw, destroy nutrients in such a way that its better not to?
-some vegetables are preferably eaten cooked for bioavailability of nutrients (like betacaroten) and some veggies are just downright undigestible raw (yuca) - is it really that bad to mix those cooked in one meal with raw meats and greens?
- no raditional culture eats/ate 100% raw. so should we?
- which lacto bacillus  are only thriving on raw animal protein and do we really need them?
and most of all: i am desperate for recipes, and mainly on fermenting meats/ fish

 I'll go through the forum and am reading the website of course, but if anyone feels like throwing a link in my direction that would be highly appreciated!

greetings!

Boris

[dogman333]

Congratulations on your success so far, Boris.
And glad to see you on the forum.
There's plenty of what you need and want on the webpages -- keep reading.
I'm no fundamentalist, and I"m pretty healthy to begin with -- I eat half my veges raw and half cooked. Seared meat is alot better than cooked well-done, so I do that sometimes.
One thing I've learned from this forum is the instinctive sense, following my own inner instinct, and trusting myself with these food choices.
Looks like you're on a good path.
Best of luck to you!

[Dr. D]

Check the newbie section. Plenty of great stuff there.

Paleo wise, we would argue that those not able to be consumed raw should not be eaten in the first place, like wheat. You may want to reconsider some veggie choices. Read up on antinutrients. Complete new perspective on food for me when I first read it.

correct, no modern culture eats 100% raw. However no other animal cooks its food. Ideally, animals in the wild should live to 6 times their maturation age. So humans, finishing maturity at 25 should live well into their hundreds. It comes down to a risk you have to decide, try things the way everyone else does them, or venture on to your own path and experiment. That's all we do here; experiment based on what little (but compelling) evidence we have.

also, most everyone here advocates for a mostly meat based diet; high fat, mod. Protein, low carb. Coming from a cooked paleo background I'm sure you're not averse to being meat heavy. However, the general consensus is fruits are preferred to veggies, generally due to antinutrients. Check it for yourself. Let us know how you progress.

welcome to the forum! Keep asking questions if you can't find them elsewhere.

[TylerDurden]

Searing does destroy nutrients. However, it's fine to eat seared meat during the transition to raw, and some rawists  go in for searing raw meat during social occasions when eating with SAD-eaters.

As above mentioned, there's little point in eating something cooked  that shouldn't be eaten raw. The reason being that cooking creates a lot of toxins  through heat which make the issue of antinutrients being  mostly destroyed by cooking irrelevant by comparison.
Also, mixing raw with cooked on the same plate is likely to cause a few side-effects re burping/indigestion etc. as raw and cooked foods require wholly different types of digestion, with cooked foods requiring more stomach-acid produced etc.

The fact that no culture eats 100% raw means nothing. In the natural world, no wild animal cooks its own food. The point being that humans have long gone in for unnatural methods, even primitive tribes, so cannot , despite Weston-Price's assertions, be used as a good example to follow from.

No idea re type of bacteria, but we desperately need the bacteria not only for proper digestion but also gut bacteria help improve one's mood. If you go in for making "high-meat":-

http://www.rawpaleodietforum.com/display-your-culinary-creations/high-meat-recipe-preparation-for-more-advanced-rafers/

you will find that out. Though, most suggest that one should get used to the taste of fresh, raw meats, then meats aged for a few days etc. until they try the "high-meat".

[Iguana]

Welcome, Boris.

Excessive heat (above 40° C ) not only destroys  nutrients, but generates Maillard’s molecules, most of them being harmful. Simple destruction of nutrients would be not much of a problem if they wee just destroyed without being transformed into noxious substances.

[Boris]

Thank you all for your welcoming words and advises. I am super excited about this. I already notice very strong differences to cooked paleo. Cooked vegetables and meats seem to feel much heavier on the stomach than raw, even though raw i only need smaller amounts to feel satisfied. Maybe this can also just be a psychological thing - the thrill of trying something new - but i feel somehow very happy. Like a high...  Choosing where to buy my food became a little more difficult though. I live in Berlin (germany) so fresh fish is not really available here. A pity because raw meat is definitely  not my favourite, I'm much easier with raw fish. I was thinking that buying wild caught fish frozen must be the safest right? Since wild fish is caught and shockfrosted practically immediate?

[TylerDurden]

Just make sure that you eat the frozen fish quickly once thawed as prefrozen food loses nutrients quickly once thawed.