Tasteless and tough meat / how to tenderize meat

[JaX]

Just got an order in from where I usually order my meats.
I ordered 20 pounds of organic lamb as I have before. The only difference is that this time, the meat is absolutely, completely tasteless, and it is very tough. The lamb fat is almost impossible to bite through. And I the parts I received from the neck can't be chewed at all: I have to spit out every 10 seconds.

I am really puzzled as to why the difference. I am told the lambs are mostly on the same diet and slaughtered around the same age (it's young lamb meat, not mutton meat).

My other orders have consisted of very tasteful, tender, dark red lamb meat, where the fat melted in my my mouth. This recent order I have received is much lighter colored meat that is extremely tough and Completely tasteless.

Any ideas to the difference? Is darker red meat healthier?

I personally suspect it might have to do with the way it was aged. I was told with my recent order that this lamb is very fresh and has only been aged for a week (which is the minimum) and was packaged just after the aging period. The other orders I have made might have been stored longer after aging before shipping.

Is there any way to make meat more tender? Is leaving it out of the fridge for a day a good idea? I'm just thinking about something that can make the meat more chewable, the fat a little softer and the taste stronger. I am wasting large quantities of meat because I am not only throwing unchewable parts away, but I'm also overeating on the tasteless meat, because it gives me no real satisfaction and fullness feeling (it's like eating when you have a cold and your taste/smell is impaired)..

[Raw Kyle]

What is in meat tenderizer? You could try banging on it with a wooden hammer and rubbing in some sea salt and maybe even an acid like vinegar and then let it sit in the fridge for a while. You could then rinse off that stuff and bang on it some more. I've never had meat to hard to eat (well fat I have) but when it's tougher I cut smaller pieces with scissors.

[JaX]

Too bad I can't edit my initial post... but I'll add this here:

Considering all the meat we buy commercially is aged (either dry or wet aged) and is for this reason very tender... Wouldn't an animal killed freshly in the wild be very tough to chew on? I'm thinking tougher than the lamb cuts I just got, and these are practically unchewable.

For those of you who have tried wild meat/game... How long was the meat aged/hung before you bought it? Did you notice difference in tenderness compared to commercial/domestic meat products?

Anyone tried eating "fresh" kill? Which part of the animal can be eaten at all, when it is non-aged and raw (is it the organs only?)

[JaX]

Didn't primitive hunters always eat the organs at the site of the kill while carrying the animal back home for eating later? Maybe this was needed for the meat (muscle meat) to become tender and chewable?

[yon yonson]

after some googling, i found that (according to this website at least) meat is not tough immediately after the animal is killed and will remain chewable for a varying amount of time for each type of animal (4-6 hrs for beef). after that, the dead animal goes into rigor mortis where the muscles contract and make the meat tough. after that, the meat can be aged to make softer. anyways, that was just some really quick research so it could be off, but here's the link: http://www.wedlinydomowe.com/meat-selection/meat-aging.htm

[TylerDurden]

Didn't primitive hunters always eat the organs at the site of the kill while carrying the animal back home for eating later? Maybe this was needed for the meat (muscle meat) to become tender and chewable?

Yes, hunters did usually eat the organs at the site of the kill.

As regards leaving raw meat out for the day or two or three, that should soften the meats. I did that with my raw ox tongue when I first started the diet as my teeth were so loose from years of cooked/processed diets that I could barely chew my food.

Re wildmeat/game:- I haven't noticed any difference in terms of softness. I'm sure that they are aged/hung for the same amount of time.

[rafonly]

could the tastelessness & toughness of that meat be the result of changes in the quality of the pasture (or hay) or of the animals being more sedentary or feeling cold during winter time?

ask the farmer

[JaX]

On the other hand, the extremely tender cuts of beef, like 3-week dry-aged rib eye, I don't find as appetizing as I did in the past. Now I want a whole leg, a shoulder, a heart

[JaX]

Yes, hunters did usually eat the organs at the site of the kill.

As regards leaving raw meat out for the day or two or three, that should soften the meats. I did that with my raw ox tongue when I first started the diet as my teeth were so loose from years of cooked/processed diets that I could barely chew my food.

Re wildmeat/game:- I haven't noticed any difference in terms of softness. I'm sure that they are aged/hung for the same amount of time.

Thanks Tyler

I suspected even the wild animals I found at a local butcher go through the same processing/aging as domestic ones.

Just wish I could hunt, kill and eat a wild animal once.. I will try to find out where this is possible. But it's probably going to require a permit and a whole lot of other time consuming procedures.



We should all just tip in and buy a farm.. make it paleo friendly... live off the land

[TylerDurden]

We should all just tip in and buy a farm.. make it paleo friendly... live off the land

Several Raw Animal Foodists have gone in for small farms of their own, but this only makes sense if you're living in a rural environment. The number of gardens/allotments in UK cities is very low given that developers love to make use of them as much as possible for building houses.

[JaX]

Several Raw Animal Foodists have gone in for small farms of their own, but this only makes sense if you're living in a rural environment. The number of gardens/allotments in UK cities is very low given that developers love to make use of them as much as possible for building houses.

Sounds like you know of a lot raw animal foodists. Are there many in UK or specifically London area?

I think they are very sporadic here in the US with the main concentration being California/LA area

[TylerDurden]

Sounds like you know of a lot raw animal foodists. Are there many in UK or specifically London area?

I think they are very sporadic here in the US with the main concentration being California/LA area

Most US RAFers are in the Los Angeles area with the rest being spread out around the rest of California, New York and many other States such as Arizona. US RAFers, even now, constitute at least 60% of all RAFers worldwide, no doubt because of the highly processed nature of the standard american diet.

I've only vaguely come into contact with c.30 UK RAFers(those who specifically stated they were from the UK). I'm sure there are many more, as Jon C Fox has stated that he gets a lot of orders for Aajonus' books from the UK, but it will take time for us to build up a community like the US where Primal Potlucks and the like are possible.

[donrad]

I used to live in the country. Someone hit a deer in the front of my house. I pulled it under a tree and butchered. It took about 5 hours to get it refrigerated and probably  many more hours in a household refrigerator before the temp dropped down because of the large amount of meat.

The venison from the entire animal was very tender, which surprised me at the time. Now I know why.

I find that putting meat in a roaster oven with a thermostat that holds at about 100' for a few hours does absolute wonders for tenderness. You can also turn the thermostat up high for an hour to kill surface microorganisms and then hold for a long time at 100'. I do this with large roasts and they melt in my mouth.

I find that when dehydrating meat at 100', it gets tender after a few hours; but then gets tough again when completely dry.