Raw stuff to start with, for the spoiled...

[koalalumpur]

Hi everyone, newbie here, went through some of the stickies and got some info.

So far I haven't found raw animal foods I can enjoy. I know it's a gradual process, but I'd like to have at least a couple things i can really enjoy right now.  I do have some personal terms:

- I do not wish to cook, or use seasonings, marinates and spices, not even to begin with.
- Generally I don't mind some blood and gooey stuff, organs or sea food, but my tongue and nose are sensitive, and so far did not manage to take the things I've tried, or their aftertaste. Most preferably foods which will not leave too much odor around my body or the kitchen, and of course digest pretty well.

Thanks!

[cherimoya_kid]

I've always enjoyed raw tuna, raw scallops, escolar, and swordfish. Freshness is extremely important, if you're not used to them.

Also, it helps if you warm them to body temp right before eating, or at least room temperature.

[TylerDurden]

Hmm, some interesting conditions...


Oh, well, how about starting with raw foods that are socially  accepted by most of the public already. There are widely-accepted raw meats such as raw beef carpaccio, prosciutto crudo ham, steak tartare(just have raw grassfed meat minced and add a raw egg or three), then there is sashimi(raw fish dishes plus some raw vegetables,  as found in some Japanese restaurants)  and raw oysters -oh, and raw cheeses are well-liked by lots of people. You can prepare them all yourself but it would really help if you would eat the various raw food dishes in a restaurant. That way, your mind is subconsciously reassured that eating raw meats is perfectly OK as you can see others around you having no problems eating the stuff, so the taste-change where you start preferring raw animal foods will come quicker.

When I first started, I avoided all supermarkets like the plague and visited farmers' markets/food-markets all over London. I would buy very small amounts each  of dozens of different raw animal foods. That way, without paying overmuch and being forced to throw kilos of it away if I didn't like it, I was able to  quickly find out that I had no initial problems with eating (fresh)raw seafood, especially raw(fresh) shellfish - I also found that my then-very-loose-teeth could only handle raw tongue that had been left to age outside the fridge for 2 or 3 days.

One other thing:- in order to widen my variety of foods, I would have 10% of my diet consist of raw animal foods I initially disliked, the idea being to eventually get used to and then  eventually enjoy them. This worked, although in a very few cases, I would have to do the following thing, such as with raw liver:- cut the liver into tiny slices, bolt each slice down without hardly chewing and then swiftly drink a big gulp of high-alkaline mineral water afterwards  in order to blot out the taste of the liver. Took me 3 weeks to get fully used to raw liver by this  unusual method. After that I no longer gagged at the liver and could eat it in huge gulps without any such tricks.

[Raw Matt18]

Eat raw meat with raw honey I've been doing it everyday since i started its delicious

[eveheart]

- I do not wish to cook, or use seasonings, marinates and spices, not even to begin with.
- Generally I don't mind some blood and gooey stuff, organs or sea food, but my tongue and nose are sensitive, and so far did not manage to take the things I've tried, or their aftertaste. Most preferably foods which will not leave too much odor around my body or the kitchen, and of course digest pretty well.

Your requirements pretty much sum up raw paleo! Uncooked meats don't release aromas very much, the way cooking does. In the meat department, I eat mostly beef and lamb, with plenty of seafood. They have zero "room" odor and relatively mild taste. The stinkiest thing I eat is garlicky kimchi, but you don't need to eat something like that. I switched "cold turkey" without any discomfort.

Perhaps you can explain which foods you are trying that have a disagreeable taste, odor, and body smell.

[koalalumpur]

Thanks a lot guys. So far I've tried some different types of fish, chicken meat and hearts, liver and gizzard. There's a good chance they were not fresh enough, and perhaps I started out with too much - The aftertaste was unpleasant for a good while, had some gas and was troubled by the smell left on my hands, kitchen, etc.
I think I'll try the shellfish. More ideas would be great. When eating BBQ, I used to love chicken hearts and spleens, are these typically recommended?

[eveheart]

In my area (San Francisco), a single small chicken that has been raised on its species-appropriate diet costs over $30, and I have to drive over an hour to the ranch that sells it, so I don't eat chicken. Most chicken seems to be raised on "chicken feed" in feed lot operations, even if they're labeled organic. The big con here is to label chickens and eggs as fed a vegetarian diet, but chickens are more in the insectivore/herbivore category, so I avoid them.

[cherimoya_kid]

In my area (San Francisco), a single small chicken that has been raised on its species-appropriate diet costs over $30, and I have to drive over an hour to the ranch that sells it, so I don't eat chicken. Most chicken seems to be raised on "chicken feed" in feed lot operations, even if they're labeled organic. The big con here is to label chickens and eggs as fed a vegetarian diet, but chickens are more in the insectivore/herbivore category, so I avoid them.

My, my, those are some fancy damn chickens. LOL

I imagine there's a cheaper way to raise them on their ideal diets. Sounds like the chicken farmers are either inefficient or overcharging a bit.

[ciervo-chaman]

in my case, i liked raw meat from start. I use to eat sometimes meat seasoned with a mix of cream, honey, eggs, olive oil ,avocados (any mix of them), mainly honey makes meat eating a lot easier (honey makes you eat even when you are not hungry, so , be carefull!)

honey its a good "starter" but i dont think its good for long term (not for the honey itself, its because it triggers something inside me that makes me think about food every 4 to 5 hours, and when eating, eating until very full, not so really healthy)

when i started eating raw meat, i chewed it a lot , until all the "meat" (red stripes, proteins, i dont know!) is dissolved into saliva and you can swallow it gently (and taste it a lot), and spitting out the hard fat-like thing that is left that can't be chewed and dissolved into saliva.

raw liver in small pieces chewed really well, first time i ate it, it was delicious and sweet for my tongue! (it was a fresh liver, killed on the morning, ate it on the night) i havent tried more liver since that.

kidney was delicious too (same, very fresh), i was scared at start, but then when chewing slowly and disolving this foods on the mouth made me like this foods so much that, right now, meat is almost the only food i eat.

Raw eggs are delicious! i have ate a lot of eggs this last 4 months, and feel very good about them. the whites are a little bit salty taste (really good!) and the yolk is just extremely delicious!! if you take eggs from the shell, making two holes to take the inside out, you can eat them slowly and enjoy them a lot!!

i hope you have the guts to go cold turkey on raw animal, and dont be afraid of any simptoms. i'm not an expert, i just have like 4-5 months into raw meat/eggs/dairy.

[TylerDurden]

My, my, those are some fancy damn chickens. LOL

I imagine there's a cheaper way to raise them on their ideal diets. Sounds like the chicken farmers are either inefficient or overcharging a bit.

I always remember my first attempts at finding raw,  100% grassfed organic meats, early on in my rawpalaeo days. As I had no idea where to look , I would go to specialist  wild game butchers and other organic sources selling such raw, organic 100% grassfed meats at  at least 4 pounds sterling for every 100g or more. £40+ per kilo!!!! Eventually, I found  ever-increasingly far cheaper sources of raw animal foods, and found, to my surprise, that raw wild game was far cheaper in the UK than so-called "raw, organic, 100% grassfed meats"! Sadly, here in Austria, they more well aware of the value of raw wild game and charge almost the same as raw organic, 100% grassfed meats.

[koalalumpur]

Thanks again guys. Last night I went and got some chicken parts after all - only meat I could source that day and reaally felt like trying some raw meat. The result - OK, got most parts down fairly easy, BUT I think I'd rather go for more seafood to start with (regardless of source, thanks for the info eveheart.). When I tried fish it was more enjoyable for me, except the smell and aftertaste.
So, any tips/links on getting the tastiest/least smelly fish or shellfish would be great, I am an absolute newbie on this. I remember I saw a BBC program where they showed the grizzly eating nothing but the Caviar. Do you guys eat this? Never saw it on the market, perhaps too expensive?

(I'm not into making any recipes or adding anything to the food. Just a personal preference.)

[eveheart]

So, any tips/links on getting the tastiest/least smelly fish or shellfish would be great, I am an absolute newbie on this.

Can you sample raw fish at a restaurant? I wouldn't assume that you'd like the taste of the fish I like, because I was raised on fish and shellfish. I remember my mother airing out the house after she baked fish, and my point here is that cooked fish can be smelly. Raw fish does not give off its aromas into the room, but it does taste like very fresh and clean... fish! Just find the very freshest wild-caught ocean fish, preferably from your local area. Ask for a filet or steak so you don't have to learn to cut up the whole fish right away. Don't be afraid to ask questions at the market.

If you are near the sea and there is a fisherman's port near you, go ask the fishermen. They all eat their fish raw and can guide you about what you might like.

[eveheart]

So, any tips/links on getting the tastiest/least smelly fish or shellfish would be great, I am an absolute newbie on this. I remember I saw a BBC program where they showed the grizzly eating nothing but the Caviar. Do you guys eat this? Never saw it on the market, perhaps too expensive?

Fish roe is edible, and there are affordable fish roes other than caviar. If the roe looks like a bubbly sac, then you have found unprocessed roe. If it is salty and the eggs are separate, then you are looking at sieved and salted roe. I like salmon roe, which I can find in the processed form.

[cherimoya_kid]

You can also get dried salmon roe. I enjoy it.

[koalalumpur]

Ah, so "Caviar" is the processed type? Will look for roe then.

As for the fishy smell - I just realized, each time I've had the fish, I went all-out and messed around with the entire thing with my bare hands ... perhaps not the best thing to do, especially when living with a partner Will try fillets then.
Any recommended shellfish to try out other than oysters?

[Raw Matt18]

Raw scallops are the shit but where I'm at wild scallops are 20 US dollars a pound but damn there good

[eveheart]

I like squid and cuttlefish, which are featured in an Korean ethnic market that I shop at. I am very food-adventurous and I like the fermented fish and crab that they sell. What part of the world are you in? That might be a good clue about what seafoods you will find there. Here, something like scallops are usually sold as the muscle only, not the whole animal, because they are hard to ship and store when live. When I have seen whole live scallops for sale, they were about $7 each!!

[koalalumpur]

in Thailand now, which should have an interesting selection but pretty hard to communicate with the market people.

[eveheart]

Thailand? Insects! https://edibug.wordpress.com/list-of-edible-insects/