What are your thoughts on pemmican as a food? Has anyone tried it/testimony to its digestibility and effectiveness? If the meat is dehydrated at low temp would you consider that raw still?
I find it a very acceptable food. I mostly eat it when traveling or away from home for a day or two and not as my primary diet. There is some concern that it really isn't "raw paleo" because the fat is rendered at a relatively high temperature, but the truth is, I must live and function in the modern world and that requires some reasonable compromises. I find pemmican a far better option than fast food fare from McDonalds, Burger King, Denny's, and 99.9% of the muck on supermarket shelves.
I find pemmican just as digestable as my normal raw meat. My experience is rather pointless however, as I've been eating this way for a long time and if you are just transitioning to paleo or zero carb, your experience will probably be much different from mine. If you are having problems with the transition to eating primarily meat and fat (either raw or cooked), don't expect any magic from trying pemmican. Those on this forum with a good bit of experience will tell you that everyone pays their dues.
I'm sure you already know, but a family on another forum claims to eat only pemmican (seemingly raw, ie. care taken to keep fat rendering and meat dehydrating below 100 degrees) with wonderful results including reclaimed health.
The claim that they are rendering fat at or below 104F is pure nonsense. If you were to order pure rendered beef tallow from US Wellness Meats (where we've been assured that the owner says he always renders his fat at 104F or below), you find that it won't even melt at this temperature. Since rendering is a process of melting the fat out of the cellular structure and driving off the water, you can easily see it would be totally impossible. There has also been some mention that the beef tallow ordered from US Wellness often has a "burnt" oder to it, and we are told that the remedy for this is to let the completed pemmican age in the open air until the burnt smell goes away - this observation and remedy come from the family that says they live on "raw" pemmican. How could you possibly get a burnt smell from something that never went over the temperature of lukewarm water.
Another issue with rendering at low temperatures is the fact that the various fatty acids melt at different temperatures. I believe that I read a post from a person in the know that stated that the most saturated fatty acids won't melt below 125F, and that it would require a temperature of at least 170F to have any chance of extracting the majority of the fatty acids from the cellular structure of the fat. This means that any fat rendered below this temperature would not have the full spectrum of fatty acids and could cause nutritional deficiencies in the long term. As I remember, he found little difference in the amount of damage done to the fatty acids as long as the temperature was kept at or below 250F. Since one of the major qualities of pemmican is the ability to keep it for long duration without refrigeration, and this requires that all water be driven from the rendered fat, it is most efficient to render the fat at a temperature slightly above the boiling point of water.
There is also much agonizing and handwringing over loss of enzymes. Many tests have been run by Bea Beyer on maintaining enzyme integrity and the truth is that there was substantially no difference in enzyme activity between things dehydrated at 104F and 125F. Things started to deteriorate rather rapidly once the temperature reached 130F for any length of time, but this also depended on the moisture content of the material. Fully dehydrated items had much less damage than soggy moist items, so the real killer is high temp in the presence of moisture.
Since the fat must be rendered at a temperature above 170F just to maintain the complete fatty acid profile, this means that there is no way to keep the enzymes intact. Infact, you don't want too, because active enzymes will cause the breakdown of the food in the presence of moisture and oxygen and this would destroy the keeping and nutritional qualities of the pemmican.
The lean meat is a different story. Here we want to maintain as many enzymes as possible to help with digestion. To achieve this we want to dry our meat below 130F and I usually try to keep my highest temperature at or below 120 just to be safe. We protect the nutrition and enzymes from degrading over time by shredding the meat and then encasing the meat fibers in the rendered fat to keep out moisture and oxygen. If we intend to keep the pemmican for more than a couple of weeks, it is also best to protect it from light, as light is an energy source and will break molecular bonds over time. You see the result of this in the fading of colors in fabrics, photographs, and artwork etc.
Each element of pemmican is important and must be properly prepared for maximum nutrition and storage life. The lean dry meat supplies the vitamins, minerals, protein, and enzymes necessary to good health and must be dehydrated at a temperature below 130F. The fat carries the calories our bodies need for fuel and serves to coat and protect the lean meat from damage by oxygen and moisture and should be rendered at a temperature above the boiling point of water but below 250F. Traditional pemmican was stored in hide bags that protected it from damage from light, and that completes the total package.
Making and storing pemmican in this way has proven itself over many centuries. To believe that we will somehow significantly improve on this process without employing modern technology such as freeze drying or other bit of high tech magic is wasted effort as far as I'm concerned.
This is probably far more than you ever wanted to know, but others on this forum may have similar questions and concerns.
Lex
