Eating frequency

[TylerDurden]

From the link "From a menu survey of hospital cafeteria items and local eating establishments, a total of 250 foods were determined to represent foods and culinary techniques typical of a multiethnic urban population."

Studying notoriously bad food makes the conclusion of the study worthless.

Best would be to study the result of a pemmican diet, but that has not been done, so we must go by the experience of those who actually do it.
AFAIK the result is always improvement in health.

They simply chose those foods as they are common foods eaten by everybody. Hardly anybody in western populations eats crappy foods like tallow or lard or pemmican. That said, the study unequivocally shows that all of the foods containing high levels of cooked animal fat were the unhealthiest, due to the increased amounts of AGEs etc. routinely created in animal fats as a result of cooking, so clearly the same applies to pemmican and tallow and cooked lard. Unless you're trying to make an absurd claim that tallow or pemmican have some unique type of fat(not saturated/monounsaturated or polyunsaturated) that isn't present in other similiar animal fats?

[William]

They simply chose those foods as they are common foods eaten by everybody. Hardly anybody in western populations eats crappy foods like tallow or lard or pemmican. That said, the study unequivocally shows that all of the foods containing high levels of cooked animal fat were the unhealthiest, due to the increased amounts of AGEs etc. routinely created in animal fats as a result of cooking, so clearly the same applies to pemmican and tallow and cooked lard. Unless you're trying to make an absurd claim that tallow or pemmican have some unique type of fat(not saturated/monounsaturated or polyunsaturated) that isn't present in other similiar animal fats?

Unique in the sense that it's the one they do not and will not study. Maybe they suspect that it would show no AGEs.





In Science the authority embodied in the opinion of thousands is not worth a spark of reason in one man.  - Galileo Galilei

[TylerDurden]

Unique in the sense that it's the one they do not and will not study. Maybe they suspect that it would show no AGEs.

And pigs will fly! LOL!

[carnivore]

And pigs will fly! LOL!

It would be very interesting to see the amount of AGEs/ALEs and other harmful substances in tallow made at low temp (after grinding). I suspect it would be relatively low (compared to say beef broil) because the cooking temperature is low (around 40°C), there is presence of moisture, and it is better tolerated than cooked tallow which tastes and smells burned.
After all, it consists more in warming up than in cooking. 

[TylerDurden]

It would be very interesting to see the amount of AGEs/ALEs and other harmful substances in tallow made at low temp (after grinding). I suspect it would be relatively low (compared to say beef broil) because the cooking temperature is low (around 40°C), there is presence of moisture, and it is better tolerated than cooked tallow which tastes and smells burned.
After all, it consists more in warming up than in cooking. 

Absolutely. I have nothing against warmed tallow(warmed to 40 degrees Celsius). But once one reaches higher temperatures, the food not only loses enzymes and bacteria-content but also starts developing heat-created toxins.

What puzzles me is the need to warm suet to 40 degrees Celsius. What for? I mean, Lex has admitted that you need much higher temperatures to get tallow/pemmican etc. to last for long enough periods. or is this just a transitional thing for taste reasons?

[carnivore]

Absolutely. I have nothing against warmed tallow(warmed to 40 degrees Celsius). But once one reaches higher temperatures, the food not only loses enzymes and bacteria-content but also starts developing heat-created toxins.

What puzzles me is the need to warm suet to 40 degrees Celsius. What for? I mean, Lex has admitted that you need much higher temperatures to get tallow/pemmican etc. to last for long enough periods. or is this just a transitional thing for taste reasons?

I digest tallow better than raw fat for the moment. But that maybe simply because I eat too much fat. will see.
Tallow does not taste better than fat for me, and honestly, I would prefer to do without it.
Pemmican is very easy to digest, and takes less volume in the stomach than raw meat. One meal a day of pemmican is possible for small stomach!

[William]

Absolutely. I have nothing against warmed tallow(warmed to 40 degrees Celsius). But once one reaches higher temperatures, the food not only loses enzymes and bacteria-content but also starts developing heat-created toxins.

Until we hear otherwise, lipase is one of the enzymes that we never lose the ability to create in our own bodies, so the only thing that might be wrong with tallow is the hypothetical heat-created toxins. I write "hypothetical" because there is no experience that these actually exist.
Heat-created chemicals, of course - we can taste them - but toxic? There is AFAIK no credible evidence.

What puzzles me is the need to warm suet to 40 degrees Celsius. What for? I mean, Lex has admitted that you need much higher temperatures to get tallow/pemmican etc. to last for long enough periods. or is this just a transitional thing for taste reasons?

Some of us have trouble with raw fat, not a question of taste, as raw tastes better to me than rendered fat. This is a puzzle. I wonder if it is something that butchers do? Wash with chlorine?

[PaleoPhil]

Yes, I still eat raw suet. My point still stands re tallow. Something that is used to clean the body (and used to make candlewax)cannot be as effective as a food. They are 2 entirely different processes. Either 1 substance can be more effective as a food and therefore less effective as a cleaning substance or vice-versa. I note, for example, that many of Aajonus' more unusual  suggestions re using raw food as cleansing agents are rather less effective than standard soaps I use.

OK, I'm trying to understand this. Have you tried using raw suet to clean the body? If raw suet can be used to clean the body, would that then indicate that it's not effective as a food? Does the fact that suet can be rendered into soap make suet less healthy than other foods? If so, what is the mechanism that makes tallow and suet less healthy because they can be made into soap?

I tried using both a nice clean piece of raw suet and suet that had been melted at low heat as a soap and I actually found that the raw suet makes a better soap, because the melted suet was too soft and crumbly. So does that mean that raw suet is less healthy because it makes a better soap?

Did you know that tallow is often rendered and filtered a second time in order to make a good soap out of it and that the resulting more refined tallow is generally saponified to convert it into a true soap by treatment with alkali? So both raw suet and tallow must be further processed with at least one other ingredient before they become what's generally regarded as a true (sudsy) soap.

It's a fact that even boiling creates heat-created toxins

OK, At what temp. do these toxins get created when heating fats or other liquids? The article at your link lists the values for olive oil and butter. Do you have the AGE levels produced by heating raw suet or marrow?

Since you do seem to make clear that the tallow is heated below 40 degrees Celsius, and that you mainly use it for weight-gaining purposes , that's fine. I recall some other RAFer stating that he ate cooked potatoes in order to gain weight and another RVAFer who ate cooked potatoes for sport-related reasons, so I'm aware there are also  other concerns than just health.

I'll have to measure the temp to be sure. It certainly isn't anywhere near a roiling boil.

What puzzles me is the need to warm suet to 40 degrees Celsius. What for? I mean, Lex has admitted that you need much higher temperatures to get tallow/pemmican etc. to last for long enough periods. or is this just a transitional thing for taste reasons?

As I mentioned, in my case I use melted suet and jerky for multiple reasons. Adjusting gradually to the taste and digestion of raw fats is one reason, yes. Also, weight maintenance and gain, social reasons, convenience, portability (including reducing the weight of the meat by drying it), etc. Long-term preservation is not necessary for me (after all, I'm not living in the wilderness) and I've never thought nor claimed that tallow is equal or superior, healthwise, to suet, so those issues have little to do with it for me. I know that Lex is not fond of this approach, but I find that it's working for me at present.

What puzzles me is why all the fuss over heating a portion of one's food below 40 degrees celsius? This small compromise doesn't seem like such a crime to me. Is there a fear that people will abandon the standard RPD in favor of one based on pemmican and other more thoroughly heated foods? I have no interest in doing that myself and most of the melted suet, tallow and pemmican eaters I've seen here have continued to eat a mostly RPD, so there doesn't seem to be much of a threat.

[Ioanna]

Tyler, how do you eat the raw suet?.. is it room temp, cold, warm?

[carnivore]

What puzzles me is why all the fuss over heating a portion of one's food below 40 degrees celsius? This small compromise doesn't seem like such a crime to me. Is there a fear that people will abandon the standard RPD in favor of one based on pemmican and other more thoroughly heated foods? I have no interest in doing that myself and most of the melted suet, tallow and pemmican eaters I've seen here have continued to eat a mostly RPD, so there doesn't seem to be much of a threat.

We have the testimonial of an happy family (delfuego on zerocarbarge.com) who eats only pemmican for 4 years. The woman cured her lyme desease, the 2 boys grow without problems and are never sick, and Delfuego is in perfect shape.

This simply proves that pemmican (from pastured animals) can be a healthy food!

http://s766.photobucket.com/albums/xx306/chachajoe/?action=view&current=GEDC1801.jpg&newest=1

[TylerDurden]

Tyler, how do you eat the raw suet?.. is it room temp, cold, warm?

Well, I just take it out of the fridge and eat it within half an hour.

[TylerDurden]

Until we hear otherwise, lipase is one of the enzymes that we never lose the ability to create in our own bodies, so the only thing that might be wrong with tallow is the hypothetical heat-created toxins. I write "hypothetical" because there is no experience that these actually exist.
Heat-created chemicals, of course - we can taste them - but toxic? There is AFAIK no credible evidence.

It doesn't matter if we still have enzymes in the body. The fact that there are enzymes in raw foods helps to predigest them so our bodies don't have to make the effort. it's the constant consumption of cooked foods over time, such as tallow, which helps to undermine and weaken the digestive system sio that people often develop problems with their ability to produce enzymes in old age.

As for the heat-created chemicals from cooking being toxic, I have already supplied masses of scientific papers on the subject(as found on the child boards) so they are  100% proven fact.  Here's 1 paper proving that cooking tallow increases the chance of colon-cancer:-

http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/cgi/reprint/50/21/6955.pdf


William, you are certainly a mass of contradictions. You are a Creationist who favours a palaeolithic diet(belief in the latter generally   requires a pre-held belief in Darwinian evolution). You also advocate smoking and cooked foods yet also preach about the benefits of a raw diet.

[TylerDurden]

OK, I'm trying to understand this. Have you tried using raw suet to clean the body? If raw suet can be used to clean the body, would that then indicate that it's not effective as a food? Does the fact that suet can be rendered into soap make suet less healthy than other foods? If so, what is the mechanism that makes tallow and suet less healthy because they can be made into soap?
Actually, I did consider using raw suet as a soap when I once heard ages back about tallow being used. But I realised it wouldn't work(I didn't think of melting it(as that would constitute heating), just using it raw and solid).

As for tallow being further processed, I was under the impression that tallow was used in more ancient times, and would have , presumably, undergone less processing than you describe, in those times.

OK, At what temp. do these toxins get created when heating fats or other liquids? The article at your link lists the values for olive oil and butter. Do you have the AGE levels produced by heating raw suet or marrow?

Tallow/suet is so very rarely eaten by people that there are hardly any decent studies or food-reports done on the effects of cooking on suet. Here are the only 2 I can think of:-

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T9G-4WJ3DYM-3&_user=10&_coverDate=06%2F16%2F2009&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=993569234&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=8a45fe7f360841e0f1a3dbcd7ea7cfe4

Then there's this study, showing that eating cooked tallow caused colon-cancer, unlike the raw version thereof:-

http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/cgi/reprint/50/21/6955.pdf

There's been virtually no serious studies done as yet, on only mildly heating foods, only on boiling foods and upwards.

What puzzles me is why all the fuss over heating a portion of one's food below 40 degrees celsius? This small compromise doesn't seem like such a crime to me. Is there a fear that people will abandon the standard RPD in favor of one based on pemmican and other more thoroughly heated foods? I have no interest in doing that myself and most of the melted suet, tallow and pemmican eaters I've seen here have continued to eat a mostly RPD, so there doesn't seem to be much of a threat.

I'm not bothered with simple heating up to 40 degrees Celsius on an individual basis. What worries me is that the initial reaction of most cooked-food-diet-followers to a raw diet  is to (rigidly) state something along the lines:- "but surely as long as you only eat unprocessed foods and only lightly cook them , then everything's 100% alright re health" . Of course, that isn't the case at all given heat-created toxins in all cooked foods etc., and this sort of pemmican-advertising backs up that foolish notion of SAD-eaters. And it is worrying when people use erroneous words like "beneficial" in relation to a food which , at best, can only ever be a very poor 2nd-rate compromise food. And, given the heat-created toxins present in tallow, tallow is really not much different from other crappy foods like McDonald's hamburgers or a cooked restaurant meal. We don't have lots of posts enthusing about the supposed benefits of mcdonald's hamburgers or cooked lard or whatever, so there's no good reason to encourage similiar large numbers of posts re tallow or pemmican. I don't mind people using them on an individual basis, but promotion thereof as a suitable food on an RPD diet isn't really appropriate. Otherwise, newbies would automatically and falsely assume that light cooking was OK, after continuous reading about pemmican(after all, pemmican is rarely heated below 40 degrees, usually at a much higher rate).

[William]

It doesn't matter if we still have enzymes in the body. The fact that there are enzymes in raw foods helps to predigest them so our bodies don't have to make the effort. it's the constant consumption of cooked foods over time, such as tallow, which helps to undermine and weaken the digestive system sio that people often develop problems with their ability to produce enzymes in old age.

My point was that we don't get this particular weakness.

As for the heat-created chemicals from cooking being toxic, I have already supplied masses of scientific papers on the subject(as found on the child boards) so they are  100% proven fact.  Here's 1 paper proving that cooking tallow increases the chance of colon-cancer:-

http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/cgi/reprint/50/21/6955.pdf

It proves no such thing. For instance "Experimental animals were fed diets in which
one, two, or three of the components were cooked in an oven at 180°C
until golden brown before they were added to the diet."
We are careful not to use such overcooked fat, maximum fr us is 250F, so this study is useless.
And "Two rats fed the casein and beef tallow cooked together had adenocarcinomas." Isn't casein a milk protein? And did the experimenters make tallow as carefuilly as we by filtering the solids out?
Note that they do use the word "cooked" rather than "rendered", so as not to appears too biased, but really this is junk science and useless.

William, you are certainly a mass of contradictions. You are a Creationist who favours a palaeolithic diet(belief in the latter generally   requires a pre-held belief in Darwinian evolution). You also advocate smoking and cooked foods yet also preach about the benefits of a raw diet.

I am not a creationist. I am a mugwump.
I believe those ideas which have passed the test of critical analysis, and are the best we get to the truth, and then tested on myself if possible. For instance, Darwin never showed that humans evolved, so there is nothing to test.
I do not advocate smoking, however we have centuries of harmless use, compared to hysterical and superstitious BS from the anti-smoking blowhards.
I do not advocate cooked food. I see tallow as fuel, and a point of the study you quoted, and possibly the only useful one in it is that the tallow we eat is not cooked. It is rendered.

There is no contradiction if you would pay attention to the details. You don't seem to see them.

[TylerDurden]

I see you peddle the usual bollocks, William! LOL! I've shown de facto that cooked tallow is harmful re toxins and this is the best you can provide? Pathetic!! I should add that Lex, an ardent pro-pemmican -advocate, states that 250 degrees Fahrenheit is normal for making pemmican(so as to make it last longer). So the study is most relevant, indeed!!!

[William]

I've shown de facto that cooked tallow is harmful re toxins

Not.
The evidence of many over countless years shows that it is not harmful.

I should add that Lex, an ardent pro-pemmican -advocate, states that 250 degrees Fahrenheit is normal for making pemmican(so as to make it last longer). So the study is most relevant, indeed!!!

Again, not.
The study used a cooking (not rendering!) temperature of 356°F/180C°, so is irrelevant. None of us would be so foolish as to render at that temperature.

[PaleoPhil]

Thanks for making me chuckle with your colorful-as-usual posts, William. You're a true iconoclast and free spirit in every forum you participate in. I hope you don't get in trouble for it. I enjoy your posts even though I often disagree with them--and I think you did contribute to my interest in increasing the raw meats and animal fats in my diet.

As for tallow being further processed, I was under the impression that tallow was used in more ancient times, and would have , presumably, undergone less processing than you describe, in those times.

Probably. Maybe people used to use pure tallow and then someone decided to mix ash with it when they found it made it sudsy. I would think that less processed versions would also be less toxic. I think the wood-ash lye is most likely the most toxic thing in traditional soap, rather than the tallow.

Tallow/suet is so very rarely eaten by people that there are hardly any decent studies or food-reports done on the effects of cooking on suet. Here are the only 2 I can think of:-

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T9G-4WJ3DYM-3&_user=10&_coverDate=06%2F16%2F2009&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=993569234&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=8a45fe7f360841e0f1a3dbcd7ea7cfe4

Then there's this study, showing that eating cooked tallow caused colon-cancer, unlike the raw version thereof:-

http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/cgi/reprint/50/21/6955.pdf

OK, thanks. The first study requires purchase and the second study involves cooking to 356 ºF (which I haven't done in years) and includes casein (which I don't eat) with the tallow, so I'm not too concerned about that one.

There's been virtually no serious studies done as yet, on only mildly heating foods, only on boiling foods and upwards.

OK, I'm not going to worry too much about it then. You're free to choose your own path, of course.

I'm not bothered with simple heating up to 40 degrees Celsius on an individual basis. What worries me is that the initial reaction of most cooked-food-diet-followers to a raw diet  is to (rigidly) state something along the lines:- "but surely as long as you only eat unprocessed foods and only lightly cook them , then everything's 100% alright re health" .

I see. Sounds like you're trying to keep newcomers from weasling out before they've even tried fully raw by coming up with too many excuses for compromising based solely on unproven assumptions, yes? I'll try to keep that in mind. I definitely want to get to the point of being fully raw at some point so I can at least try it, and I try not to make too many assumptions or harshly criticize anything I haven't tried.