Lex's Journal

[Alan]

>>>   they had better stronger healthier jaws and teeth than we do now


just to make sure that some junior moderator once again accuses me of being arrogant - and from some sort of devotion to the (misguided?) belief that  Lex's journal deserves to have posts which exhibit a higher standard of journalism (than places designed for the unwashed masses to roam freely)..... 

i think i will request to see some EVIDENCE that Grok had stronger jaws than i do.

[Josh]

Uncooked muscle's not always that bad anyway. I've had wild venison chunks that were pretty soft and easy to eat. Maybe they just would have went for the softer parts.

e.g. The female African lion eats the organs, the male eats the hindquarters.

Agree that meat would always be high to some extent in that kind of weather.

[miles]

I haven't had any trouble eating any of the muscle I've had... Of course they were talking about big wild animals, but I doubt you/Josh have/has tried them either?

[Josh]

I was talking about UK wild deer. I don't know when they kill the deer, but they can get fairly big.

Even if a bigger animal was a bit tougher, you could still eat the softer bits of muscle if you weren't desperate.

[miles]

You said that 'uncooked muscle's not always that bad anyway'. I was saying that in my experience, it's never been bad(difficult to eat).

[Josh]

Well casserole beef can be a bit chewy. I wouldn't want to eat a lot of the kind I get with nothing else.

[achillezzz]

and they had better stronger healthier jaws and teeth than we do now. jaws and grip strength are 2 bio-markers of true health.

explain please I want to know more about this.

[lex_rooker]

We seem to be getting a bit far afield from the purpose of my journal but some comment may be appropriate as Hanna asked my opinion on 'fresh' meat and Tyler had an interesting comment a few posts back.  Here's my reply to Hanna:

When it comes to fresh killed meat, it is only fresh killed for a very short time. It starts to decompose immediately and in warm weather, is well on its way to rotting within hours.  If you think about it, most of the time we’d be eating our meat at some level of decomposition and very little of it would be fresh as refrigeration and preservation techniques are modern inventions.  In our natural environment, without technology, we would kill an animal, eat what we could, (maybe a few pounds), and the rest would be eaten over several days or weeks.  Anything eaten after the first day would certainly be rotting.

As I’ve continued this adventure, I’ve actually come to like my meat more on the ripe side. Not to the point of being gooey and slimy, but dark in color and with the distinctive smell that would have had my mother trashing it or feeding it to the dogs. In the summer it even has a bit of a sour taste as it decomposes and ferments in the heat of the afternoon.  Fresh red meat is really bland and tasteless.  I can eat it, but it is boring.

Lex

[Alan]

>>   I’ve actually come to like my meat more on the ripe side

Please correct me if my memory is becoming as bad as my social skills, but your description of your normal home food routine, layed out a very careful compliance with the hygiene requirements of the fresh-meat cold chain.



I would also mention that typical paleolithic human hunter-gatherer bands were large enough to eat quite a bit of even a large animal, within hours.

we know that many paleo bands preferred and treasured older, larger animals with plenty of fat deposits and meat.... but I think that predators typically end up eating a large percentage of juvenile (=skinny) and sickly (=skinny) herbivores.

The North American Great Plains Indians apparently had evolved a real assembly-line process of quickly processing fresh meat into packaged pemmican.

Apropos of pemmican making....   does rendering  bovine fat occur at a low enough (isn't 104 F the "magic number?) temperature to qualify as a "raw" food?

[rawcarni]

Lex,
I have a question: I know from hunting experience that mammals as deer, red deer etc. are quite lean, so wouldn't it make sense that our anchestors ate way more lean than say 80% calories from fat? I just find it hard to imagine that they would go for the fat after a kill and leave some of the leaner meats behind?
Thanks
Nicole

[Taste Sense]

I am kind of naturally transitioning onto an all red meat diet anyway and have a question for Lex. Do you get bad breath from rotten meats?

[lex_rooker]

>>   I’ve actually come to like my meat more on the ripe side

Please correct me if my memory is becoming as bad as my social skills, but your description of your normal home food routine, layed out a very careful compliance with the hygiene requirements of the fresh-meat cold chain.

What the heck is “the hygiene requirements of the fresh-meat cold chain”?  Never heard of it.  I do thaw, mix, repackage, and then refreeze my food when I receive a shipment.  This is because I get a month or more of food at a time and if left in the fridge it would be mostly goo after a couple of weeks.  I often take out 5 days worth of food and let it thaw in the fridge.  Each day I take a thawed package and leave it out to warm up for most of the day.  By the 4th and 5th days, the packages in the fridge are dark and have an off smell.  After they’ve sat out in the warm weather (especially in summer) for 6-8 hours they are bubbly and sour tasting.

I would also mention that typical paleolithic human hunter-gatherer bands were large enough to eat quite a bit of even a large animal, within hours.

we know that many paleo bands preferred and treasured older, larger animals with plenty of fat deposits and meat.... but I think that predators typically end up eating a large percentage of juvenile (=skinny) and sickly (=skinny) herbivores.

And we know this how?  I don’t know of anyone who was around 100,000 to ½ a million years ago and I know of no literature describing day-to-day paleo life that has survived from that period either.  The modern literature on the subject is just speculation, and based on the poor track record of the “experts”, I’m not willing to accept their wishful thinking as fact, and therefore I don’t claim to know anything about the daily life of our paleo ancestors at all.

The North American Great Plains Indians apparently had evolved a real assembly-line process of quickly processing fresh meat into packaged pemmican.

Apropos of pemmican making....   does rendering  bovine fat occur at a low enough (isn't 104 F the "magic number?) temperature to qualify as a "raw" food?

I know of no “magic number”, whatever that is, but I do know that you can’t render fat at 104 F.  104 F won’t even melt the more saturated fatty acids.  You must render fat at a temperature above the point of boiling water.  Of course you can melt fat at any temperature you wish, but melting is not rendering.

Making pemmican is a lot of work and requires time and technology.  I find it simpler to just eat my food raw and spend the time I save working on clocks, playing the piano, watching TV, or a host of other more interesting activities.  Pemmican is a great emergency food, but I only eat it when raw foods are not convenient or available.

Lex

[lex_rooker]

Lex,
I have a question: I know from hunting experience that mammals as deer, red deer etc. are quite lean, so wouldn't it make sense that our ancestors ate way more lean than say 80% calories from fat? I just find it hard to imagine that they would go for the fat after a kill and leave some of the leaner meats behind?
Thanks
Nicole

I can’t argue with you here – especially if you are talking about the normal muscle meat cuts that have become the norm for our modern diets.  The only thing I’d add is that there seems to be some evidence that our ancestors raised the fat content of their diets by eating the organs, the brains, and cracking the bones to eat the marrow, all of which are high in fat.

The average fat content of the muscle meat of wild deer is about 4% which is about 30% of calories from fat.  Adding in the fat content of the total animal I think I read it comes to more like 10% to 12% and this raises calories from fat to between 50% and 55%, which, as you point out is far less than 80%.  Remember that the 80% number is something made up by gurus and experts that really don’t know anything about it at all.  It’s all just speculation.  I find that I do very well on 60-65 percent of calories from fat but have come to love the taste of fat as I’ve adapted to this diet so often eat more like 80%.  I can do this because in our modern world this level of fat is available.  In the natural wild environment I’d be limited to what is in the animal, but the craving of fat would drive me to find every ounce of fat possible – hence cracking the bones to get at the marrow.

Our modern food processing is a major problem.  I’m sure that we ate fruits in the late summer which allowed us quickly put on weight to prepare us for winter.  The carbs themselves are not a problem, it’s the fact that they are now available all year around and have been made the center of our diet that gets us in trouble.

To be honest, the same could go for fat.  We crave fat because we need it and wild animals (our normal food) are low in fat, so we are driven to scavenge every ounce.  However, in today’s world, lots of fat is available and therefore we can eat as much as we want.  This might actually be a problem.  We’re driven to eat fat because it is scarce in our normal food supply, but if allowed to eat our fill day in and day out, it might cause long term problems as well.  Maybe levels of 50% calories from fat are what we really need, supplemented by a few carbs in the late summer to boost weight for the winter months.  Something to think about…..

Lex

[lex_rooker]

I am kind of naturally transitioning onto an all red meat diet anyway and have a question for Lex. Do you get bad breath from rotten meats?

Not that I'm aware of.  I don't eat overly rotten meat, on a regular basis.  My normal food is only in the early stages of decomposition.  I'm sure that there is some issue with breath shortly after eating, but no one has said anything indicating that I have a general problem in that area.  Hmmmmm, maybe that's why no one hangs around much.....

Lex

[Hannibal]

  Hmmmmm, maybe that's why no one hangs around much.....

That could be true.
But dogs hang around, aren't they?

[rawcarni]

I find that I do very well on 60-65 percent of calories from fat but have come to love the taste of fat as I’ve adapted to this diet so often eat more like 80%.  I can do this because in our modern world this level of fat is available.  In the natural wild environment I’d be limited to what is in the animal, but the craving of fat would drive me to find every ounce of fat possible – hence cracking the bones to get at the marrow.

 Maybe levels of 50% calories from fat are what we really need, supplemented by a few carbs in the late summer to boost weight for the winter months.  Something to think about…..

Lex

I was just wondering if it would be "safe" so to say to eat a lesser% of fat, as I have been eating about 60-70% (guestimate) for quite some time - now I have read about the higher fat% being supposedely "better" in the long run. So I tried it, sarting eating 70/30 GB only for couple days, but I found that when I eat 70/30 GB my heart starts to race and I feel a rather strong pulsing sensation in my stomach-I wondered if I should simply try eating that high fat a little longer and see if that will change or if I should simply go back eating more lean
Thanks
Nicole

[Alan]

>>>   I know of no “magic number”, whatever that is


    Tyler (owner of this board) and many other card-carrying-raw-true-believers apparently have chosen 104 F  as the maximum temperature above which they draw a "has been cooked" line in the sand.

In general,  I enjoy and almost prefer the taste of cooked beef.  However, in my personal meal preparation, i can't seem to work up the motivation to do it and its attendant cleanup. I buy raw ground beef a serving at a time, and eat it out of the package

[achillezzz]

>>>   I know of no “magic number”, whatever that is


    Tyler (owner of this board) and many other card-carrying-raw-true-believers apparently have chosen 104 F  as the maximum temperature above which they draw a "has been cooked" line in the sand.

In general,  I enjoy and almost prefer the taste of cooked beef.  However, in my personal meal preparation, i can't seem to work up the motivation to do it and its attendant cleanup. I buy raw ground beef a serving at a time, and eat it out of the package

is your ground beef grassfed?
You know that ground beef, when you buy it prepared there is a little risk of contimination? better make it yourself 

[yuli]

... when you buy it prepared there is a little risk of contimination? better make it yourself 

sure but not everyone has the space or money to get a good meat grinder...
I eat both grassfed/finished AND factory pre-ground beef completely raw, or half-raw burger patty (cooked hot outside and slightly warm raw inside)... never had a problem with any of it...
There is also risk of your vegetables and fruits being contaminated, everything has a small risk...even going outside you may be hit by a car.
By the way if you get it from a clean professional butcher shop its ground on the day you buy it, and they do clean their grinder as its expensive equipment (like an espresso/cappuccino machine in a cofeeshop), they also wear gloves to handle the meat...so its a pretty small risk.

[TylerDurden]

>>>   I know of no “magic number”, whatever that is


    Tyler (owner of this board) and many other card-carrying-raw-true-believers apparently have chosen 104 F  as the maximum temperature above which they draw a "has been cooked" line in the sand.

   First I am not the owner, and the 104 degrees fahrenheit is more or less a rough figure. Some rawists think the figure should be higher, but 104 degrees is the one guaranteeing no destruction of enzymes(except perhaps in raw honey).

[miles]

Conscious passive contamination from cleaning chemicals is the one to be concerned about, as well as intentional adding of preservatives. In my town there are two butchers, one smells of chemicals, all their meat smells and tastes of chemicals, everything, it's horrible. The other one to me doesn't smell of anything and all their stuff is good.

[yuli]

Well then buy from a professional butcher that knows their shit, their meat should not taste like chemicals...its true though I got a few times meat I didn't want to eat cause it had a weird taste, but that was very rare. Most of the ground red meat I get tastes amazing, especially the grassfed one, the organic grain-fed and the ground bison. The ground meat should not taste any different from the whole pieces.
By the way if I had a butcher that smelled like chemicals I wouldn't even get whole meat cuts from them either...if they have chemicals on their grinder then they have the chemicals on their knives, counters and cutting boards too.

[miles]

Yeah, chemicals everywhere in that one butcher... I don't get anything from there, only a few times at the beginning, and I didn't eat much of any of what I bought. I didn't even know about the other butcher at that time. I went to that butcher after trying to eat raw the machine-sealed mass-packed supermarket beef mince which I'd been eating on cooked paleo, to find by taste/smell that it's got horrible chemicals in it.

[lex_rooker]

I was just wondering if it would be "safe" so to say to eat a lesser% of fat, as I have been eating about 60-70% (guestimate) for quite some time - now I have read about the higher fat% being supposedely "better" in the long run.

What would make higher fat better?  Better than what?  Yes, it is possible to have too low a fat intake but in our modern world this is probably next to impossible when eating meat from commercial sources.  Now if you were out in the woods in the winter with only ultra lean rabbit meat to eat, then you might have a problem unless you consumed some carbs as well.  If the meat contains 10% or more of fat by weight, then I doubt that you’ll have any problem at all.

So I tried it, sarting eating 70/30 GB only for couple days, but I found that when I eat 70/30 GB my heart starts to race and I feel a rather strong pulsing sensation in my stomach-I wondered if I should simply try eating that high fat a little longer and see if that will change or if I should simply go back eating more lean

Many of us, me included, experienced heart palpitations and high pulse rates when suddenly switching to very high fat diets.  This is normal.  Normal from the standpoint that it seems to happen to most people under these conditions.  However, this may actually point out that maybe eating exceptionally high fat diets ( just because we can) is not necessarily normal.  That maybe our craving for high fat works in the natural world where ultra high fat is not available in the wild animals we’d be eating, driving us to get every ounce of fat available from very lean animals, but may work to our disadvantage in the modern world were we have all the fat we want at our fingertips.  I feel the same way about our sweet tooth.  It drives us to eat carbs in the late summer when fruits are ripe so that we put on weight to get us through the winter, but causes us problems in the supermarket where fruit (not to mention fruit pies, twinkies, cupcakes, candy bars, and soft drinks) are available 24x7x365 with no natural restrictions.

Anyway, if you stick with the high fat long enough (months), the palpitations will go away and you’ll feel fine.  The question you have to wrestle with is if you believe that maybe your body is telling you something about consistently eating an ultra high fat diet and maybe you should listen to it?  Or all the guru’s on this website are smarter than your body and you should listen to them instead.  Your call,

Lex

[lex_rooker]

That could be true.
But dogs hang around, don't they?

Come to think of it, dogs seem to find me irrestable.  I chalked it up to my wonderful personality.  Maybe I should rethink my position...

Lex