Completely dehydrated meat (24+hours), even processed to a powder as in pemmican, will cause the return of my IBS symptoms of severe stomach upset and bowel distress. One hour to bring meat to room temp or so has been okay, but even four hours I can tell a disturbance in my digestion.
Just seems odd??
I have eaten pemmican for 4 days in a row a few times in the past. Almost 2 months ago, I wanted to try living off it for 28 days during my vacation. If everything went well, the time period would have been extended to 6 months to 1 year, just to see how it goes for long periods. Mainly the experiment was for potential survival situations. well, I didn't even last 1 week. I had been zero carb for over 1 week prior to the event. What I have found so far is that suet tends to give me indigestion. 1 meal of suet pemmican is no problem, but more than that has a cumulative effect, and I can't eat more than 6 to 8 oz per day. I can eat 12 to 16 oz of pemmican made with muscle fat. I haven't tried this for more than a day though lately, so I don't know for sure. More experimentation and lots of time is needed.
The pemmican I had eaten for 4 days in the past ( about 4 or 5 years ago ), with no problems was dehydrated at 140 F or more and also made with muscle fat. The failed experiment pemmican was low temperature dried meat ( 90 F ) and mixed with suet. In the next few weeks, I'm going to try drying the meat at 140 F and mix that with suet. I know that is not raw, but I want to identify the variables that are causing the stomach problems. I have no problems digesting raw meat.
Another factor could be that the meat is very dry, and that it needs a certain amount of water to digest in the stomach. It could be a combination of all 3 factors together that makes it worse. In regular raw meat, 2 potential factors are removed. The meat has more moisture, and the fat is less saturated than suet. I'm going to have to figure out if it's more one factor than another, or all together.
Now, I suppose it could be suggested that I just bite the bullet and continue on until I have adjusted to it. The problem with that is I don't intend on living off of pemmican, but may have to one day for emergency purposes only. That would pose a problem in the way of having to adjust for several weeks if this were to ever happen.
Maybe this is not a matter of detox. It could be more like a training affect. Running will build cardio but will do little for building muscle. Weights will build muscle but have only a small effect for cardio. Switching from one form of exercise to another would cause problems if one wanted to jog 10 km, but has been only lifting weights for the past year. I think it may be similar for eating. The body may have to be trained to eat a certain way. Switching quickly from one style of eating to another may cause temporary adjustment periods. Perhaps after eating pemmican for a few weeks, the digestive system will recognize the meal as "the dry stuff", and will compensate with more water, or slower travel through the intestines, and maybe even different digestive enzymes.
All the above is only my own speculation. I can't figure out why I can eat 2 or 3 lbs of raw meat or the same amount cooked, but can't get more than 6 oz of pemmican without my stomach doing flips. Pemmican is just a steak that has the water removed. Theoretically there should be no problem.
Tom