high meat? raw meat storage? no appetite

[nummytummy]

i've had some lamb's meat in the fridge for about a week, just in the plastic bags that i got them in from the halal butcher i go to. the meat is fresh and unpackaged when i buy it, cut directly from the carcasses hanging in the large meat locker they have there.

i noticed two things. first the meat they have in the meat locker is usually bright red, probably from the air circulation, because the hunks of meat are spaced out pretty well.

second, i noticed after a few days that the meat i'd had in the (unsealed) plastic bag started to have an "off" smell, not rotting, but just off. also the colour isn't bright red, but duller and paler, more the colour of dark chicken meat, like chicken leg or thigh. keep in mind this is lamb and the other lamb i had was bright saturated red.

i also had a plate of meat in the refrigerator, mostly whatever was left on bones after i cut off the bigger chunks to take with me to have for lunch somewhere, that i leave uncovered. the flesh left on this meat was bright red and it didn't smell off. it seemed more like cured meat, in both the colour and texture; it's a bit drier and a bright almost magenta red. and tastes more like blood in a way, which somehow i like.

so i'm wondering if the meat i had in the plastic bags is starting to go high? i've eaten some, and i don't seem to be getting sick (we'll see in a few hours i guess), but the smell puts me off. it's also a bit slimy. i find i prefer the drier meat that was sitting open on the plate.

i also don't have much of an appetite now in general and have been feeling quite fatigued, and the smell of the maybe high-ish meat doesn't help matters much in terms of my appetite for eating raw meat. i'm not sure if i should keep eating it or toss it or air it out.

suggestions? can meat start to go high like this? and is it normal for even early high meat to not be appetising to people new to eating RAF? (i've been trying to eat raw meats of various kinds for about a month now.)

[miles]

I had this decrease in appetite and other problems you mention. It continued to build up and get worse until I would have a fever and then I'd be better and the cycle would repeat. I only went through it twice. For the last few months I've bought my meat fresh from the butcher every day, preferably in joints, of around the weight to last me that day and maybe a bit of the next and I've had no problems. I have occasionally felt slightly less good when I've decided to have some off-meat(not because I wanted off-meat, just because some meat I'd had went off and I felt like not 'wasting' it) now and again so I prefer to avoid it. The larger the joint you buy the fresher it will be. I buy about 1.5-2kg joint every day. But then some people only like to eat ~500g per day anyway. Anyhow, I'd say it's best to buy everyday fresh if you can. However... If you can store your meat to be almost completely(including the underside) exposed to the air, then it can keep quite well for several days. It won't taste as fresh, but it won't be off either. Either that, or if you get your meat competently vacuum packed it can stay fresh for months. The best taste is in the blood for me too... I've not had the blood on its' own, but when I've been able to get bloody meat, it's been the best. I'd even dip it in the blood if it was dripping off in to the bowl/plate to get more of the taste.

Smooth, ceramic plates are very bad to keep meat on. Dented polystyrene plates work alright for short-term but I think if you want to keep your meat for weeks, then you need to be able to hang it, or maybe place it on a grill.

[TylerDurden]

High-meat takes c.1 month to produce the effect people want from it re mood-improvement/energy etc.

Most newbies find they need to eat raw meat that is absolutely fresh, at first. As time goes on, they become increasingly able to handle the taste of raw meats that have been aged for several days or even weeks. I was much like that when I first started rpd. At first, I had to eat any raw meats within 2 days of buying them. Then, after a few months, I found that I could handle and enjoy the taste of raw aged tongue, and so on.

[nummytummy]

@ TD: So would you recommend waiting on the high meat?

I had this decrease in appetite and other problems you mention. It continued to build up and get worse until I would have a fever and then I'd be better and the cycle would repeat.

I've been feeling really tired and unmotivated and my neck and shoulders seem really stiff, and in general I haven't been sleeping so well. If I'm going to get sick I'd rather just get it all over with now and start feeling better already. I'm still waiting for this magical turning point of fatigue and generally feeling horrible, hitting bottom and then bouncing back up into an improved state, but it's not happening it seems.

I'm starting to not really believe in the concept of detox. I think if something is good for you, it'll make you feel better and if it's not, it'll make you feel worse. I guess the only times I've experienced what seemed to be a valid sort of "detox" was once when I ate a bunch of organic watermelon with seeds to flush the kidneys, and ended up flushing something out into my bloodstream that numbed up my urinary tract and gave me intense hives all over my body for a week, which I then got rid of by liver flushing and sweating it all out and eating fresh garlic to kill what seemed to be rampant candida, probably attached to whatever chemicals and/or metals I'd flushed out of my kidneys. After this I felt healthier, and got rid of a bunch of pretty severe allergies I'd had since childhood so I would accept that as a valid experience of "detox". The other time was more recently, when I quit eating eggs and nightshade vegetables and then got a 3-day long flu/sinus infection that eventually drained out the months of debilitating brain fog and goo that had been contaminating my thought processes and breathing every time I ate eggs or tomatoes or was subject to second-hand smoke, which was pretty much nearly everyday.

But both times, while it was happening, even though it was utterly miserable, I actually felt somehow exhilarated in my misery, as if I knew that something bad was leaving my body, and that I'd feel a lot better after it was on its way out.

This time I just feel tired, as if I'm unbalanced, and it doesn't seem like something's on its way out of my system. It seems more like things are coming in and are clogging up my mind.

In regards to meat storage issues, I put the meat out on plates (all I have at the moment--I don't have or like the idea of leaving my food on styrofoam and I don't know how my flatmates would feel about me leaving chunks of raw meat lying around the refrigerator). Although I'm beginning to accept the idea that airing out raw meat is the best form of storage. I was very impressed with the quality of the meat hanging on meat hooks and in fresh air at the halal butcher's as opposed to the meat sitting wrapped up in plastic and styrofoam in the grocery stores.

[TylerDurden]

Well, you should only try the high-meat if you're desperately fatigued all the time and preferably once you've gotten fully used to raw fresh meats first.

[nummytummy]

Well, you should only try the high-meat if you're desperately fatigued all the time and preferably once you've gotten fully used to raw fresh meats first.

then is it better to try fully high meat the first time around? like month-long refrigerator-aged high meat? or to start with some high meat that's aged for a shorter period of time? and if i want to try it sooner should i try ageing it at room temperature for a shorter time, like say a week or so?

i think i tend to lose my appetite after eating too much of the same thing over a period of days, but it's hard to buy smaller quantities of a variety of meats, but it seems maybe that's what i should do. and maybe i should include more seafoods for variety, especially because i like them--it's just that they're hard to come by in this country and usually i have to buy a large quantity at once.

otherwise i actually don't have a problem eating raw meat, and i generally enjoy raw meats and organs (have so far had and enjoyed raw: beef muscle meat, lamb muscle meat, lamb marrow, lamb fat, lamb liver, kidneys and heart, rabbit liver, plus all kinds of seafood raw which i already ate before), and usually prefer them to cooked. but it seems my body just has a really strong craving/stop signal with foods--sometimes i find that i'll really crave a certain food (mussels for example) for a long time, but once i've had my fill of it i won't want to touch it again for weeks.

actually i am pretty desperate to try anything that will lift this debilitating fatigue, which is one of the main reasons i started incorporating raw animal foods into my diet. and although it has already helped a lot, i'm still often frustrated at not being able to function at 100% and feeling fatigued much of the time, so if high meat will help me, i'm willing to give it a go.

i just wish there was someone around who already KNEW what good high meat was supposed to look/taste/smell like who'd give me a piece to try, so i'd know what i was getting into. it just seems a bit iffy to let some pieces of meat rot for a month in a jar and then try eating it when i have no idea how it's supposed to taste or look like...