Beats me how paleo peoples (or people before microbiology) could know how to prevent toxic molds. Maybe the traditions they developed over time.
Dunno but they probably tried different ways of storing the meat and then eating it. Could be they figured out specific things like putting it somewhere dark, or dry, or I even heard that this is how spices were "invented" as they used herbs on the meat to help it age properly or last longer.
As for different kinds of molds I think its possible some are poisonous and some not. I never had moldy meat but there were some fruits and veggies that had molded and I was pretty disgusted by the smell and feel of that mold. I wonder what would happen if I ate the moldy fruits and veggies? anyone tried that?
I have eaten plenty of moldy cheeses, the one with all the blue mold too, and didn't feel problems from it. But then again the cheese mold smells ok to me and even with the mold on it the cheese doesn't look like its decomposing or turning into slime. Its the slime that gets me really, for some reason I view development of slime that its turned into something noxious not to be eaten. Of course it may be due to my own upbringing.
Then again I had a friend that would come over and we have this stinky cheese in our fridge, lol he would run out of the kitchen when I opened the bag with that cheese, saying it smelled like a mans old sweaty socks
So it may very likely be just our upbringing.
There are some moulds that may have medicinal properties and some have mood/consciousness altering properties.
ie. ergot which is the basis of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide - LSD
Yeah its thanks to molds a lot of neat things like that were discovered! I have always had fear, respect and curiosity about fungi and molds, probably the ancient people did too, and experimented with them greatly. Likely a few got really sick during their experimentations.
...The meat is supposed to be nice and sludgy.
Why is sludge considered better then mold? Is that just for meat? (I have conditioned myself to think most mold is ok and sludge/slime is bad)...
Has anyone analyzed wet-made high meat? How does it compare to lets say very moldy old cheese? What kinda "critters" are in it by the time high meat is very slimy and high?
Is the taste or appeal of a food or practice the determining factor in whether it is heathy or needed?
The age old question! lol
The answer I think is we don't know, considering modern people today, as ancient people in the wild had so MUCH different lives, they would also need to eat anything they can to survive by the way and probably accustomed themselves to eat things that they wouldn't if they didn't have to (anyone thought of that, survival, when you're fighting for survival taste gets thrown out the window at times)...
Modern people have a different difficulty as now we have a choice, sigh...
Sometimes we can learn to recognize something is healthy and sometimes not....my taste-sense seems to recognize most fermented smelling and tasting foods as a good tonic for my stomach, ie it feels good right after being eaten even if it tastes a little funky.
To someone like my friend, he'll run away from any aged cheese or cabbage and especially from aged raw meats.
Today it greatly depends on our own conditioning which we have to direct in the right direction, not so easy to do of course...
I would feel totally ok to try high meat if it was made for me by someone who knows what to do exactly, and can tell me that yes this high meat tastes ok and safe to try. As I have not conditioned myself with rotten meats but rotten milk and cheese I can tell is ok when its ok.