Hey - Questions on Raw Meat (Surprise!)

[Isthmus]

Hey all,

I have been (attempting) to research eating raw meat for some time now, but I am finding it difficult to find information to satisfy me.

I have a lifetime of social conditioning to overcome here, I really can't get my head around what raw meat is safe to eat.

For example if I go to the butchers there there may be some rump steak sitting behind the glass display. If I ask for a cut of meat it'll be taken to a chopping board (that's surely had lots of different meats cut on it) and and cut for me. Is this kind of meat safe to eat raw? Does it need special handling to make sure it's okay to eat?

I am glad I found your forum, there seems to be a lot of inspiring and interesting people here. I hope some of you can help (re-?) educate me!

Thanks,
Sam

[TylerDurden]

You ned to buy raw, 100 percent GRASSFED meat. read the scientific articles found on eatwild.com to find out about the health-benefits of grassfed meats. For info on the harm done by cooking you would have to read on pubmed and other sites for studies done about the harm done by acrylamide, polycylic aromatic hydrocarbons, heterocyclic amines, nitrosamines, advanced glycation end products and advanced lipoxidation end products. Also read up on the hygiene hypothesis about the benefits of bacteria, and read sally fallon's article on the benefits of enzymes.

[Isthmus]

Hey,

Thanks for your reply. Although it is helpful it doesn't really address my key question about eating meat raw. The slab of rump steak I might pick up from my butchers has been sitting in the display cabinet and cut up on a chopping board used to cut up all the meat. Surely the raw meat needs proper handling to make it safe, and what I can't manage to research myself is the details of how it should be handled.

edit: Or, what I mean to say, is this is what my conventional wisdom tells me. Is this kind of meat really OK to eat raw?

Many thanks,
Sam

[TylerDurden]

Hey,

Thanks for your reply. Although it is helpful it doesn't really address my key question about eating meat raw. The slab of rump steak I might pick up from my butchers has been sitting in the display cabinet and cut up on a chopping board used to cut up all the meat. Surely the raw meat needs proper handling to make it safe, and what I can't manage to research myself is the details of how it should be handled.

Many thanks,
Sam

No handling necessary. If you can only get hold of raw, grainfed meat, it won't help you much re health, but, given reports, it is unlikely to harm you. Cooked food plus bacteria is, however, very likely to harm you.

If you have various phobias about raw meats, you could marinate the raw meats for 24 hours beforehand, or freeze them for 14 days to deter parasites, but these methods are only used by overly paranoid people who have not consumed raw meats for long enough to realise that raw meats are harmless.

[Isthmus]

Thanks a lot for the reply.

It's kind of amazing! It seems so profoundly radical compared to the conventional perception of raw meat being something like deadly uncooked.

[magnetic]

Thanks a lot for the reply.

It's kind of amazing! It seems so profoundly radical compared to the conventional perception of raw meat being something like deadly uncooked.

I like to think I am brave but actually I was merely overly and unnecessarily cautious myself when I started eating raw meat.  There is cultural conditioning to overcome.  The confidence of others posting on here must come from experience of eating raw meat, of which I still have little.  Still, each day that I eat raw meat I think less about parasites, bacteria (except for the good ones) and all that.  Just be sure to get some high quality grass fed meat and eat it fresh.  If you keep doing that your worries will disappear with time.

[Isthmus]

I like to think I am brave but actually I was merely overly and unnecessarily cautious myself when I started eating raw meat.  There is cultural conditioning to overcome.  The confidence of others posting on here must come from experience of eating raw meat, of which I still have little.  Still, each day that I eat raw meat I think less about parasites, bacteria (except for the good ones) and all that.  Just be sure to get some high quality grass fed meat and eat it fresh.  If you keep doing that your worries will disappear with time.

Hey; yeah. Thanks for the good words.

[magnetic]

Hey; yeah. Thanks for the good words.

I can definitely understand your skepticism, I am quite the skeptic myself, which is precisely why I think raw paleo potlucks would be such a great think for convincing the skeptics among us.