I'm so glad you started a Journal Sile, AND volunteered the pronunciation of your name which I was going to ask you about anyway! haha
Is that Irish? I like it!
Anyway, eventually when you give yourself enough time you will get to like raw meat and you will lose your fears of 'pathogens' (AKA our little helpers facilitating literally all our life processes, thank you germs!) and you'll realize designations like "sashimi or sushi grade" are very arbitrary and more meant to assuage public trepidation about raw flesh. The core of this way of eating is the more germs (bacteria, fungi, viruses and parasites the better, with very little exception), the better. Not everyone RAF holds this view, but it is the consistent view. Basically these creatures are vitally important to our life processes, just as we are to theirs. They stay in balance as long as we have a healthy internal system. However when we overload with toxins causing dead tissue to manifest, they are 'activated', the body sends out signals that cleanup is required and they come in to disassemble, ie consume, those cells so that regeneration can occur. Obviously they are mostly just wanting a meal, but that is good for us because it provides efficient detoxification and makes way for restoration (assuming you have the proper foods in your diet providing the raw materials for this rebuilding, for most of us, that means copious amount of raw fats and proteins and much smaller amounts of carbs)
But, that all in due time, for now, do what makes you comfy, don't force anything. As long as your salmon is a bright red color(not rose petal pink!!! that is farmed, and to my knowledge the chinese do 'recatch' released farmed fish which is then labeled wild caught, this is the salmon found in walmart), and is visibly healthy it is ok for consumption.
I recommend the book four fish though to put salmon fisheries in perspective and maybe reconsider making this a regular part of your diet. Our fisheries are in even worse shape than most of us think and they are requiring a LOT of compassion if we're going to have them in the future at all.
Temperature is a big part of acclimating to raw meat. In the wild we would, at least at first, be eating that meat freshly killed at the animal's body temp, so that is probably what temp it will taste best to you at. Once raw meat has been normalized in your psyches, eating it cold won't be so off putting (at least during the summer, wisconsin winters are another thing altogether!! All though I'm very thankful for the tropical temps we've been having of late!) And for a quick way to warm up your meat when you haven't let it come up to room temp slowly, Turn a burner on your cast iron skillet, then when it warms up to a temp where you can only touch it for a second without getting burned, turn the burner off, put your meat in and cover. This way it should warm up pretty fast. It may require a couple times repeating to warm it up to where you like, but it's still a heck of a lot simpler than cooking! Eventually you will get a feel for it and be able to do it second nature.
Keep us updated if you will, it's helpful for everyone to hear about progress, thanks for joining!
