Hi All

[lex_rooker]

Just got back from vacation and Craig's email inviting me to join the forum came to the top of the to-do pile.  I think I got the registration thing right, though my being well over the age of 30 makes that suspect.

Craig, you have my deepest respect.  I'm not sure I'd be willing to commit the time necessary to manage a forum.  You, Dean, and Geoff deserve medals.

BTW - Thank you, thank you, thank you for the Spell Check option.  I really miss it on some of the other forums.  Having gone to public school, my spelling is atrocious.

Lex

[xylothrill]

It's great to see you here, Lex! The fact you were able to make a post says you did everything right.

The forum software we're using is SMF. Most use phpBB. This is supposed to be better and the next version is just around the corner. I really like the flags as it shows what a global project and community we are.

The good thing is that we have moderators around the world so we can check in at all times - when one is at work or another is asleep.

I hope you had a wonderful vacation. You have another blood test coming up too. When you continue your experiment on Magic Bus, you can also post them here in the Lab Rats section. I liked their metabolic ward so much I stole the idea.

Craig

[TylerDurden]

Lex, it would be useful if you posted some of the files here which you've already posted on rawpaleodiet.

[Nicola]

Hi Lex, good to know you are back safe and sound . How did you do on the first week of your home-made pemmican?

Copy of one of your posts before you left on vacation:

If I eat 5 bars per day, my protein, fat, and calories should be very close to what I'm eating today as fresh ground beef.  I'm going to attempt to eat only pemmican for the first 6 days of my vacation.  I'd go the whole distance, but I'm leaving on Wednesday and there's not time to make another batch to cover the second week of the trip.

How did the second week go?


Wellness Beef Pemmican I orderd about 3 years ago was about 70% rendered fat, 30% lean, and so salty that I couldn't eat it.

Do you need extra salt with your pemmican? What about on the second week - do you add salt to your food?

How did you do with water?

Nicola

[lex_rooker]

Here's a repeat of what I posted on the Magicbus....
-------start cross post----------
Finally back from vacation.  It was a long 2 weeks of drifting aimlessly which I'm not very good at.  I'm always thinking of what I could be accomplishing if I were home.  My last "vacation" was 33 years ago.  With luck I won't have to take another one for another 33 years.....

Stuck to my diet as best as possible.  Ate mostly very rare ribeye steaks smothered in butter.  A few times I had to resort to my back-up supply of pemmican and I was amazed at how good it tasted.  I had a 6 day supply and ended up eating 4 days worth.  On my last day in Chicago the group I was with decided to eat at TGI Fridays.  All they had on the menu was a 12 oz New York Strip.  I ordered 3 of them as rare as they would make them - terrible.  So little fat they tasted like shoe leather.  To be honest, I'd have much preferred eating the remainder of my pemmican.

I lost 4 lbs over the two weeks so my weight as of today is 156.  I did a lot of walking carrying a 20 lb backpack through the city streets of Washington DC, New York City, Niagara Falls, Toronto CA, Chicago, and Madison Wi.  My guess would be that I averaged 4 miles per day.
-------end cross post------

Good idea to cross post the files Geoff.  I'll work on it over the next couple of weeks.  I'm so behind on bills, yard work, and other stuff that it will take a few days to catch up.

Nicola - To be honest, I found that I actually preferred the pemmican to some of the steaks I had to eat.  I make it with my regular jerky recipe.  When I make my jerky I use 1/2 the salt of the way that I demonstrate in my Jerky Maker instructions so you can just taste the salt.  It works out to about 1g salt per lb of fresh meat.  Any more than that and it is way to salty for me as the salty taste is concentrated when the meat drys.  I found the Wellness pemmican to be far to salty and their fat is very soft which I don't like.  I dry the meat well, and then shred it by pounding it with a hammer on a Blacksmith's anvil, and mix it with my own rendered fat which is firm - almost like candle wax.  The pemmican ends up with the fat being very firm but smooth, and the jerky is still very chewy.  I go to the trouble of pounding and shredding the meat because if the meat is ground too fine it tends to taste like sawdust - yuck.

I've found that adding just a bit of salt is important or I start to get leg cramps and other strange symptoms.  I usually add about 1/2 to 1 teaspoon (3g-5g) of salt to 4 lbs (2kg) of my normal meat mixture.

I drank both bottled water and tap water on the trip.  I'd guess about a liter per day of bottled water.  I also drank another liter of water with my meal and this was whatever they served - usually tap water.

Lex

[Nicola]

Hi Lex,

I thought you mentioned not to need salt - sorry but those other strang symptons; do you think that salt also helps in digesting the meat and fat?

Salt is not part of a paleo diet - I just don't know as meat has it's natural salt but perhaps this is not enough for optimal digestion?

Nicola

[lex_rooker]

There's a lot of debate about salt.  It's documented that many Indian tribes - especially in South America - would make regular trips to the ocean to get salt.  The traditional Inuits also prepared their meals with, and drank brackish water which contains a low concentration of salt.  Most of the African tribes consume large amounts of blood as a staple which contains most of the salt in an animal's body.

Our modern meat processing plants remove the animal's blood so we lose that source of salt.  I'm also not so sure that paleo humans didn't consume salt if it was available.  Almost all animals will use a saltlick, or lick salt rich soil if it is available.  It appears that we need at least some source of sodium chloride in our diets.

Compared to most people I don't get much salt.  Based on what I add, it's only about 1 1/2 to 2 grams per day.

Lex

[Raw Kyle]

I'm glad I ran across this thread because I have a vacation coming up and I won't be able to keep with my current diet because there will be no electricity. I was going to bring a steamer and a bunch of vegetables and meat and eat raw meat and steamed veggies mostly. Also raw vegetables in the form of salad, with fatty fruits and non-sweet fruits like avocados and tomatoes. This pemmican will help add things to choose from and lower the chances of me eating garbage or running out of food.

[lex_rooker]

kyle,
I found the pemmican to work out very well.  I made my own using very dry homemade shredded Jerky and rendered beef fat in equal amounts by weight.  I put about 30g of shredded Jerky in cupcake pans using the paper liners, then poured about 30g melted fat over them.  Once the fat cooled and hardened, it was easy to stack and pack them in Ziploc bags. To eat, just peel off the paper liner and munch away.  I found that 6 of these hockey pucks was all I needed to feel satisfied for the entire day.

As I pointed out in the earlier post, I pound my jerky and then cut with scissors to 1/2" lengths then pack in the cupcake pans.  Keeping the jerky bits as small chunks (pounded to spread the fibers so they absorb the fat) gives you something satisfying to chew on and there is no feeling that you are eating grease soaked sawdust as you would get if you used a blender or food processor to turn the jerky into powder.   

I guess I should do and update to my Jerky Maker instructions on making pemmican, showing the whole process.

lex

[TylerDurden]

There's a lot of debate about salt.  It's documented that many Indian tribes - especially in South America - would make regular trips to the ocean to get salt.  The traditional Inuits also prepared their meals with, and drank brackish water which contains a low concentration of salt.  Most of the African tribes consume large amounts of blood as a staple which contains most of the salt in an animal's body.

Our modern meat processing plants remove the animal's blood so we lose that source of salt.  I'm also not so sure that paleo humans didn't consume salt if it was available.  Almost all animals will use a saltlick, or lick salt rich soil if it is available.  It appears that we need at least some source of sodium chloride in our diets.

Compared to most people I don't get much salt.  Based on what I add, it's only about 1 1/2 to 2 grams per day.

Lex

I've come across some mentions of animals seeking out salt-licks, but these were all herbivores, without exception.

[Nicola]

I've come across some mentions of animals seeking out salt-licks, but these were all herbivores, without exception.

Lex, when I asked you about salt (perhaps that was 2007?) you mentioned, that you had never thought about it - that meat had it's natural salt.

Now you mention the need of salt? How did your digestion "work" with out extra salt vs. now with extra salt (other than cramps)? Please read the posts under "Info", "Protein and Fat digestion"; Bear and others say that raw meat does not need salt...then again a few people with "abnormal" digestion are looking for an/the answer...

Nicola

[xylothrill]

I've come across some mentions of animals seeking out salt-licks, but these were all herbivores, without exception.

It's just occurred to me that one thing we humans have in common with herbivorous animals is that we sweat. Carnivores pant. That might have something to do with it.

There is sodium in plants. I know celery has sodium and some tribal people burn grass to ashes then put it in water and skim the ashes off the top. Then they dry out the water and add the salt to their food. I believe these tribes were in the tropics where they'd tend to sweat more.

I defrosted some liver and realized how much blood I'd been dumping down the drain! I got about 3 or 4 oz and it was salty.

Craig

[lex_rooker]

Unfortunately I have no clue about the need (or lack of need) for salt by carnivores.  I do know that on occasion I'd get annoying cramps in my feet during the night.  I read somewhere that this could be due to a lack of salt in the diet so I started adding a little bit (about 1g per day) of sea salt to my mix and the problem went away.

When I was younger, in my 20's and 30's, I was very concerned about "doing what was right".  This lead me to follow the whims of the guru of the day even in the face of irrefutable evidence that it wasn't working and my health was suffering.  I'm now much more interested in what actually works rather than what someone thinks is correct.  I'm convinced that eating freshly killed meat, blood, brains, organs, and all, would fulfill all our nutritional needs as it does for other carnivores, however, this is not reasonably or consistently available to me in our modern society.  If adding a dash of salt to make up for the lack of the availability of blood or other source of sodium chloride then it's fine with me.

I can't live exactly the way that our paleo ancestors did.  Those conditions no longer exist.  I must do what works in the current environment in which I live. 

Lex

[Nicola]

It's just occurred to me that one thing we humans have in common with herbivorous animals is that we sweat. Carnivores pant. That might have something to do with it.

I have been wondering, why some people sweat more than others; when you are ill the body gets ride of toxins this way? Sweating is also a way to get ride of excessive salts - to then be replaced...the body tryes to get ride of them for them to be replaced again

I had to much pressure today so I will do with out salt; I am hardly peeing - before I lost little water but this might have to do with this diet, IF and alkaline ionized water?

I have never found liver to be salty; kidneys taste salty when I let them age for a few days. The Argentine beef I get tastes "wild" and extra salt just does not seem right (I did force myself though) - I have tryed different suppliers and the meat is not half as "wild".

Nicola

[xylothrill]

I have been wondering, why some people sweat more than others; when you are ill the body gets ride of toxins this way? Sweating is also a way to get ride of excessive salts - to then be replaced...the body tryes to get ride of them for them to be replaced again

I had to much pressure today so I will do with out salt; I am hardly peeing - before I lost little water but this might have to do with this diet, IF and alkaline ionized water?

I have never found liver to be salty; kidneys taste salty when I let them age for a few days. The Argentine beef I get tastes "wild" and extra salt just does not seem right (I did force myself though) - I have tryed different suppliers and the meat is not half as "wild".

Nicola

If that be the case, your aldosterone is doing its job as it is in me. I no longer taste salt in my sweat but that doesn't mean that I don't lose any salt in my sweat at all. I sweat A LOT! If you're becoming edemic, PLEASE stop and don't add too much. If you really need it, especially in your climate, only add a pinch every couple or few days. Don't overdo it. Don't force yourself. I learned that the hard way that force feeding myself was more detrimental than if I had just listened to my body. And that is very difficult to grasp when one has been eating mixed, cooked foods for most ones life.

I know I'm stuck on this but if you, Kristelle, myself, or anyone else are excreting undigested food, it makes sense that we didn't need that extra food in the first place. It just goes undigested so why eat that extra food? How will that keep your weight up?

Craig

[lex_rooker]

I defrosted some liver and realized how much blood I'd been dumping down the drain! I got about 3 or 4 oz and it was salty.

Actually most of the fluid from meat that has been processed in a modern slaughterhouse is interstitial fluid and very little blood.  There is some blood of course, and I never throw any of the fluid from the meat I purchase a way, but most of it is fluid that surrounds the tissues and cells like lymph fluid.  Modern meat packers remove as much of the blood from the meat as possible and discard it.  Modern shoppers don't want to see blood in their little plastic covered meat trays at the supermarket.  The butchers even put a pad in the bottom of the tray to soak up any fluid that might come out of the meat.  Even then my wife washes the meat in the sink to remove any trace of blood or fluid before she will cook or eat a piece of meat.

Lex

[xylothrill]

Actually most of the fluid from meat that has been processed in a modern slaughterhouse is interstitial fluid and very little blood.  There is some blood of course, and I never throw any of the fluid from the meat I purchase a way, but most of it is fluid that surrounds the tissues and cells like lymph fluid.  Modern meat packers remove as much of the blood from the meat as possible and discard it.  Modern shoppers don't want to see blood in their little plastic covered meat trays at the supermarket.  The butchers even put a pad in the bottom of the tray to soak up any fluid that might come out of the meat.  Even then my wife washes the meat in the sink to remove any trace of blood or fluid before she will cook or eat a piece of meat.

Lex

I got excited because this was dark red. It wasn't as thick as I thought it should be but it did taste salty. Of course, it wasn't very much. I get even less from the ground organs and less yet from any kind of muscle meat, ground or otherwise.

Craig

[lex_rooker]

I got excited because this was dark red. It wasn't as thick as I thought it should be but it did taste salty.

Blood coagulates very quickly once it stops moving.  In reality, if there was much actual blood it would be very thick, almost like pudding, and the color would be very dark, about the color of liver or even darker - almost black.

Lex