New here, various questions

[panacea]

Is 90% raw grassfed beef, 10% raw egg yolk considered groovy for this place? (I question because of the egg yolk)
I've spent the last 48 hours trying relentlessly to find a good source of raw beef (never had it before, never even bought supermarket beef before). US Wellness is always out of stock, imports from tasmania, slankers seems shady, and costs about $150 for a first shipment, plus would take 5-8 days to get here in Wisconsin. All of the wisconsin farms seem to only grass-fed seasonally, due to the weather, which is no good (I'm trying to get top quality). Can't afford anything better than ground.. but want to eat raw, so there's always going to be an E. Coli and parasite risk. Can't verify if the processing area/butcher is any good either, ordering online, it seems so hard.
So, what sources are you using?

Also, what benefits has everyone here had?
What negative effects?

My personal beliefs, for various reasons, are that these health markers are significant, and it would mean a lot to me if anyone could report the changes in these health markers they experienced while eating primarily raw meat:
Less time sleeping (less = better if waking state is alert and calm)
Better posture effortlessly (no slouching in chairs for example by default)
Slower breathing (as in, you breathe with your nose only compared to mouth, and have long pauses after exhale, where you might not have before the diet)
Faster wound healing
No acne/skin problems
Don't feel cold, even when other people do
Sleep with less blankets
Have no 'staining effect' when going to the bathroom

anyway, would be interesting to hear where you folks are at in regard to my little healthcheck 

and finally, does anyone here have any alternative methods to negate the dangers of raw beef besides:
cooking it at 160 deg even in a slow cooker, deep freezing it, storing it better, or dipping in alcohol?

[TylerDurden]

E Coli and parasites are meaningless  issues few, if any long-term RPDers care about. E Coli  is avoided if one eats healthy raw meats(ie grassfed or wild) and parasite-infestations are incredibly rare, and easily dealt with by pharmaceutical drugs available from any doctor.

Here are some testimonials:-

http://www.rawpaleodiet.com/testimonials/

I had chronic fatigue syndrome before this diet which got dealt with completely. Pre-RPD diet, I had to sleep 8-10 hours a day(more than that  also made me sick, for some reason). No change in posture, except that I had some severe muscle-weakness pre-RPD diet which meant I finally regained some muscle-tone. I do breathe more slowly now, as I got rid of  my prior anxiety-levels. My wounds heal faster with less scarring than before. I used to have reddened, inflamed skin but no longer, and my ability to handle cold has increased a lot(no doubt due to better circulation). No change in blankets for some reason. No idea what staining effect is.

Look at these the first posts of these  threads for sources and other info:-

http://www.rawpaleodietforum.com/important-info-for-newbies/

[panacea]

thanks for the info tylerdurden,

staining effect means you basically have to use toilet paper, and see "stuff" on it. if you use toilet paper (hopefully just to be safe), but there is nothing on it ever, then you don't have the "staining" or soiling effect, which is a good sign imo.

I appreciate that E coli and parasites may be rare in grassfed, quality beef, and that's one of the reasons I'm even considering eating it raw, but I still would like to minimize the risk as much as possible, since taking pharmaceutical drugs is a big "never ever unless I'm dying" thing for me..

[TylerDurden]

There are herbal remedies against parasites. if you are needlessly scared of parasites, the usual rule is to freeze all meats for 14 days beforehand.

It seems I have no staining effect.

[panacea]

I was thinking something along the lines of taking supplemental betaine HCL (stomach acid) since that stuff is very strong, going to be needed for the beef anyway, it should make sure parasites and e coli get 'acidified away' right? Or maybe even something gentler like taking probiotics with the meal, idk.. I'm mostly concerned for the first 6 mo or so because my GI system is in very poor condition.

[TylerDurden]

Actually, the best thing would be to let the meat age/rot as the bacteria then predigest the meat. But you're not ready for that. In the meantime, my own past experience showed that my body needed to produce far LESS stomach-acid when I switched to eating raw animal foods, whereas cooked animal foods forced me to produce more so as to properly digest them, thus causing me extra pain in the stomach.

The HCL is,imo, a waste of time. Indeed, I found when I switched that the body suddenly did not take kindly to me ingesting supplements, as I got painful twinges in my stomach therefrom.

Look into buying EM products(effective microorganisms) for human consumption if you can't handle aged raw meats. That's basically molasses producing tons of bacteria for your gut.

[eveheart]

Is 90% raw grassfed beef, 10% raw egg yolk

Without "doing the numbers" what I see is too high in protein and too low in fat. Feel free to play around with a target of 60 - 80g protein and raw fat to satiety.

Some people do well with beef-beef-beef, but I like variety, so I add fish, seafood, organ meats, bone marrow, etc. I read this forum daily and sometimes experiment with things that I read about.

I search high and low for good beef, lamb, and seafood sources. Currently, I pay US$5.29 per pound for the whole muscle eye of round, US$0.99 per pound of back fat, and US$1.99 per pound for bones with marrow, always grass-fed from the rainy north coast of California. G-f ground beef costs more and tastes poorly IMO. Grinding the fat into the meat gives a taste that I find disagreeable, whereas chunks of fat are wonderful to chew.

I'm not sure about your reasoning for HCl supplement. Uncooked foods digest well, and the stomach makes exactly that acid.

As for the dangers of raw beef, I haven't encountered any yet. OTOH, cooked foods made me sick, weak, tired, and disabled.

Welcome. I hope you UNlearn as much in this forum as I have.

[panacea]

Without "doing the numbers" what see is too high in protein and too low in fat. Feel free to play around with a target of 60 - 80g protein and raw fat to satiety
Some people do well with beef-beef-beef, but I like variety, so I add fish, seafood, organ meats, bone marrow, etc. I read this forum daily and sometimes experiment with things that I read about.

I search high and low for good beef, lamb, and seafood sources. Currently, I pay US$5.29 per pound for the whole muscle eye of round, US$0.99 per pound of back fat, and US$1.99 per pound for bones with marrow, always grass-fed from the rainy north coast of California. G-f ground beef costs more and tastes poorly IMO. Grinding the fat into the meat gives a taste that I find disagreeable, whereas chunks of fat are wonderful to chew.

I'll keep the fat thing in mind thanks. Why would animal fat be different than other types (such as extra virgin cold pressed olive oil)? I always thought natural fats were pretty much the same, and EVOO is really cheap and easy, what do you think?

I was thinking of adding the slankers primal beef, which supposedly has liver, spleen, heart, etc. I heard that native americans used to think of organ meats as a delicacy and if there were plentiful amounts of them, the lean meat would be discarded or made into jerky for later since it was regarded as nutritionally useless. But it's hard to get my head around eating raw heart, liver, spleen, etc, yikes.

[TylerDurden]

Iguana stated that extra virgin cold pressed olive oil isn't really raw, since pressure is used, which produces heat. I have to agree as, like many here, I find I don't digest well any foods that have been even only slightly processed. So I do fine on raw olives, but extra virgin cold pressed olive oil gives me diarrhea if consumed in more than a teaspoonful at a time. Raw, ground beef doesn't have such an effect on me, but I find that I overeat when I have it for my meals as, unlike raw non-ground meats, I don't get a "stop" signal telling me that I've eaten enough until much later.

[panacea]

why would non-ground give you a stop and ground not??

On another note, through more research now, it appears the biggest drawback to this diet is actually the insane amount of protein - even when eating 85% lean beef, or primal ground beef with the liver, spleen, heart, etc mixed in, I think I'd be getting multiple times more protein than I could use in 24 hours, even with small spread out meals.

According to some studies, humans can only use about 90 g of protein from food per day (there is about that amount in 13 oz of beef). Also, there's the fact that especially in healthy people, we re-use/recycle a lot of protein we used in the previous days so it's not like all protein we use is then expelled and we need to replace it all by diet alone. I'm just worried what all that extra protein will be doing to the body.

[TylerDurden]

The human body can convert all sorts of substances into other substances. Anyway, the above claim re 90g(other sources actually claim 100g) is very dodgy and much of the science is questionable. I've never had a problem with so-called "excess protein". Admittedly, I also eat some raw carbs, but even when I did RZC or RVLC, the fat-issue or protein-issue were no big deal.

[eveheart]

it appears the biggest drawback to this diet is actually the insane amount of protein - even when eating 85% lean beef, or primal ground beef with the liver, spleen, heart, etc mixed in, I think I'd be getting multiple times more protein than I could use in 24 hours, even with small spread out meals.

If you are limiting carbs, most of your calories would come from fat, not protein. If you let protein get the upper hand, you can be prone to rabbit starvation. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_starvation

So, basically, you are right: if you limit your fat intake as you intend, you will be ingesting an insanely large amount of protein. I'm not sure of your reasoning, but you will need much more fat than you referenced in your post.

[Dorothy]

Iguana stated that extra virgin cold pressed olive oil isn't really raw, since pressure is used, which produces heat. I have to agree as, like many here, I find I don't digest well any foods that have been even only slightly processed. So I do fine on raw olives, but extra virgin cold pressed olive oil gives me diarrhea if consumed in more than a teaspoonful at a time. Raw, ground beef doesn't have such an effect on me, but I find that I overeat when I have it for my meals as, unlike raw non-ground meats, I don't get a "stop" signal telling me that I've eaten enough until much later.

Iguana was incorrect. All extra-virgin olive oil by definition is produced with little to no heat or it wouldn't be extra-virgin. The problem as I have stated in several threads already is that it is almost impossible to buy olive oil (at least here in the US) that is not rancid. Most people can't even taste or smell when it is rancid because they have never tasted fresh olive oil. If your olive oil does not have a HARVEST date on it that is less than a year (I won't buy anything over 6 months) you are almost certainly buying rancid oil - especially if it is "cheap". My olive oil is one of the most expensive things in my kitchen. Animal fat is much cheaper than fresh olive oil. I do equally well with olive oil or animal fat - but only if the oil is fresh and if you are on a limited budget - I would stick with raw animal fat.

If you don't feel the back of your throat burning when you take some of your olive oil in your mouth - it is most definitely beyond any shadow of a doubt - rancid - and has no antioxidants left in it and will do you much more harm than good. Most people have never had fresh olive oil - all but just a rarified strata of olive oil is rancid - so best to avoid it generally no matter what the label says - unless of course it has that precious HARVEST DATE printed on it! Not the press date because the olives could have sat around for a  year before being pressed. Within 6 months after the harvest date of the olives, the oils start to break down and within a year they are worse than worthless.

[Wolf]

90% beef and only 10% yolk sounds rather restricted in my opinion.  it'd be better to up your fat for one, to avoid rabbit starvation, but it would also be good to add in organ meats too.  They have much higher nutrition content than the plain muscle meat.. marrow is good too as a nutrient dense fat. 

As far as e.coli and salmonella, they don't really develop on grass-fed meats.  you can even eat raw grain-fed meat and you aren't really going to get sick as long as you're eating 100% raw natural unprocessed foods.  Even if you do happen to get sick, it's really not as bad as you might think.  There was a couple times I think I might have gotten e.coli and/or salmonella poisoning after eating pizza or other bad foods from when I worked at domino's, I got pretty sick one of the times where if I ate most anything, especially plant food, I'd get a horrible stomach ache and diarrhea.  All I did was eat more better raw animal foods only and I got better.  Never went to a doctor.  I don't think I've even seen any actual cases of parasites from anyone here, but then I don't search around that much so there might be.  But they seem easily remedied by natural ways.

I've only seen benefits from eating raw paleo, the only time I have negatives is when I stray too much from a good raw animal foods diet.

As for your significant health markers, when I first started raw paleo I was eating trader joe's grass-fed ground beef raw and lots of raw egg yolks, and I had extremely super high energy like I'd never felt before in my life.  I was normally a sleep-12-to-15-hours a day and extremely lazy person, but eating like I was I felt amazing, I would sleep 4 to 6 hours at night and wake up feeling more aware and awake than I'd ever felt in my life.  But then my hours got cut at work and I panicked about money issues, and went back to eating SAD for a while since I could eat pizza at work for completely free.

After that my tastes seemed to have changed and now raw ground beef is not appetizing to me at all, no matter what.  I've been having trouble finding good sources of regular grass-fed steaks as there aren't many health food stores near me, and the ones I can get to don't carry grass-fed meat very often.  Eggs also stopped tasting good to me unless they were the eggs from my aunt or uncles home-raised chickens who are fed on bugs.  I also lost my job so I have to try not to spend too much money on food which is difficult especially when I can't find a lot of good food, and use raw dairy too much.

But most of those markers of yours have improved, I sleep a lot more normally now, healing is slightly improved, acne has improved a lot even though it is still kinda bad and never completely went away, it used to be so much worse.. I've always breathed shallow and slow my whole life though, but I do have no staining effect the majority of the time.  Too much plant foods makes some stain.  As far as feeling less cold I haven't noticed a difference but I've always preferred colder weather.