Advantages of leaving ground meat out at room temperature?

[mango]

As some of you know, my diet consists 100% of raw grassfed/finished ground beef (75/25). 
I was wondering if there are health benefits to leaving this fatty ground meat sitting out at room temperature, for longer periods of time?  As I've gotten more accustomed to the flavor and taste of raw meat over the last few months, I've started to prefer that it sits out at room temperature in my home (75-80 degrees) for 5-6 hours before each meal, when possible.  Yesterday, I experimented to see how it would taste if I left it out for 9 hours, and I found the meat to be even more delicious and enjoyed the crusted texture very much. 

I read somewhere that there may be an increase in the growth of beneficial bacteria the longer meat is exposed to warm temperatures, but wasn't sure if this also applied to fatty meat like 75/25 ground beef, and couldn't find any research on this. 

Also, is there an amount of hours after which the fat will certainly go rancid and be unsafe to eat?

I'm going to leave my meat out for 11 hours today and see how that goes.

Thanks!

[Dr. D]

I try to leave my meat out for 24-36 hours usually, giving it a nice green slime starting on it that adds a lot of flavor. I prefer it unseasoned when aged this way, fresh I like a bit of hot sauce or mustard. The fat on the inside wont oxidize because its not getting air. However the stuff on the edges that gets dry is oxidized. That small of an amount shouldn't be an issue. Paleophil brought up an article saying some oxidized fats can be hormetic in nature. So maybe that small amount you are getting is beneficial.

[jessica]

hmm...I don't like when my meat is slimey, but I do like it to dry out in a bit, and grow a nice little crust:)   

I think that, if you have really good quality meat, it activates some enzymatic activity from bacteria present on the meat, and there isn't really a length of time that will be the factor in determining whether it is rancid or aged, but the quality of the meat and the quality of the environment its aged in is what determines that factor.


egg yolks left out to dry make this weird dried crust too.  mango do you ever eat those?  they are delicioius, its weird that the fat does seem to transform, on raw cheese, if you leave it out the fat seeps out, same with fatty fish, I don't know, I am not so worried about oxidation from aging and drying, not everything is always going to be fresh kill, and a lot of the fresh, still hot kill that I have had is waaaaaay over powering and not as tasty as aged.

[mango]

Dr.D, what cuts of meat are these that you regularly leave out for this long? I'm quite surprised and glad to know that fatty cuts of meat can be left out that long and still be eaten without any problem!

Jessica, I haven't eaten eggs since starting ZC (8 months ago) since at the time I had digestion issues and mental fogginess after consuming just a few eggs.  But to be fair, I was consuming the whole egg, and lightly cooking/hard boiling them, so I'm not sure if I would have that same reaction. 
And these were the "omega 3" organic eggs, which at the time I presumed to be the healthiest, but have since learned that its best to get eggs from chickens that are free to roam and eat their natural diet.  But, the cost of buying these eggs from Whole Foods is close to $8/dozen and since I'd be throwing out the whites I couldn't justify the cost of this.  Also, I honestly haven't felt like experimenting since I'm so happy eating raw ground beef, or lamb if beef is not available.

[Dr. D]

both chuck roast and ground beef 90/10 (so fairly lean). Sometimes it gets a little pungent so I mix it with more fresh but the extra age right about 24 hours is pretty nice. It'll turn green if kept wet in the blood and it'll dry out if you let the moisture drain off or do a sabertooth style drying with a fan. Both are great ways of including variety in the same meat. I'm pretty sure both have decent probiotics. I'm personally a little wary of room temperature high meat because I had a bad experience previously, but that was poor quality meat. I currently love my high meat and leaving it out seems to produce different bacteria than cold high meat. Not sure if one is better than the other.

[sabertooth]

Ground is not best to age, because the fat is minced together with the lean so it doesn't breath properly, being smothered by the fat. The beneficial bacteria need oxygen to proliferate optimally and not get overrun by anaerobic bacteria and molds that are not very appetizing.

Still it will age alright as long as it gets good air circulation. I suggest you flatten out some patties lay them on a rack with a fan blowing over it for a good 8 hours, and then judge for yourself by the taste whether or not you want to age it more. Taste it every few hours and by trial and error you will find the optimal.

There are so many factors involved in the aging possess  {Heat, humidity, airflow, meat quality and previous handling}

Warning Fat will go rancid at room temp and making high meat at room temp is not a good idea....

I will preage my meat by hanging whole legs of lamb in a fridge for up to two weeks, then fan it out on racks at room temp to finish it off for a day or two. This way it is pre dried and kept well aired so it doesn't get rancid. In fact when on the drying rack fanning out the fat begins to soften and melt slightly, taking  on a creamy and sweet flavor. Leaving the fat on also keeps the lean meat from getting to dry and tough.

[mango]

Thanks all, for the replies, I appreciate it.

I must admit that I'm a bit more confused now then when I posted this question.  Apologies if I'm missing the obvious and making this more complicated than it needs to be, but maybe I can clarify what I'm trying to find out.

I can only afford grassfed/finsished beef in the ground form, so I expect to be eating this for the long term.  Also, I'm not so interested in making high meat or aging it for very long at room temperature, but more so wondering if there is an ideal # of hours to leave it out before each of my 2 daily meals.

In case anyone was wondering, I left the ground beef out yesterday for 12 hours in my home which is at a constant 80 degrees with not much air circulation, and it was delicious, no signs of the fat becoming rancid.  I might try to bump this up for a couple more hours sometime over the next few days to see what the limit is.

What I really want to find out is that if there is an advantage to leaving my ground beef meals out for ex. 12 hours vs. 5 hours?  I don't understand too much about the process of oxidation, and didn't know if a longer or shorter time would be more beneficial if it is going to be at room temperature?

[Dr. D]

http://www.rawpaleodietforum.com/carnivorous-zero-carb-approach/fermentation-anti-oxidants-oxidation-and-high-meat-i-don't-think-i-get-it/

This thread was beneficial to me.

[jessica]

mango, all you can do is self experiment, see what tastes good for you, see what makes your body feel best.  its not about defining some standard, there isn't a standard, we are all different.  I think what you can take from this topic is that is what we have all done, dr d likes his slimy wet met, I like dry high meat, both are fine, whatever works best for you will be fine.  what sabertooth was trying to say is that when fat is mixed with meat it will go sour, because for fat not to do that it needs all the moisture out of it, and in ground meat, the muscle fluids wont be able to evaporate correctly with all kinds of fattiness smeared around, so it has a better chance of the fat portion rotting and inhibiting proper breathing of the muscle meat bacteria, it tastes foul as shit when this happens, rotten fat is pretty unbearable to eat, I don't think it happens in up to two days with some of the ground meats I have left out, but your meat is different so its something you will have to find out for yourself.

[mango]

thanks jessica for breaking it all down!  that makes a lot of sense.
i'm not going to worry about how many hours exactly my meat is out for, as long as it tastes good and digests properly, thats what matters.

[Dr. D]

Agreed with Jessica 100%. Ill add one more piece: drying the meat in the fridge for a month is probably my most favorite. Chewy on the outside, strong flavor, rich on the inside, and very tender. I haven't done this with ground, only lean cuts like chuck. I can't use my fridge for aging, the family gets mad at the smell.



If you like meat aged on the counter you may do well with high meat. Have you tried it yet? Not prescribing, just questioning. Proceed at your own pace/discretion.

[Bacchal]

Agreed with Jessica 100%. Ill add one more piece: drying the meat in the fridge for a month is probably my most favorite. Chewy on the outside, strong flavor, rich on the inside, and very tender. I haven't done this with ground, only lean cuts like chuck. I can't use my fridge for aging, the family gets mad at the smell.

Over the winter, I dried thinly sliced beef heart in the fridge that had been soaked in a brine at room temperature for several days. It was good stuff. A bit like jerky on the outside, tender on the inside, and great flavor.

[bookittyrun]

Over the winter, I dried thinly sliced beef heart in the fridge that had been soaked in a brine at room temperature for several days. It was good stuff. A bit like jerky on the outside, tender on the inside, and great flavor.

that sounds good...    how long in the fridge?

[mango]

Dr.D, i haven't tried high meat yet, but i'm definitely fascinated by the potential health benefits of it.

i've only been RZC for about 4 months and am still fighting off what was once a major candida infection, so i'll probably venture onto high meats once i've completely healed in the next 1-2 years (hopefully). my energy levels are still up/down from the die-off so i'd like to minimize all the variables during this process.

one last question i had on this topic -  if i was traveling and i put my meat in a tupperware container around 7am, and planned to eat this around 7pm, would the meat age in a different/undesirable way since it will not be exposed to the air for that 12hr period?

[Iguana]

I never ate raw  ground meat and never would. There were no meat grinders in the paleolithic. 

[mango]

good for you, but not very relevant to the topic.
personally i'm not striving to live identically to how humans did in paleolithic times.
most of us here probably use toilet paper, hand soap, drive cars, etc.. that our ancestors didn't have access to.

grassfed ground beef if 1/2 the price of other cuts of beef and nutritionally identical, and makes this way of living affordable for myself.

[Dr. D]

Tupperware is plastic and will leave your meat toxic at room temperature. Use glass or ceramic only and leave about 50% of the container as air. You should be fine then.

[Bacchal]

that sounds good...    how long in the fridge?

I started eating it about two or three days after putting it in there. It started drying pretty quickly. I left it in there, spread out on a baking sheet, until I finished it all off, probably about a week or so.

[van]

good for you, but not very relevant to the topic.
personally i'm not striving to live identically to how humans did in paleolithic times.
most of us here probably use toilet paper, hand soap, drive cars, etc.. that our ancestors didn't have access to.

grassfed ground beef if 1/2 the price of other cuts of beef and nutritionally identical, and makes this way of living affordable for myself.

  Mango, sometimes we all can come off a little odd sometimes.  Iguana wasn't being critical.  He's been good enough to share his insights so many many times,  my guess is that he abbreviates his responses now at times. 
   What he most likely meant about ground beef was that it's hard to notice your natural stop that your body has when eating food that has been ground or mixed with other foods or frozen or heated....  It is a Real phenomena, and one that you may come to appreciate some day.  But for now, it's great that you're able to eat raw like you are.  Cheers

[jessica]

mango do you have access to hearts or livers? they might be less expensive the ground, also marrow bones, marrow is such a treat.  heart is one of the best muscle meats, liver is just tasty as shit, until its not....

dr. d, do you ever open air out your meats or do you always cover them?  I keep mine in ceramic bowls and just eat some and then leave whatever is left in the bowl, I usually drain or drink off the liquid, depending on how it tastes, so that whatever is in the bowl kinda shrinks up. 

cant wait to have a better place to properly age some meat though, I want months long aged ribs

[mango]

Dr.D, great idea, thanks for the tip!

van, thanks for expanding on the post from Iguana, no offense was taken.  when i started RPD i came from a cooked ZC diet where i had a lot of trouble determining what the right stop point was, and was too used to eating just for the pleasure of it. combined with the lingering candida in my body it was very frustrating to know at what point the true hunger ended and this was one of the main reasons i ventured over to raw meats.

once i switched, it was much easier to find this stop point and after a few weeks of initially overeating and having diarrhea alternating with constipation, i found the ideal amount of meat that my body needs each day. it doesnt vary much unless i'm especially active, and my activity levels are usually pretty consistent day to day. i work a desk job (standing desk when i'm at home for the first few hours each morning) and currently not doing any intense exercise as my energy levels fluctuate and i want to direct all my bodys energy towards healing this infection asap. i do go for long walks outside at a pretty good pace for about 1 hr every morning and evening, and this seems to help a lot with digestion. 

jessica, i initially experimented with grounding up grassfed hearts, livers, and kidneys, but found that after eating about 1oz of this combination for 1-2 weeks, i started to show all the signs of copper toxicity and the candida got out of control. i dont hear of many other people having this reaction, especially with such small amounts, but it certainly made me realize that my body isn't ready for this right now. i may experiment again in the future once all the candida has cleared up. also, i dont have any local access to marrow bones, and ordering online would cost more than the ground meat itself. thanks for the suggestion though.

[jessica]

you should try oysters then.  anything with high zinc will help straighten out your imbalances.

[bookittyrun]

I started eating it about two or three days after putting it in there. It started drying pretty quickly. I left it in there, spread out on a baking sheet, until I finished it all off, probably about a week or so.

nice.  thanks.

mango, for dinner tonight, i tried raw ground beef for the first time...  thanks for the post (question), it had me thinking while i was standing at the glass butcher case yesterday...

i didn't leave it out on the counter for hours, but it was everything i expected it to be.  not too shabby.

[bookittyrun]

you should try oysters then.  anything with high zinc will help straighten out your imbalances.

mmm...   oysters...

[LePatron7]

mango, for dinner tonight, i tried raw ground beef for the first time...

I love ground beef. I think anything grass fed and ground is delicious.

I personally used to leave my meat out a few hours before eating it. I haven't been doing that now though.