I was reading a post today about that kid who is fighting the officials about fast food industry, microwaved food, marketed/packaged junk food etc. But the post ended in a guy promoting raw paleo as a cure all and for a while now this lifestyle has confused me.

Do these people actually eat raw slabs of beef totally uncooked? I know about the raw egg thing anyone who's watched the movie rocky has seen him chug down many eggs raw, that alone makes me want to wretch. But do these people really tuck into raw cuts of beef/meat?

Surely commonsense would prevail that raw meat is laden with parasites, bacteria and other nasties. Undercooked meat alone is attributed to alot of people getting food poisoning and so on. Surely its only a matter of time eating raw beef that you would end up getting severely ill if not worse.

Seems a crazy idea to me and a damn right dangerous one. Either im missing something about it, or what im reading is right that these people tuck into raw meat?

This is insanity i searched for raw paleo recipes and so far it seems my thoughts were correct, they eat it totally raw.

I actually went on youtube and got a durianrider video, not usually a fan of durian but [www.youtube.com] this guy is talking about its good if maggots are in the meat and hes holding raw beef.

DISGUSTING, i dont still believe this is possible without getting major health problems or death from infection.

EDIT: Shoot he actually did eat the handful of raw beef in the end of the video, absolute madness is all i can say.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 11/17/2010 06:35PM by powerlifer.

Mmmmmm, Steak Tartare.... a popular French dish. Been around for centuries.
[en.wikipedia.org]

And sashimi.... Mmmmmmmm.



(Just joking about the 'mmmmmm' part!)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/17/2010 07:52PM by RocketShip.

That is horrific, im glad the wikipedia site had a part on health concerns such as parasites/bacteria.

There not very common where i live but in the bigger cities raw sushi, which must be something to do with sashimi is common. Disgusting imo if you want to eat meat thats your choice i guess but im glad that guy ate the raw beef at the end as id have never believed these people do.

Its a crazy idea and one no health literature would ever support as an healthy act.

The worst thing about this is that it has very little basis in anthropology, to say nothing of human physiology.

I still remember a carpaccio that I ate as a tween(mom encouraged us to have adventurous palates). I'd rather eat an old shoe from the Salvation Army Thrift Store than anything of that kind ever again.

Carpaccio was one of the raw paleo recipes i found tonight but i cant remember what it consisted of, it was horrible if i remember. I might be in the dark but ive never really heard or seen of anyone eating raw meat minus the eggs. Its crazy in my opinion.

It seems to be based on our ancestors, surely they used fire to cook the meat?

Carpaccio, ceviche, gravlax, sushi, sashimi, beef tartare, hoe, yukhoe, live bugs, raw seal, some brined/pickled fish...

Nothing new about that. The crazy part about it is eating it when it's obviously putrefied. Raw meat needs to be extremely fresh.

I think there is some evidence of it being sustaining in the arctic where fresh veg and fruits aren't available. I think it was because the raw blood contained some vitamin C, which couldn't be obtained otherwise. I read this a long time ago and don't have a current reference for it though.

veghunter,

Right, and there's usable vitamin D in brain tissue and eyeballs have a lot of A, but why, why, if you can get produce, would you eat these things? You're not a feral dog, for heaven's sake!

I recall seeing a program on Canadian television many years ago that suggested that urban Inuit live longer and are taller than their relatives back in the Arctic. It seemed to make sense, because if you're eating caribou eyeballs for vitamins, well, that's basically subsistence/deficiency eating right there, however culturally valid it may be.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/17/2010 10:07PM by Tamukha.

Tamukha, I'm not advocating a raw paleo diet. I got the impression (perhaps wrongly) that Powerlifer was just discovering the wide world of raw meat eaters and commenting on how it wasn't new. I was also unclear on why you say that there is little anthropological evidence for raw meat when it is pretty well accepted that raw animal products have been eaten for centuries, if not millennia sometimes with cause.

I think dietary requirements vary more from person to person than many people think. Personally, I have trouble keeping my iron up. I have had many times when my iron was low that I would obsess about eating red meat, especially raw (eventhough I never did eat it raw). I would even wake at night the craving was so strong. It's not hard for me to imagine that without the aid of supplementation, I would not be able to eat anything like a vegan diet, even though others seem to thrive on it.

veghunter Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I have had many
> times when my iron was low that I would obsess
> about eating red meat, especially raw (eventhough
> I never did eat it raw). I would even wake at
> night the craving was so strong.

I craved dirt. Would drool when driving past an especially fresh mound of dirt. LOL

veghunter,

No doubt dietary requirements vary from person to person; your craving for red meat likely occured because your body assimilated heme iron better than that from leafy greens. Have you ever had a medical work-up done to determine what's the case with you, like perhaps a hereditary predisposition to anemia? The thing about raw paleos is that it seems to be an arbitrary lifestyle change with a lot of the ones one sees on YouTube, etc. Like they weren't having problems assimilating minerals or vitamins from a varied diet--they heard about paleo and thought, as many of us did about raw veg, "hey! I'll give that a go!" If it's something one switches to because of a serious biophysiological need or condition, I see the sense in that. But it seems like these people keep upping the ante in ways that have no rationale(that's what I was referring to as having no basis in anthropology/physiology). When did our ancestors make smoothies out of raw sheep brains and feed them to toddlers? When did they grind up beef and leave it to putrefy and eat it only then? Never, that's when. It's like some weird challenge contest that we aren't privy to . . . it's like they are participating in a 24/7 episode of "Fear Factor."

I see what you're saying. I agree it does seem more like a whim, fad, or even political position to go raw paleo than a dietary consideration.

Raw fish and shellfish are really big where I live because of the Japanese and Hawaiian cultures. Every supermarket has fresh poke - different kinds of raw fish/shellfish mixed with onion and herbs/spices/seaweeds/whatever. The most highly valued raw shellfish is opihi, because the pickers risk their lives to get it off ocean rocks.

That doesn't gross me out too much (except I feel bad for the little fishies). I did get grossed out though recently by a raw paleo guy at the health food store. When he told me he ate all raw, I said really, me too! He said, "but I eat raw meat" and went on to tell me how great it was to eat the wild pigs here raw. He motioned to his little girl sitting in the cart (maybe 3 years old). He said she loves eating raw pig, and she just ate a big piece........ She had blood juices dripping out of her mouth and all over her chin (shiiiiiiiver).

Now that I think about it, there may be some kind of in-your-face factor involved if a person is eating putrefied raw meats or eating obviously dangerous raw meat like pork and feeding it to their kids.

My understanding is that another big part of being paleo is that they don't eat grains (cavepeople didn't eat grains). I've heard that used as an argument for why paleo is superior to vegan. Hah! Rawfood vegans don't necessarily eat grains; but when we do, the grains are sprouted - something cavepeople could easily have eaten without fire.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 11/18/2010 02:46AM by suncloud.

Here's a recent news story that contradicts the "cavemen didn't eat grains" theory.

----------------


Paleolithic Humans Had Bread Along With Their Meat
By REUTERS
Published: October 18, 2010

LONDON (Reuters) — Starch grains found on 30,000-year-old grinding stones suggest that prehistoric humans may have dined on an early form of flatbread, contrary to their popular image as primarily meat eaters.

The findings, published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal on Monday, indicate that Paleolithic Europeans ground down plant roots similar to potatoes to make flour, which was later whisked into dough.

“It’s like a flatbread, like a pancake with just water and flour,” said Laura Longo, a researcher on the team, from the Italian Institute of Prehistory and Early History.

“You make a kind of pita and cook it on the hot stone,” she said, describing how the team replicated the cooking process. The end product was “crispy like a cracker but not very tasty,” she added.

The grinding stones, each of which fits comfortably into an adult’s palm, were discovered at archaeological sites in Italy, Russia and the Czech Republic.

The researchers said their findings throw humankind’s first known use of flour back some 10,000 years, the previously oldest evidence having been found in Israel on 20,000-year-old grinding stones.

The findings may also upset fans of the so-called Paleolithic diet, which follows earlier research that assumes early humans ate a meat-centered diet.

Also known as the “cave man diet,” the regime frowns on carbohydrate-laden foods like bread and cereal, and modern-day adherents eat only lean meat, vegetables and fruit.

It was first popularized by the gastroenterologist Walter L. Voegtlin, whose 1975 book lauded the benefits of the hunter-gatherer diet.

I had heard about it for a while, but i guess the WOW factor came from the raw beef/meat. I know people eat raw sushi and such thats disgusting enough. But i could never picture someone tucking into raw pork, beef, chicken, damn thats gross even thinking about it.

There is physically no way i can see that this would be a good idea let alone a healthy idea.

Suncloud,
I was hiking on the small mountain above Waimea and near the peak came across what I thought must be the home of wild pigs because there were caves and the earth was trampled down to bare earth. Just below there was the beginning of a mountain stream, where one of the Parker Ranch cows had died and was returning to the earth undisturbed. I always wondered why a den of wild pigs would have left a fallen cow? Maybe they were onto other foods but it's mostly just pasture up there, or maybe they were cleared out by hunting? Are Hawaiian wild pigs picky eaters?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/18/2010 11:22AM by loeve.

suncloud,

I'm sorry to say that, had I been in your position watching that toddler gnaw on raw pork, I'd not have been able to refrain from telling the father he should be sure to have his child regularily tested for trichina. In an even tone of voice, telling him.

Prana,

Oopsie! That's a pretty big wrench in the works of the Paleo Hypothesis! Now, will it be ignored, or denounced as "bad science"? That is the question.

Prana,

Thanks for that article! Good one!

Loeve, Are you still on the Big Island? I thought you lived on the Mainland back East somewhere. Are you visiting?

About the pigs. They rototill the ground like that to eat earthworms and maybe bugs. I've never heard of them eating any other kind of animal though or attacking an animal unless threatened. They'll attack a hunting dog for example, or a person who walks up on them.

I think they're basically herbivore. We had a lot of trouble with the pigs this year because for the first time ever, they started eating our bananas - I mean the entire banana plant (the plants are huge)! They've always eaten the falling fruits, but they started biting into the base of the trunks until the plants fell. Then they ate the plants from base to stalk. They've stopped, now that the drought is over (banana plants are packed with water).

Usually they're our buddies (as long as we don't get too close).

Hope you enjoy(ed) your stay here!

Yeah Tamukha. Definitely one of those times I look back on and wish I'd said something. I probably should have said exactly what you suggested!

Suncloud,
That's good to know the wild pigs are not aggressive. Years ago when in Waimea for a wedding I'd heard they lived on the island and when walking alone one day right close along side what looked like their hillside cave dwellings I was a little nervous wondering if something like a wild boar would jump out at me.

The deer here off the east coast do the same sort of damage to yards and gardens and are hunted for food and sport and are even culled when they start to over-run the place, especially since they've gotten a reputation as tick-born disease carriers. Deer season can get ugly.

I was just reading about how wild pigs need a lot of water to live. I remember you talking about them leaving free fertilizer but didn't think what grubbers they might be. They sounded cute as it sounds like they usually are.

My ex and I had a great time staying a week on the Kohala coast. We snorkled, golfed, hiked and drove out as far as the black sands somewhere on the north coast.

Tamukha,
"The worst thing about this is that it has very little basis in anthropology, to say nothing of human physiology. "

Well, were do people get that impression? Many television documentary programs advance the idea that people in ages past ate meat, maybe not as much as a paleo diet, but made up some portion. Not to advance that this is correct, or a good idea, but just asking why that is such a popular image presented to the public.

Additionally, I wonder why vegan dha and epa supplements are being sold and produced. Those forms of essential fatty acids are more common in animal products, and difficult to find in plant based foods. There is the belief that everyone has the ability to convert those fatty acids to those forms, so why would anyone need them?

Suncloud,
Thats interesting commentary about opihi. Its a strange thought for me to think that something would be somehow better if someone risk their life to get it. But in actual fact there is a lot of risk associated with many animal products.

That program 'deadliest catch' highlights dangers that can be around fishing. It certainly doesn't look like joy being in the arctic ocean with large, very cold waves passing over you. I saw a story on "1,000 ways to die" about a young woman died while sport fishing, it was a strange thing to listen to, but there are risks with knives, hooks, fishing lines, drowning etc...

Hunting big game has alot of risks, illustrated by some recreated footage I have seen in a documentary about wholly mammoth hunting. Death and major injury was common.

Isn't it wonderful that plants don't fight back, or run away? The only real dangers I can see are the difficulties in opening a coconut. Oh,there is always injuries around heavy farming equipement associated with grain, perhaps potatoes and maybe some other crops. I almost cut myself trying to open up some chestnuts the other day. so there are some risks with plant products, but they don't seem as much of a problem as animal foods.