QuestionI have occasionally over the last year tried incorporating raw animal products into my diet. Those (particularly those in my family) who found out I was doing this were generally horrified and insisted that I would contract some terminal illness and die. I was never really to worried about this happening. After all, food poisoning, generally speaking, is usually never a serious threat to health except with the young, elderly, or immune compromised as they say. What is more, I tend to feel that the germaphobe culture America embraces is misguided.
That said, the two times I really got into the raw meat lifestyle so to say (eliminating basically all cooked foods and eating basically paleo-style) I have come down with fairly serious cases of the stomach flu. The first time this happened I got sort of freaked out and stopped eating raw animal products all together. After slowly building back up courage over the course of several months, I began reintroducing raw eggs on occasion and very rarely cooked meats. A couple weeks ago I decided to go on an all raw diet for a second time, expecting (hoping) that I would not have another bad experience. But alas, a few days ago my stomach began feeling unwell, and as I am presently writing I can only assume that I have contracted, for a second time, some awful sort of stomach infection.
I am well aware of the claim among raw meat gurus that mild diarrhea and stomach disease are common as part of the cleansing process that accompanies the transitional phase of eating raw--but what I have is not mild, and certainly not detox, which is to say, I feel absolutely miserable. I clearly have some sort of a virus. What's more, its not as if I have been eating unclean sorces of meat. Generally speaking, I only eat pastured and usually organic meat bought from clean/sanitary establishments and sources such as whole foods and my local farmers market. Further, I always eat my meat very fresh (i'm years away from considering things like "high-meat", especially in light of my current situation). Lastly, I'm young, I feel that I am relatively healthy, and aside from these two recent experiences, cannot recall ever having serious stomach illnesses.
At this point, I'm beggining to have serious doubts about the whole eating raw thing. Intuitively, eating raw would seem to make a lot of sense. However, my reactions lead me to question some of the underlying assumptions of raw meat eating. For example, we really don't know all that much about role of diet in human evolution. From what little research I've done, what I gather is that there exist very many conflicting viewpoints about when cooking originated and how it could have affected us genetically. Perhaps humans really aren't designed to be eating lots of raw animal products, lacking the essential constitution to prevent infection. Alternatively, perhaps the modern food supply chain is so far removed from the hunter-gather paradigm that the meat we buy and consume from the supermarket is not even comparable. That perhaps in the ideal world we would eat freshly killed wild game meat eat day, but in this world we are better off cooking our meat.
I'm really just playing devils advocate here and realize that I am completely basing my opinions off of my experience alone. I know that this is absolutely non-scientic and am fully open to the possibility that my sickness was completely coincidental. That said, personal experience has a strong influence on behavior, and I'm finding it hard to justify continuing the raw food lifestyle in light said experience. All ready I was testing the limits of skepticism by ignoring all popular attitudes and medical advice on the issue of eating raw animal products based on what a (relatively) small number of fringe amateur nutritionists regard as sound dietary wisdom. My intuition, or perhaps just my paranoia and general non-conformist attitude lead me to try this diet not once, but twice, and twice I have had a bad experience.
As a person for whom this diet/lifestyle obviously has not lead to the sort of bad experiences I have had, and as somebody who has spent a lot longer talking to other people who have tried eating this way, I would like to know whether you could give me any sort of advice or reassurance that eating raw meat is actually safe. Also, I figured that with so many raw meat advocates claiming never to have heard of anybody getting truly sick on this diet, I figured my experience would be worth knowing about.
Thanks for taking the time to read my thoughts on these matters. I have found your other answers to be very interesting and informative and appreciate the service you do. Any response to this would be much appreciated.
Chris
Answer I've come across people who started rawpalaeo but found that they couldn't tolerate amines, whether from raw or cooked foods, due to previous health-problems pre-raw diet. In my own case, I was assured that raw dairy was a wonder-food and was attacked in various forums for daring to suggest that it was possible for anyone to be allergic to all types of raw dairy - so one size does not fit all.
As regards cooking, most anthropologists are actually in agreement that cooking started c.250,000 to 300,000 years ago, because there's so much evidence of it re hearths etc. Evidence from earlier ages is so rare, that anthropologists view them as caused by wildfires started by lightning or the result of evidence from different eras being mixed together due to various natural processes. Wrangham's claim of 1.8 million to 2.3 million years ago for cooking is absurd, and not popular due to various inconsistencies:-
http://www.rawpaleo.com/adventCook.html
Re adaptation:- This is a difficult topic.There's some controversy re jaw-development, with some claiming that cooked-food led to dental health problems such as malocclusion and a smaller jaw. Others, though, cite a bigger brain-size as leading to a smaller jaw. Then there's Weston-Price who pointed out how consumption of processed diets leads to poor jaw/facial development.
I remember reading somewhere that some geneticists think that one needs c.1 million years in order to fully,genetically adapt to a wholly different kind of diet. That would mean, perhaps, a partial adaptation, but not a full one, given usually-referenced dates for cooking,(that is, assuming that any full adaptation could occur, as cooked-food is such a radically different kind of food from what animals in Nature have been eating for 100s of millions of years).
While detoxes are usually quite mild if you're doing things right(ie not eating a raw food you may be allergic to etc., such as dairy/eggs etc.), the initial detox you get when transitioning suddenly from cooked to raw, is, however, usually quite violent, according to reports. In my own case, the first 2-3 days of the sudden switch forced me to excrete green-coloured diarrhea, and I had to visit the toilet/bathroom every 15 to 30 minutes as a result, during that time, and had little sleep. Others have reported even more violent incidents as the toxins get expelled. After that initial 2-3-day phase, I only got very mild detoxes, every 2 to 4 months, lasting from 2 to 7 days in length(these were semi-flu-like symptoms:- ie warm forehead, fatigue, runny nose) which gradually reduced themselves in terms of severity, duration and frequency until they stopped after a couple of years or so. I don't discount the possibility of a heavy detox(I've heard reports of initial detoxes lasting a few weeks) but this is pretty rare.
My suggestion to you is to do what a number of RAFers do. Start off cooking all relevant foods that you normally cook, use as many sauces as possible even if processed. Then, every so often, reduce the cooking-temperature by 1 degree every so often, and remove all processed sauces, temporarily replacing them with raw sauces, until, eventually, you can eat raw meats at room-temperature without sauces.People report that the initial detox phase is much gentler(or even nonexistent), this way. Another way to reduce the initial detox is to do long-term fasting before going all-raw, though I don't recommend you do it for as long as some(eg:- 20 days!) - better to keep it much lower than that(7 days?).
I read that you buy "usually organic". Perhaps best to only buy organic, just in case.
Also, since you mention going all-raw and experiencing difficulties, have you thought about just introducing small amounts of raw meats here and there, starting with 10% of diet and moving up?(eg:- sashimi from Japanese restaurants etc.). RAFers report not having to endure the initial detox-phase if they only gradually introduce raw animal foods into the diet, over time.
I agree that the high-meat option isn't a good idea for newbies as they need to get used to fresh meats first. However, I have to admit I deeply regret not having tried high-meat much earlier given that my digestive system was so wrecked that I found even fresh, raw muscle-meats a little difficult to digest(I had to go in for raw organs as an alternative, for a time). You might consider an easier alternative such as EM (Effective Microorganisms) products(ie soil bacteria) or a (good) probiotics - most probiotics are rubbish.
The trouble with giving you advice is that I've never had your experience nor heard of other RAFers with similiar issues. Worst I've heard of is occasional,minor issues such as vomiting, and stomach-pains, but the stomach-pains are invariably due to a digestive system already wrecked by years of eating junk-food. try the options I suggested above, and also do elimination diets to se if some raw animal foods(eg:- raw fish, raw dairy or whatever)are allergenic in your case.
Oh, another method you could use is marinating. For example, ceviche is basically raw fish marinated in freshly-squeezed raw lemon-juice for 8 to 24 hours, to kill the bacteria in it. Drying raw meats in a dehydrator, at a low heat(less than 104 ideally,110 at the very most) is another option. That's assuming that the issue is bacteria. My own experience is that the environment is more important than the pathogen.
HTH,
RPG.
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