QuestionBack story, about a month or two ago, I switched to something resembling a Paleodiet after a long fast had left me sensitive to food. Trial and error, the foods that didn't hurt me were almost always raw, and intuitively, raw meats and especially animal fats are the only thing that left me sated. (Bone marrow, especially).
That said, I walk about five miles a day, live on a budget, and live in a city with very few farms nearby. It's been hard to get enough calories while I'm working out the details about purchasing from farms. In the meantime, I'm living off mostly bananas, a few eggs, some greens/sprouts, and a piece of fatty meat a day.
I'm constantly hungry and almost out of body fat reserves. Right now, I'm being drawn into the woods for pine cambium, something my body knows as famine food; probably not a good sign.
So, I guess my question is, in the meantime, until I get all the farm/hunt things sorted out, what's the best way to go during a time period that good animal fat and organ meat is scarce? Can you think of some short-term city-convenient and wallet-friendly options to tide me over?
And, off topic, in your opinion, what foods have you found to be the best for the diet? Can you think of a list of a few dozen or so "special" foods?
Thanks, Ian
AnswerMany countries have a number of online organic and/or grassfed meat directories. For example, the US has www.eatwild.com, among a dozen others(the UK has at least 4 useful ones), where one can find contact-details of various farms. Then you just ring them all up to find out if they supply organ-meats, which ones are the cheapest etc. Also, town councils should have lists of local,organic farms in their records.
OK, you mention you're on a budget, and ordering meats via delivery from farms can, sometimes, be expensive. There are various ways to get round this, though, if you're willing to compromise a little. First of all,in case you're based in the USA, here's a site for raw-animal-food-for pets:-
http://tinyurl.com/2567wu
A few RAFers who've had problems finding meats that were cheap enough, used the above site to find "naturally-reared" (and I think, grassfed?) meats(naturally-reared means not 100% organic but with no chemicals/hormones etc.)
Another good idea re buying from farms is to always buy in bulk. This is because(at least in the UK), farms charge the same delivery-cost(eg:- 9 UK pounds sterling) for every shipment, regardless of its size. I, for example, buy something like 13-18 kilos of raw bone-marrow(including the weight of the bone) and 5 kilos of raw suet, each time I need to renew my stock thereof.Bone-marrow from my UK farm costs 1.50 a kilo(far cheaper than any comparable muscle-meat or organ-meat) and the suet costs 5 pounds sterling, so 13 kilos of marrow and 5 kilos of suet, including delivery, would cost something like 53.50 UK pounds(=107 US dollars) - this might sound horrendously expensive by US standards, but food in the UK is so expensive that this is actually very cheap, indeed(I'm sure US prices for the same products will be much lower). The suet and marrow are, of course, so filling that I actually spend less, overall, when I have those available.
Re IF:- If price is a concern, then Intermittent Fasting(IF) is well worth considering as you'll find you'll need less food to sustain you, over time. The idea is that constantly overburdening the body with food slows down the rate of healing etc. There are two variations of IF:- either one can do one large meal a day(within a 4-hour-period), but eat nothing at all at other times (just drinking spring-water), or one can eat as much as one wants on one day(throughout the day), eating nothing at all the next day, and repeating the cycle each time. I found the 2nd option too extreme to carry out in the long-term, given hunger-pangs, so I follow the first option, and take the occasional whole-day fast here and there - for various reasons, I find it much easier to do a whole-day fast if I'm concentrating on something important. I should mention that it took quite some time for me to get used to the one meal a day routine - at first, I would feel the need to eat a small meal at midday(I've always loathed eating early at breakfast-time so that part wasn't a problem).
Re sources:- In the UK, (semi-organic)farmers' markets have been absolutely invaluable as regards finding cheap, high-quality sources of meats/organ-meats from wild animals etc. Early on in the diet, when I had no idea such farmers' markets existed, I would, instead, visit every ethnic market in town, whether Chinese or Caribbean etc. - the meats weren't necessarily "organic" but they were of far higher quality than I could ever find in a supermarket - and I was able to get hold of some unusual meats, this way, such as goatmeat etc. Plus, the meats tend to be cheaper than elsewhere.
Re your current diet:- Since it's somewhat limited, you might consider getting hold of a few raw fish-oil supplements(taking 1 tablet a day?). In the US, there's "Arctic Naturals", I believe, which is sold as genuinely raw - trouble is that it has artificial vitamin E/tocopherol and has "peach essence" added- but, as a short-term way of getting useful nutrients on a limited diet, it will do. A few RAFers have mentioned that they've undergone periods where they only had grain-fed meat available, so that they would, during that time, eat plenty of raw grainfed meat but, temporarily, supplement with fish-oils to get the missing omega-3 fatty-acids.
Re those eggs:- I don't really recommend raw eggs in large quantities, these days(that is, if one has better sources of animal-fat easily available). Best to minimise them. There is some controversy over the issue of egg-whites, so you might find it prudent to remove most of the egg-white, first, if you feel the need to eat plenty of it.
Re substitutes:- If I can't get hold of organ-meats, I generally turn to raw shellfish. Unfortunately, raw shellfish is often quite expesnive by comparison to raw organ-meats, but raw(wildcaught) mussels are an exception - the trouble is that they are a major hassle to open(I use a wlanut-cracker to shatter the shells). You coudl also go in for the cheaper fish-varieties like sardines, sprats etc. if you have a local fishmonger in your area - of course, if you live nowhere near the coast, raw fish/shellfish may be too expensive an option for you.
If raw food, especially raw animal food, is truly difficult to find, right now, you might consider, as a last resort, looking around for healthier types of cooked food. For example, while I was transitioning to raw-=animal-food, shortly before I looked into the Primal Diet,, I, at first, had no idea what foods were acceptable raw, so I would go in for things like organic smoked ham or organic salami etc. - these were not ideal, given that they were filled with preservatives, but they were, undoubtedly, a better, if temporary,
option than the raw organic fruit and veg that were otherwise my only other sources of truly raw foods.
Re special foods:- I don't believe in the concept of single raw
"superfoods" like goji berries, coconut oil, palm-kernel oil,
raw royal jelly, durian, or whatever - though , you'll find many members of the various raw-animal-food-oriented Yahoo groups who do use those foods a lot. I consider them to be mere fads, though.
However, here are my views:-
I've found that meats from wild-animals are healthier and much higher in nutrients than any other kinds of foods. Next comes grassfed/organic, then "naturally-reared", then grainfed/organic/free-range and lastly there's intensively-farmed grainfed supermarket meats. Obviously, if the meats are heated, the higher the temperature, the less healthy the meats become.
By "wild meats", I, of course, don't just mean "wild-game meats", but also wild-caught, non-farmed seafood, such as raw swordfish, raw oysters, raw mussels etc. etc.
Re eggs:- While I have no access to such, as yet, I've been informed by others that fertilised raw eggs are a much better option than non-fertilised ones - also eggs from pasture-fed chickens are a better option(though, again, in the UK, while cattle are FAR more likely to be grassfed than in the US, pigs/chickens are forced to be fed on unnatural diets consisting almost entirely of grains and the like).
Also, in some countries, there is no proper organic-meat industry. In such areas, it's best to look around for rare breeds of the usual cattle/pigs etc., as these are more likely to be raised on healthier diets. Also, if you look hard enough, you can find some unique meats. For example, after hours of searching online at the start of going rawpalaeo, I found a Scottish site selling heather-fed lamb, and I've, since then, even found sources for salt-marsh-fed lamb(lamb fed on raw
samphire, a herb found on the coast). I view such meats as being of higher quality than standard grassfed meats, even if organic-raised.
Re Honey:- The best honey is heather-honey. I wouldn't advise buying liquid honey, as it causes problems re blood-sugar for many people, myself included. Raw honeycomb is better, as the wax offsets the excess sweetness -plus, unlike with raw liquid honey, one can be sure that,99% of the time, the honeycomb will be genuinely raw.
I don't view honeycomb as a terribly healthy food, though - but it was useful, near the start of the diet, as a sort of illicit, but still genuinely-raw, food, that I could indulge in on occasion
Re my list of special foods:- Please DO NOT take this as anything more than a very vague guideline. We Raw-Animal-Foodists live in widely different areas, with widely different raw foods available. For example, many of the US people I correspond with, have access to raw organic/grassfed bison which I, living in the UK, have no chance of obtaining. On the other hand, I'm able to get hold of things like quails' eggs, goatmeat,wild hare-carcasses etc. that many USers
generally haven't a hope of buying. So, it would make better sense for you to ask on the 3 Raw-Animal-Food-oriented Yahoo
groups if there's anyone there who lives in your area or country, who can give you suggestions as to where to get hold of cheap, high-quality raw-animal-food. Another consideration is that we all come to raw-animal-food diets with entirely different health-problems which require quite different foods to sort out their conditions(eg:- someone with iodine deficiency would probably benefit more from raw seafood etc.)
Anyway, I suppose there are only a few foods I treasure above in particular,(ie wild hare carcasses, ox/beef/venison tongue, marrow, suet, blueberries,raw oysters). Other than that, I make an effort to always look out for different kinds of meats/organ-meats as variety in diet is one of the most important factors re health, IMO. Here's a general list of a few of the other raw foods I've eaten at various times in the diet -(a few I rarely eat much of,these days,
such as the raw heather honeycomb, others are only available seasonally - plus all are, at the very least least, "naturally-reared
or free-range" or grassfed/organic or wild-caught):-
raw heather or borage honeycomb, lobster/crab(I have to buy them live as they can only be sold as cooked if sold as dead),quails eggs/
hen-eggs,goose eggs/duck eggs, muscle-meats as well as organ-meats like tongue/liver/heart/kidney/sweetbreads(ie "thymus/pancreas")/brains/spleen/suet/marrow from pork/beef/venison/goats/lamb/water-buffalo,
, also wild-mallard/pheasant carcasses, raw swordfish,raw kingfish,raw mussels, samphire, sardines, sprats,mackerel, monkfish, scallops,giant prawns,free-range turkey-breast fillets,guinea-fowl, salmon roe,radishes, a few wild mushrooms such as beefsteak mushroom, some shark species(not recommended, given environmental concerns, but, sometimes when abroad, there haven't been many opportunities to find other high-quality fare), fermented sauerkraut, wild boar meats/organ-meats(domesticated wild-boar, mostly), "high-meat"(see previous answers), ostrich meat, horse-muscle-meats/organ-meats, goosemeat.
Well, that's all I can really remember offhand. I've actually eaten much a wider variety in the past, and have, in addition, experimented with all sorts of truly unusual items such as raw ostrich eggs and raw squid, raw lung(not recommended!).
Geoff
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