Raw meats and Blood

Question
A little background on my situation, I am a Celiac who also suffers from dairy
intolerance and am constantly experimenting with different diets. I especially
like the intermittent fasting as it greatly improves my energy on fast days.
Anyways, I understand the richer nutrients available in raw foods. I love
meats, but have never tried raw meat. I have access to an organic bison ranch
that sells organ meats among the usual muscle.
What are the possible risks with eating raw meat? Are there any paticular
parts of the bison that are less likely to cause problems? what should a
beginner to raw meats start with?
Oh, and what is your experience with drinking blood raw? is it okay to drink
blood that has been frozen?

Thank you in advance from a person who is greatly intrested in a raw diet.

Answer
Re raw-meats:- The general concensus among Raw-Animal-Foodists is that there are no real risks re eating raw-meats, as long as you get healthy meats which are neither grainfed nor intensively-farmed. The idea is that healthy animals have a friendly bacterial environment, so their meats are fine.


The only, very minor "risk" one might get on a raw-animal-food diet is the occasional detox. For example, I switched to raw "cold-turkey", and the first 2 or 3 days of the diet were spent mostly in the bathroom/lavatory as I excreted many of the toxins I'd accumulated over years of eating cooked-/processed foods. However, if you're doing the diet right, these should be pretty infrequent and minor in nature.

Oh, and there's the issue of allergies and a too-limited diet. Many people start off with(and stick to) just 5 or 6 raw-animal-foods(usually lean-muscle-meats) and then are, amusingly, surprised when they, later on, encounter nutritional deficiencies etc. It's a very good idea to try a hundred different raw plant/raw animal foods until you find the 10% or so which you will quickly like, you then should eat those mainly, but eat small amounts of the raw foods you initially dislike, and eventually you'll get used to the latter as well, and even like their taste.

As for allergies/food-intolerance:- The main problems that can arise on a raw-animal-food diet are due to consumption of raw dairy/raw veggie-juice, eating too much, not eating enough raw-animal-fat,not enough variety in the diet, and consuming huge amounts of raw carbs such as raw honey. None of these are exactly Palaeo in style, so this is rather unsurprising.

Re beginner-advice:- It would be best if you joined one of the  raw-animal-food-oriented forums out there, and asked people, so that you could get a number of diverse opinions re what to do - you should also set aside some time to eventually read through every single message in each one of the RAF-diet group-archives.  There are 3 main Yahoo Raw-Animal-Food-oriented Groups (here are the links:-

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/live-food/

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/rawpaleodiet/

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/RAV-Food/

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/primaldiet/

(closed group - to join, email [email protected])



and here's another one(I should mention, however, that it focuses on RAF-diets from a purely raw-animal-food/non-plant-food perspective):-

http://activenocarber.myfreeforum.org/forum10.php

(also, of course, check my past allexperts.com answers, in case someone may have already asked any future questions you may have)


The usual recommendation for those who wish to transition slowly to a RAF diet is to start lightly-cooking your meats, but to gradually lower the cooking-temperature, every so often, by 1 degree Celsius/Fahrenheit until eventually you can eat it at room-temperature - also start by adding small amounts of any processed sauces you want, then gradually remove them, replace with small amounts of raw sauces, and eventually lower those latter amounts too, until you can eat the raw meat on its own. As for which parts of bison to start off with, you should just try the muscle-meats first, whether sirloin or fillet or whatever - it doesn't matter. Most people take much longer to get used to the taste of raw organ-meats(especially raw liver), so it might be worth buying very small amounts of each type of organ-meat just to see if you happen to like one or two from the start(for example, I found the taste of raw ox-tongue quite appealing from the start) - but, otherwise, leave them for a while  until you've got used to eating the raw muscle-meats.


Since muscle-meats aren't generally all that high in nutrients, it would be a good idea, in the meantime, to go in for raw shellfish and  fish etc as well.Oh, and as regards bison(or any other animal), I would generally not recommend either the "Rocky Mountain Oysters(!)" or the lung as they are virtually inedible raw, and rather tasteless. I also generally avoid the opportunity re buying raw intestines, as, pre-raw diet, I once had a cooked-meal of intestines in Austria(it's a favourite dish, over there) and was not impressed - however, you may feel more adventurous than me, in this regard. The rest of the body(glands such as "sweetbreads"(ie thymus/pancreas, adrenals/spleen etc.), liver, kidney, tongue, heart,brains,suet, marrow, hide-fat etc.) is perfectly fine to eat. I particularly recommend the suet, and especially the  marrow, as sources of raw animal-fats -



It's also a good idea to go out to restaurants, especially with others, and eat various raw-animal-food dishes(eg:- beef carpaccio/sashimi(raw fish) dishes in (authentic) Japanese restaurants/steak tartare in French/Hungarian/Russian etc. restaurants/raw-meat-kitfo in Ethiopian restaurants etc.)  Most of our food-preferences and tastes have been created out of years of past habits and social conditioning - therefore it makes sense to go out and eat raw-animal-food in a socially-acceptable setting so that one can see that it's perfectly  to do so.


Re drinking raw blood:- I often buy things like wild hare or wild-boar liver in vacuum-packs, so they usually have a certain amount of raw blood in them, sometimes as much as a pint-full, in some rare cases. I love the taste of that sort of blood from wild animals as it's so rich in taste and so fresh, but don't much like the taste of blood from the usual grassfed meat from domesticated animals such as  beef/ox/pork etc.

Re frozen:- Blood itself isn't all that high in nutrients, so you shouldn't view it as a major food-item in and of itself, it's just an extra condiment. While freezing isn't nearly as bad as cooking the meat, it would likely be a bad idea to freeze something like blood which is already not terribly high in nutrients(by comparison to organ-meats etc.)

1. Prev:food allergies/picky eater
2. Next:organ supplements