Meats

Question
Hi Geoff,
I want to start eating raw again once I get a new job.
I'm concerned about irridated meats. I once tried
Foster Farms chicken breast with raw butter and it was pretty good. I read another question in which
you stated most supermarket meat is irridated?
I looked at foster farms website and they seem to
be a great company.. they don't freeze their products
either, and I belive they feed them mostly corn.. which
is better than soy feed, I think aajonus stated. I'll have
to ask foster farms that question.. I'd prefer to be
able to buy from a store instead of ordering and having
meat come to me. I also thought a good product was
Atkin's Ranch New Zealand Lamb, from Trader Joes.
I ate some of that raw and it felt really fresh.
I developed a sore throat once after eating some
Foster Farms chicken.  Whats your opinion on raw meat
eaters who don't order their meat.. can we still get
high quality meats from stores?
Are the ones I picked high quality?
Will eating irridated raw meat poison my body instead
of help it?
Red meat is kind of hard to eat.. will I digest part
of it in my small intestine if I chew a bit and swallow large peices?

Answer
Re eating meat:- A number of rawpalaeodieters have said that they actually digest the raw (red) muscle meat much better when they just bolt it down like a dog, after very little chewing. My own preference has been to eat raw organ-meats instead of red muscle-meat, as they're much softer for eating(and more nutrient-dense than muscle-meats which are often just connective tissue(though, I do, of course, eat the softer raw muscle-meats from fish/shellfish, and fowl). Most people who eat lots of raw red muscle-meat tend to use blenders and food-processors to make it easier to chew etc.Not my thing, personally, but it's an idea you might consider.

Re quality of products:- The products you've chosen are not ideal raw meats, but that doesn't mean you should necessarily avoid them. After all, cooked meat is worse.
In the case of chicken it's best to go for chicken that are truly free-range with lots of grass and earthworms and insects to feed on, though they will unfortunately always have grain in their diets. Corn,soy and other grain are not natural parts of a chicken's diet, but are commonly fed, even to organic chickens, as grain is necessary to get chickens to (unnaturally) lay eggs all year round.

Re New Zealand Meat:- This is a (very mild) con. I've checked and it turns out that all new-zealand exported lamb is grain-fed in the 3 months prior to slaughter, though it is grass-fed before that. 100% grass-fed organic meat is the highest quality meat  you can find. (A number of (gluten-sensitive)people I know get adverse reactions from grain-fed meat, and I personally find the taste nowhere near as good).

I would suggest sticking to these foods for now, but to keep looking for better alternatives, every now and then. It takes a lot of time to build up reliable sources of raw meats.I would definitely avoid irradiated meat, if I were you. Since irradiated meat is now a common feature of supermarkets, I'd strongly suggest not using them as a food-source. Irradiated meat, at the very least, destroys the bacteria in the meat, which makes it more difficult to digest, and there are likely to be many other effects(I personally didn't do well on a supermarket-meat diet when i first started going rawpalaeo)

A good rule re raw food is to get it from sources as close to you as possible. Generally speaking, the longer the distance the food has to travel to your door, the more unreliable it is likely to be, in terms of quality, for obvious reasons. In my own case, I visit a couple of local  (organic) farmers markets, which are now prolific in the UK, especially in London  - I also have a local fishmongers I rely on. Farmers' markets seem to be not very common in the US  except in the eastern third(I'm assuming you're American), but if you can find a local one via online searches, you might strike it lucky. Other than that you can find online organic farmers' associations for each State and get contact details from them.
(I ought to mention that I've tried several different ways such as buying from organic butchers/buying via websites etc., and the cheapest (and highest in quality) was always the farmers' markets. I'm very lucky, also, in that a number of the farmers I meet, hunt a lot, so I get access to really exotic foods such as wild hare very regularly).

Here's some general tips re buying cheap, good organic food:-

http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/cheap/20040901a1.asp

Here's a raw-food-for-pets supplier Yahoo group. Many people have found it very useful for getting hold of cheap food for themselves.Just become a member and ask if there are any raw-meat-suppliers in your area selling "naturally-reared" meats. "Naturally-reared" meats can often be as good as organic in terms of standards.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CarnivoreFeed-Supplier/

The following website re grass-fed(organic/naturally-reared) meat sources  is ideal. Just search under your State and you'll find numerous  farms listed with contact details.

http://www.eatwild.com/

I know you don't like to order from afar, but, in extremis, this website might be an option:-

http://www.northstarbison.com/

Other than that, I've heard many Americans praise their "Wholefoods" chain of stores re finding reasonably high-quality meat.

Hope This Helps
Geoff  

1. Prev:tomato
2. Next:Vegetarian diet & immune system