General Raw Diet Questions

Question
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Followup To
Question -
    Hello....my name is Tony Carlson.  I am a newcomer to the raw diet.  I have been a supporter of a paleo and neanderthin diet for a while but have never gone "all the way" by eating raw meat.  I did just start doing it but I have a few questions.  First of all I am a poor college kid and I find it is very difficult to afford or even to get free-range meats and organ meats.  What should I do?  Information by Aajonus Vonderplanitz (who sparked my interest in the raw meat diet) states that it is ok to eat commercial muscle meats such as beef because much of the toxins are stored in the bones and glands.  Of course, that would scratch out commercial organ meat right?  What about other meats such as chicken and pork?  I do plan on eating organic as soon as I can afford it.
    Furthermore, how do you store meat?  Isn't freezing meat bad?  In fact how do you store anything if it is not good to freeze or cook?  The reason I ask is that I live in Illinois and I plan on getting venison meat over the winter.  How do I store it since I will probably get a lot of meat at once?  And lastly, are you against dairy totally?  I don't really know how I could get a hold of raw dairy products anyway.  I know this is a lot of questions but I truly see the benefits of this diet and would love to follow it as strictly as possible.  Thank you for your help and inspiration.   
Answer -
Hello Tony,

Interesting - you say you're too poor to buy high-quality meats yet you are obviously able to afford wild venison via a hunter. The best, healthiest meats are always wild - they have less bad,white,  saturated fat on them, and have more healthy fats within the red meat itself compared to factory-farmed meat or even organic meat - plus they taste far better, so it's much easier to stay on the diet if you eat wild meats. So, if you can get wild meats on the cheap, don't bother buying expensive organic meats as well. In this regard, most fish and shellfish, apart from farmed salmon and trout, are wild as well, so they are an excellent choice too - unfortunately, only a few of those will be relatively cheap such as mackerel or sardines or mussels and the like.

Since you can get the whole deer carcase, it's wise to eat as much of the whole  animal as you can, especially the innards, for the trace elements. Early American colonists used to die from rabbit-starvation because they ate only nutrient-poor lean muscle-meats, whereas the healthier Eskimoes would eat brain, bone-marrow, heart, liver, kidney, tongue etc. etc. on their partially raw diet. You need plenty of raw fats from innards to process properly the protein  you eat or you may encounter problems in the future.

There are other ways of getting organic  meat cheaply. First of all, the innards from organic meat are nearly always cheaper than the muscle-meats, because they are seen as poor man's food, and few people want it therefore. For example, from one stall I can buy 1 kg of (organic ox) fillet steak for 脗拢27.50(!) a kilo - at the same stall I can buy organic ox liver at 脗拢2 per kilo(because nobody wants it-I used to get it free!),脗拢8 per whole organic ox tongue and organic heart and organic kidney for 脗拢8 per kilo each(multiply my numbers  by c.1.76 to get the value in dollars). As you can see, I rarely, if ever, buy organic muscle-meats for both health and cost reasons.
   
Regarding Aajonus's opinion, he's right up to a point. Yes, it's better to eat factory-farmed muscle-meat than to eat factory-farmed organ-meats, but the trouble is that, from my own experience, raw factory-farmed meat tastes truly foul compared to other kinds, and so it'll be a lot more difficult for you to maintain the raw diet continuously. By the way, factory-farmed chicken is absolutely foul and nutrient-poor, and most RPDers recommend strongly against it(even Aajonus, I seem to recall).

The other way to get hold of cheap organic meats is to visit local (organic) farmers' markets, which is what I do. Many farmers get ripped off by wholesalers and supermarket retailers  as regards the actual value of their meats so they increasingly look for ways to sell to the public directly for greater profit. You will benefit by not having to pay the extra costs that are put on the organic meat as it passes through the chain of  wholesalers and retailers.  So either look for local farmers' markets or, better still, get in touch with local farmers personally - if you make a bulk order once a week, you'll be able to get an even better price.

I would not recommend buying organic meat via the Internet as it costs far too much and they are notoriously unreliable, delivering late or only delivering half the order etc. That said, once you can afford it, you might be interested in this website:- http://www.northstarbison.com/

(In this regard, please do not buy meat at the supermarket. It's extremely common now for supermarkets to irradiate the meat to get rid of bacteria etc.)

When I first started out on this raw diet, I found many varying prices for my foods, so I made sure to visit as many different markets and shops as possible to get hold of the cheapest, high-quality foods- it took me a whole year to get a wide enough range of meat and innards at reasonable low prices. You'll have to do the same, I'm afraid. However, unlike me, you have 2 further possibilities. At the back of Aajonus' 2nd "Recipe for living without disease" book (and I think his first book as well), there is a form you can fill out and send to him asking him to send you a list of raw food producers in your area(it costs $15 for an administration fee).
  The other option is to visit Primal Potlucks in your local area. There you'll meet  Primal Dieters like yourself who will be able to give you invaluable advice as to where to get raw foods on the cheap - many of them will know local organic farmers personally, or even be farmers themselves. Perhaps the best way to do this is to send a general message on the Primal Diet Yahoo! group list asking for info on any future Potlucks and cheap raw food sources in your home state or neighbouring states. In case you don't already know, in order to subscribe to the Primal Diet list you must send an e-mail to Jon C Fox at [email protected] stating that you've read either one or both of Aajonus Vonderplanitz's 2 books(there is also an unspoken understanding that you mustn't criticise Aajonus' Primal Diet on the list, the list is only for general or specific questions on the diet, but you don't need to stress that in the e-mail). He will then send you a confirmation e-mail accepting you into the group. This is a closed membership group as the previous list had too many annoying trolls promoting cooked food and trying to disrupt the group as a whole.

I generally buy my meat every Sunday for the whole week, and my small fridge is just big enough for me to store it all. You may have to cut up your deer carcase to fit it all in. There are some people on the livefood list who have regularly cut up deer carcases(Vinny Pinto, the owner of  the livefood list, is one of them I seem to recall), so you can ask there for info on how to do it properly. You might want to store the meat in separate sealed vacuum packs.

Please do not freeze the meat. It's not a good idea. Freezing alters the structure of the enzymes and destroys some nutrients, plus the taste of prefrozen meat is worse than the nonfrozen kind - also if you do freeze meat, you'll have to eat it fast once it's thawed as it will lose nutrients at a much faster rate than normal. Having said that, it's really not the end of the world if you do freeze meat occasionally for reasons of necessity, just don't make a habit of it.

I am heavily against raw dairy as I, like many others, have a severe food intolerance towards both raw and pasteurised dairy. Aajonus and others have claimed in the past that any problems with raw dairy are just signs of detox. This is just not true as I found out after 5 months of bed-ridden hell. If you experience any of the following symptoms on a long-term basis you can be sure it's not a detox and that you have a problem with raw dairy:-  blood in the stools, headaches, regular fatigue(the most common symptom of raw dairy- you feel a boost of energy for a short while after drinking raw milk,and then the opioids make you so dog-tired later on that you need a long siesta in the afternoon;other symptoms include:- constant diarrhea(or sometimes  regular constipation for a few individuals), severe stomach-and intestinal pain, and an addiction to raw dairy which makes you lose any taste for meats. I experienced all these symptoms. Several RPDers I have corresponded with over the years have had similiar experiences and a much greater number seem to regularly experience fatigue when eating raw dairy, though not necessarily any of the other symptoms. Indeed raw dairy is the main reason why some people give up the diet, judging from comments in certain parts of the Internet.
 A lot of people claim that if you alter the raw dairy in certain ways you can make it more easily digestible. Methods include fermenting the raw dairy, keeping it at room-temperature, putting raw honey in the dairy(!?), eating only dairy from certain (grass-fed) breeds, getting dairy from goats or sheep instead of cows, etc. etc. I have tried all these ideas at one time or another over the last 3 years, even trying the more ridiculous ones, and not one of them worked for me. I am also convinced by the argument that raw dairy, like grain, is a non-Palaeolithic food, and that we are the only animal that drinks milk long after weaning, and the milk of another animal, at that.

You may be fortunate in not having any problems with raw dairy consumption, which is fine. In that case, be especially careful of raw cheese. It's very common nowadays to "lightly pasteurise" so-called raw cheeses which makes them useless for you - this practice is particularly prevalent in supermarkets which is another reason you should avoid them like the plague. Raw dairy is frowned upon by the Federal Government but there are still a few places you can get hold of it - look at this website:- http://www.realmilk.com/where2.html

Another common problem that people can encounter on the Primal Diet is if they drink too much veggie juice. I think Aajonus' recommendation of veggie juice as 25% of the diet is excessive - I myself am fine with having one or two veggie juices a week at most and tend to get diarrhea if I exceed that amount.
Also, generally speaking, a lot of people seem to be of the opinion that one should limit the raw carbs(raw honey/raw fruit/raw veggie juice) to a a large extent. Raw carbs tend to make people slightly energetic for a short while and then cause  fatigue, whereas raw protein and, especially raw fats, do not cause blood-sugar levels to rise and fall in the same way, and tend to make one feel full of energy for a longer period of time - (in the case of raw fruit, Aajonus wisely recommends eating it with raw animal foods at the same time  to prevent  a hike in blood-sugar levels). Raw (organic, free-range) eggs are great energy-boosters by the way.

Hope This Helps
Geoff Purcell

Geoff-
    Wow thanks a lot!  That is the most comprehensive answer I have ever recieved.  You truly know your stuff.  I apologize for not making myself clear about the venison.  I may or may not be able to get the meat and if I do it will be from an out of state friend and I will probably not have to pay too much for it (hence it will be cheaper than store bought meat).

    Thanks a lot,
      Tony  

Answer
Thanks for your feedback, I'm always glad to be of help. Just one thing, when you receive an answer from me or any other www.allexperts.com expert, there is a button-link to the right of the "follow-up" button-link which  you should  click ("Thank and Rate The Expert", then, once you've written your comments, your writings appear on my profile near the top right. If you click the "follow-up" button, like you did, I get your comments in the form of another question, which is confusing. Also, by all means ask further questions, but try not to over-use the "follow-up" button;  preferably  ask a whole new question instead, as this avoids me having to scroll down endless amounts of text from previous questions.

Geoff Purcell

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