Pemmican

Question
Greetings,
Been following the paleodiet principles for a while, but haven't attempted the
raw thing yet.  I'm extremely impressed by your answers to others' questions
and your obvious vast knowledge on the subject.

First Question:  What do you consider raw?  Completely unheated?  I like to
make pemmican, and often dry the meat for it at less than 100 degrees f.  I
then use unheated coconut oil for the oil part.  Would you consider this raw?

Second Question:  Can you give me a brief glimpse of what a day's worth of
food would look like for you?

Third Question:  What do you think of the whole food supplement Vitamineral
Green, by www.Healthforce.com?

Fourth Question (this one's longer):  Amongst the various centarians out there
in the world, I would be willing to bet that few, if any of them, have ever
followed a raw meat diet.  Do you feel that the benefits you've derived from
this diet are so great that, had these centarians been following it, they'd be
even more vital than they obviously already are?

Thanks a lot for the help!!

Answer
Everyone has a different opinion of what constitutes genuinely-raw food. Some believe that 95 degrees Fahrenheit is the maximum temperature allowable, others state that it's 98 or 104 degrees Fahrenheit(Aajonus recommends 98 degrees as the maximum). Enzymes start becoming denatured at temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius, which is equivalent to 104 degrees Fahrenheit, so that definitely is the upper limit, as far as raw-food is concerned.
Re unheated coconut oil:- I've heard some remarks on various groups suggesting that many coconut-oils sold as raw aren't really raw at all - however, some undoubtedly are genuinely raw, so perhaps it's worth just checking with the company re this issue.

Re daily diet:- I really don't have a typical daily diet, as it's so varied, depending on the season etc.I could give you a few examples of typical days, I suppose:-

1) 1 whole ox-tongue plus a small carton of blueberries and a carton of raspberries.
2) 20 large, wild-caught oysters.
3) 1 live lobster and 1 live crab - killed via freezing so technically prefrozen.
4) 1 huge bag of mussels(c.100-200 mussels?)
5) 1 kilo of prawns plus 2 or 3 heaped tablespoonfuls of marrow.
6) 1 ox/beef  kidney and 6 heaped tablespoonfuls of raw marrow.
7) 4 pigs' kidneys and 3 or 4 mouthfuls of raw suet.
8) 1 whole leg of lamb(not counting the bone!)  plus 4 tablespoonfuls of marrow - plus two cartons of blackberries.
9) 2 wild mallard duck and 2 or 3 tablespoonfuls of marrow(the wild ducks have far less meat on them than the domesticated, grain-fed variety,but their meat is a lot  healthier, by comparison)
10) 3/4 of a kilo of swordfish, plus 200 grams of raw samphire(a seaweed).
11) 1 goose-egg plus 1 whole ox- or beef-heart, plus 1 or 2 tablespoonfuls of marrow.
12) Quarter of  a kilo of scallops and 3/4 of a kilo of prawns.
13) 4-6 lambs' hearts plus 4 or 5 tablespoonfuls of raw marrow - plus 2 cartons of strawberries.
14) 1 kilo's worth of venison organ-meats(ie tongues, hearts/kidneys/liver)plus 2 or 3 tablespoonfuls of marrow plus a carton of blueberries and a carton of raspberries.


I generally eat these in one main meal, within a 4-hour period(often within just one hour), each day, in the evenings or late at night - I also have occasional whole-day fasts if I've eaten a big meal the day before. This one-meal-a-day routine emulates the practice of Intermittent Fasting and has greatly helped my energy-levels. The foods I eat are almost always organic or at least naturally-reared, with most of my food being from wild-sources or grassfed(naturally-reared or organic). A few exceptions to this rule include pork, which unfortunately is routinely fed grain, but that can't be helped.

Bear in mind that I'm more or less giving out these examples at random, though they are typical of the sort of things I eat, generally. In your case, you may well find that you only have access to specific raw foods, with others being too expensive or completely unavailable - plus, you may find that you thrive better on different proportions of raw carbs/proteins/fats or do better on seafood than plant-food or vice-versa or thrive beter on smaller amounts of food  etc. - so it's not a good idea to directly copy someone else's diet, not even my own.


Re third question:- I am very much against the use of artificial supplements. They are never as good as the real thing,no matter what the claims re chelation/colloidal minerals etc., and several scientific studies have repeatedly shown little long-term  benefit for taking large doses of artificial vitamin/mineral supplements(by comparison to real nutrients in foods) - in fact some recent scientific studies have shown an increased risk of mortality when taking beta-carotene, vitamin E or vitamin A supplements:-
http://tinyurl.com/2jh9q5

That said, a number of  people end up seriously depleted in certain vital vitamins and minerals as a result of years of eating cooked-foods, so I think it's acceptable, in cases of strong mineral- or vitamin-deficiency in rawpalaeo -newbies to temporarily use artificial supplements  - however, in the long run, it's healthier to use raw food instead.

Re fourth question:-  Absolutely, I reckon they'd be a lot less frail on a raw diet. Most of the old people I know(aged 60s-80s) are in an awful state of health. Many of them mask their symptoms by taking literally dozens of pills a day from magnesium-supplements to statins etc, their joints are so wrecked that they find it difficult to climb steep steps without frequent use of pain-killers, and so on.They mostly follow what is considered good dietary practice nowadays for the elderly(ie eating only small amounts of meat/organ-meats, eating lots of raw fruits/steamed veggies, with most of their animal-food-intake being in the form of pasteurised dairy(butter/cheese and probiotic yoghurts) and some occasional raw cheese).

In my own case, I suffered from a host of health-problems before going onto this diet, and looked like a man in his mid-40s(I was 29 when I first started the diet).

Pre-raw diet, I'd gradually developed chronic fatigue to the point where just reading a book was a huge strain, I'd also get chronic stomach-pains whenever I ate any cooked-animal-food, I had various unpleasant adrenal-related problems, one of which was the inability to handle warm or hot temperatures and my teeth were so loosened that they were in real danger of falling out. Other symptoms included hyperhydrosis, and a number of  bowel-related problems, such as constipation, and I was also chronically overweight on a cooked-food diet - only a starvation-and-exercise regime would render me slim. All these symptoms and more disappeared, over time, once I switched to a raw, palaeolithic diet.

As for aging effects, it's been often noted on the various Yahoo rawpaleodiet groups, by various middle-aged or older people, that they look and feel much younger, in terms of biological age, than others of their own generation(most claim feeling and looking c.10 years younger). I still think that certain factors such as exercise, psychological makeup, an inquiring mind, hard-work ethic etc. contribute to longevity and perhaps help to reduce the effects of various symptoms in old-age, but a raw diet would certainly play an important part as well.

NB:- I just remembered that the Okinawans are claimed to have the longest average lifespan on the planet and they eat a lot of raw fish. It's been mentioned that they have  6 times as many centenarians as any other population.

1. Prev:raw organs
2. Next:losing weight