Um, the *other* Primal Diet? page 3

[Queen of the Jungle]

I remember reading about this a year or so ago. UGH!! They purposely rot the meat in the fridge and then eat bits of it every day.


The whole thing was weird. But, I have to admit that it may be very authentic, lol. I'm sure our ancestors ate rotten meat when they had to. I'm just not willing to go THAT distance to be primal!

[PrimalK]

In the You Tube video, right at the beginning where a bunch of people are sitting around a table 'enjoying' the rotten meat... there's a woman with long dark hair eating it with a look on her face that says 'this stuff is awful and I'm so going to stick my fingers down my throat when the camera moves away'. Reminds me of when my kid sister ate an anchovy when she was about 3...!

[Geoff]

At last, the diet that makes cannibalism look reasonable by comparison....


Kidding aside, though, as gross as his diet might seem, eating rotten meat is preferable to death by lymphoma. I'm not sure I'd credit the diet with curing his cancer, but, if the movie's to be believed it worked for him.


I thought the "do not try this at home" warning was hilarious.

[arthurb999]

No thanks.


Now if it was the medium rare paelo diet now we're talking...

[SerialSinner]

Interesting! I wonder if there is a difference between rotten and fermented. Norwegians traditionally consumed fermented fish, and there appears to be a lot of cases of rotten/fermented food consumption in many traditional cultures.


The above being said, I do think that palatability should be taken into account when hypothesizing about the need to eat something or not. If rotten meat was as healthy as depicted in the (revolting) video, I would expect us to be better suited to it's consumption through the d3velopment of rotten-meat-friendly taste buds.


I still think there might be more to rotten foods than we think there is...

[nina_70]

SS - you actually bring up an interesting point about fermentation versus rotting. There seems to be alot of varied definitions out there of one versus the other.


Fermentation, at least in the strictly chemical sense is the transformation of sugar to alcohols under anaerobic conditions. So, beer would be an example. A more general definition would be the conversion of carbs to alcohols or acids. Many of the fermented veggies out there would fall under this catagory (say, kimchi)


Rotting seems to be more a all-encompasing term incl. the break-down of meats. I've seen the use of the word "fermentation" for meats, but that usually involves a kind of controlled "rotting"...i.e. either salt or acids are added to keep the meat from completely rotting (e.g. the swedish herrring dishes). Fully "rotten" meat has no controls on it.


For carbs, I guess fermentation leads to rotting if carbs are allowed access to air (e.g. rotting fruit).


The taste for it does seem to be a developed one. I know many Swedish friends who love their almost-rotten herring. And...certainly lots of people on here like their beer

[chocolatechip69]

Reading this thread I remember watching an episode of "Wife Swap" long time ago. They had a modern family swap moms with a family that was raising their own food on the farm and following this Primal diet. Although they never specifically said they were eating "Primal", all of their meals were consisting of rotten or fermented meats. They would wake up in the middle of the night and eat a little bit too. I think they were eating tiny bit every few hours or so.

The family insisted that none of their children ever got sick since starting that diet and that everyone's as healthy as can be.

Funny enough, the new mommy took the family out to a fast-food joint and made two kids and the dad to eat a burger with fries. Needless to say, all three of them sick to their stomachs before they even finished their meals.

[shastagirl]

to be honest, i find the concept very interesting. and perhaps because we were raised on eating cooked spiced meats that we are accustomed to the taste. examples of the fermented herrings were given. i also think of my vegemite love in this too. most americans cant stand the taste of vegemite and cringe just smelling it. it is fermented yeast and barley from the beer vats back at home in australia. yet every australian loves the stuff we were raised on it. occasionally i cheat a bit and eat some vegemite on some sprouted bread.

[Juan Martinez]

I know I'm a little late on this thread (been busy) but I have recently done a workshop with Aajonus V(etc) and his approach is not "all about the high meat". But it is, without doubt, all about raw meat and fat.


I have not tried the high meat, nor do I care to at the moment, but all the raw meat I have eaten (perhaps 30 to 35% of my meat intake) has been tasty and made more so with marinating, etc., including the chicken (which I finally tried a few weeks ago). I'm not entirely sold on all of Aajonus' views, but I do think they have more merit than not.


As far as "meat going bad" is concerned, according to Aajonus, it is important to distinguish raw meat that is "going bad" from cooked meat that is going bad. The latter is toxic, the former is not. I haven't tried it yet, as I said, but this is an important distinction that A.V emphasizes yet it is not mentioned in the article, of course.

[kuno1chi]

Juan,


I understand part of the "why" of eating raw meat...I have done so myself on many occasions. But why deliberately eat raw meat that is full of bacteria/fungi???


That's the part I can't wrap my brain around. Can you elucidate?