If this subject was already mentioned before, oops...

Stella & Chewy's is a brand of raw dog food that I feed my cats. They have frozen product and freeze-dried product. Their packaging claims "Certified Pathogen Safe." I recently went to their website to find out how they do it (I was concerned that maybe the product wasn't truly raw).

According to their website (http://www.stellaandchewys.com/safety.html):

"The first raw meals and treats certified safe for your family and pet.
Of course, we know that you’re concerned about bringing a raw diet home for your pet. That’s why all our products are made with an exclusive high pressure process that safely eliminates the threat of harmful bacteria without sacrificing nutrition or taste.

"Hydrostatic High Pressure (HHP) is a technology that “puts the squeeze” on food pathogens without cooking out vital nutrients or changing the natural taste. It’s based on the discovery that bacteria cannot survive at pressures five times those found at the deepest sea level. To date, HHP is the only scientifically recognized pasteurization process that does not use heat or irradiation to accomplish this. But that’s just one of the steps we take to protect the health of your family and pet."

And the same webpage has a link to a very fascinating/exciting video - I highly recommend it (well done, nice soundtrack):

http://www.iptv.org/mtom/story.cfm/feature/446/video/mtom_20080118_3320_clip

Even though the grape comes out looking OK, I still wonder what effect high pressure has on the energy of foods. I would also consider investing in Avure Technologies...  http://www.avure.com/food/

There is also a cool bit about studies on high pressure combined with lower heating of milk - apparently, HHP reduces or eliminates the damage caused by heat and furthermore, the milk's shelf life increases! HHP could be the safer, pro-paleo technology that satisfies businesses (longer shelf lives) and nourishes people better (higher nutrition, no chemical preservatives). HHP would also allay people's fears of pathogens/bacteria/raw - more people would be open to "raw" and fewer people would get ill by "raw" - that is, if you considered HHP processed/treated foods as still "raw."

It's cool/intriguing that the more real food (grape) would do well under HHP and the more fake food (marshmallow) would not fare as well.

Here's the video's transcript (in case the link stops working in the future):

Pressure to Improve Food Safety
posted on January 18, 2008

While there have been myriad developments in the dairy business over the past 150 years, it's doubtful any innovation has made more of an impact than pasteurization.
The process was invented by French chemist Louis Pasteur in 1862 and is used today to reduce the number of potentially harmful pathogens in food.
Though pasteurization has prevented countless illnesses and deaths, critics claim the process often alters the product's taste and nutritional value.
An emerging technology, however, could revolutionize food processing, making some foods safer and, potentially, greatly extending shelf-life.
Jeannie Campbell explains how some companies are putting the squeeze on food pathogens with high-pressure processing.

According to the Centers for Disease Control 5,000 people die every year from food borne illness and in 2007 food safety was a hot issue on Capitol Hill.
Rep. Greg Walden, R – Oregon: “For the sake of consumers, what can be done for food safety…”

Even as concerns over food safety have grown, so has the demand for more natural, less processed foods. USDA numbers show that for over a decade there has been double-digit growth in consumer demand for organic produce.

Pat Adams, CEO Avure Technologies: “The food industry is all about giving people what they want. In some cases it's high quality, minimally prepared foods that taste as close as possible to something you would prepare naturally. That is the niche market that this technology seems to be most applicable to.”

Pat Adams is CEO of Avure Technologies, a company best know for making high-pressure presses that produce industrial diamonds and metal alloys for knee replacements and jet engines. High-pressure technology that can now be used to preserve certain kinds of food.

Pat Adams, CEO Avure Technologies: “The ability to kill bacteria, disease causing bacteria, parasites was recognized over a century ago. Unfortunately the ability to build machinery that could delivery these pressures has only happened in the last decade, decade and a half.”

The idea that pressure could be used to kill harmful organisms in milk and other foods was developed by Professor Burt Hite at the West Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station in the late 1800’s. While Professor Hite’s experiments held some promise, the equipment, even under lab conditions, often failed. It has taken nearly a century for the technology to advance where pressures of over 80 thousand pounds per square inch can be safely achieved in a production line.

Errol Raghubeer, Avure Technologies: “As a researcher almost every day that we use this technology we find out something new, something different, something exciting, not exciting just in killing microorganisms any more, we can really make foods taste better, feel better….”

Errol Raghubeer is a researcher at Avure Technologies. Avure only makes the machines that are capable of high pressure processing and is not in the business of processing food. The company does however run a test kitchen and has found that some foods do better under pressure than others.

Errol Raghubeer, Avure Technologies: “An example of a product that doesn't work is a marshmallow. This is after high pressure and this is before. We just squeezed all the air out of it, there is no resiliency within this to bring it back to its shape and the original form.”

86,000 pounds of pressure per square inch, which is roughly equal to three, 5-ton elephants balanced on a dime, flattens a marshmallow but has no effect on a grape.

Errol Raghubeer, Avure Technologies: “You see it's almost 100% water. And, if you compare it with a grape that has not been processed, really there is no difference.”

What keeps the grape from being crushed is the fact that it is mostly water and that the pressure is applied evenly from all directions.

Errol Raghubeer, Avure Technologies: “Some of the products you have on the market, if you take a look at the label they are very, very high levels of preservatives inside in order to give them that shelf life. Here we are using natural methods of high pressure processing in order to get that shelf life, tremendously longer also than what you would get with just adding preservatives and salt.”

In Bay Center, Washington the Goose Point Oyster Company is using high pressure processing, or HPP, to take the risk out of eating raw oysters. The process, which is similar to any food that is processed using high pressure, involves loading oysters into a canister, filling the canister with water, then pressurizing the contents. The water applies pressure evenly to whatever else is in the canister.

43,000 pounds of pressure for 90 seconds kills any potentially deadly pathogens. Jeri Joy is the director of marketing at Goose Point Oysters.

Jeri Joy, Goose Point Oysters: “For oysters it gives us an extended shelf life of seventeen days fresh in the shell. We don't see that on, you know, live oysters in the shell. And I think if you put the two side by side you would really, really have to be a connoisseur to tell the difference between a fresh, live oyster and an oyster that's gone through the high pressure process.”

Juices, sauces and sandwich meats are some of the other products currently using high pressure processing. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the American Pasteurization Company does not produce a product but instead offers high pressure processing as a service to packers and producers. Justin Segel is co-owner of APC.

Justin Segel, American Pasteurization Company: “As great as the technology is for shelf life and food safety etc, you still have to make enough money to stay in business and we think we offer an economic benefit of allowing our customers to utilize equipment and this technology without the enormous cost of having to do it themselves.”

According to Segel, high pressure processing is more expensive but has advantages over traditional processing that can give it an economic advantage. High pressure processing means there is no need to use heat or add chemical preservatives. Food can be processed after it is already packaged. And, the process actually extends shelf life which means grocers see less spoilage.

Justin Segel, American Pasteurization Company: “I think we're raising the bar. I think that technology raises the bar.”

At Oregon State University, researchers experimenting on milk, have found that using high pressure processing in combination with heat could yield even more benefits than just using pressure.

Antonio Torres, Oregon State University: “We didn't expect it to happen, but what we discovered was that when you use pressure combined with heat, pressure actually inhibits the damage that heat normally does If I heat milk, by itself, I damage it, but if I combine pressure of heat, the heat damage is removed by pressure. That's a very unique situation.”

Currently, heat pasteurization gives milk a shelf life of 15-20 days. In the experiments at Oregon State, adding pressure and using temperatures lower than are presently used to pasteurize milk, the shelf life exceeded 45 days. According to Torres, using high pressure processing and higher temperatures could lead to milk that would not require refrigeration and have a taste that consumers would find acceptable.

It would seem that a product with no preservatives and longer shelf life would be highly promoted but finding high pressure processed products that are already in grocery stores isn’t easy. Justin Segel believes that as awareness in the process grows, consumers not only will look for HPP products but will ask for them.

Justin Segel, American Pasteurization Company: “I don't want to use the term a silver bullet, but there's a technology out there that is not a irradiating things, it's not better living through chemistry, it's, it's just a the physics of putting something under pressure and decompressing it.”

For Market to Market, I’m Jeannie Campbell.

There is a lot of information on EC (Elimination Communication) online, including personal journals, etc. (just google), but here is a great summary. What better way to bond with your baby, save the environment from mountains of "disposable" diapers, and keep baby happy, healthy and clean - no sitting in his/her own pee and dump for who knows how long.

From http://nourishedmagazine.com.au/blog/articles/raising-baby-nappy-free:

{GREEN LIVING}
Raising Baby Nappy-Free
By Sam Pearson

With the debate still current as to whether disposable, eco-disposable or cloth nappies are best, there is another alternative that many people are unaware of. It’s the cleanest, greenest and probably the oldest way of dealing with babies’ elimination. Elimination Communication (EC), also referred to as Infant Potty Training or Natural Infant Hygiene, is rarely practiced in Western society but it is the most common way of managing infant hygiene in the world today. While ECing makes good sense where water is scarce or disposable nappies are unavailable, there are many other advantages that babies and parents can also enjoy.

What is Elimination Communication?

Parents carry their babies before they can walk. Mothers help their baby to the breast before they can lift our shirts and self-serve. We help babies get to sleep when they are tired until they are old enough to do this unassisted. With Elimination Communication we are simply helping the baby to eliminate, just as we do, into a receptacle and not into their clothing until such time as they are capable of using a toilet independently. When a baby is never trained to use a nappy or taught to ignore the body’s signals that tell them they need to eliminate, they never have to learn to use a potty or re-recognise their body’s urges at a later date.

We are commonly told by doctors, child health experts and other parents that children develop bladder and bowel control between the ages of 18 months and 3 years. We also assume that babies are unaware of the sensation of having the need to eliminate before this age. Human knowledge of anatomy and physiology reveals both of these beliefs to be misconceptions. Not a new practice; the use of EC has been the norm in many non-western cultures for centuries and is still widely practised today.

We know that babies have bladder and sphincter control from birth. All mammals, including the human newborn, instinctively avoid soiling their nest and will follow the lead of their parents as to what is expected of them to achieve this. All babies are born capable of feeling the need to eliminate and if consistently given the opportunity, can easily learn to communicate to us when they need to eliminate as well as understand when we would like them to eliminate.

In contrast to toilet training, Elimination Communication is primarily about parent training. A close bond between baby and primary carer is essential as the adult must learn to recognise when baby needs to “go” through timing (regular elimination patterns), baby’s cues (body language) and intuition. For this reason, it is consistent with Attachment Parenting as the parent and child are in-tune with each other. This is achieved by being rarely separated, co-sleeping, baby-wearing and parenting instinctively and responsively.

Different parents approach EC differently but a common factor is the adult teaching the child a cueing sound (e.g. “ssss”). When the baby is newborn, the parent makes the cueing sound as baby eliminates and baby soon learns to associate this with elimination. Once this cueing sound has been learnt by the child, the parent can hold their baby over a suitable receptacle and ask the child to eliminate by making the cueing sound.

In time, babies learn how to clearly communicate to their parent their need to eliminate through their body language, baby talk or in some cases by using a hand signal that they have been taught or have invented on their own. Most ECed babies clearly signal either a full bladder or bowel from around 3-4 months onwards and are able to wait long enough for their carer to get them to an appropriate spot to eliminate.

Parents practising Elimination Communication might occasionally use a nappy as back up e.g. for long car trips or when baby is ill with diarrhoea. Some parents choose to EC part-time, perhaps during the day using a nappy only at night or perhaps only when at home. The human body in any healthy person excretes an anti-diuretic hormone during sleep which lessens the need to eliminate during sleep.

Contrary to popular belief, with the exception of people with medical conditions, humans don’t eliminate in their sleep but become semi-conscious when they need to eliminate. The mother who co-sleeps with her child and who is in tune with her baby can awaken to their stirring as they come out of deeper sleep and can respond to their baby’s elimination signals.

What are the advantages of Elimination Communication?

Avoiding nappy changes

The most obvious benefit is avoiding the time and effort involved in frequently changing wet nappies and the sometimes unpleasant task of dealing with soiled nappies. It is much easier and generally quicker to take a child of any age to the toilet than it is to change their nappy. Avoiding using nappies means that there is no need to pack a nappy bag and lug it about whenever out of the home.

Elimination Communication is the cleanest choice for the environment

Disposable nappies and the plastic bags they are usually wrapped in once dirty are a major contributor to landfill. For those environmentally conscious parents who choose cloth over disposable nappies, ECing saves the environmental cost of nappy production plus the extra laundry detergent and water involved with washing 6 to 12 reusable nappies per child daily, nappy covers and soiled clothes from nappy “blowouts”.

It’s cheaper

With Elimination Communication we avoid the financial cost involved in both the initial purchase of the nappies plus all the other nappy changing essentials such as change mat, baby wipes, creams and nappy liners. For users of cloth nappies as well as the initial outlay there is the associated costs of laundry powder and running the washing machine which can add up over the years. Clothes fit for longer without the bulk of a nappy.

EC is the healthiest choice for babies

There is no doubt that EC is kindest to babies’ delicate skin. A baby in nappies will have them next to their skin almost continually for many years which can lead to irritations. With disposables there is the issue of chemicals used in the production and in the absorbent gel which can enter a baby’s bloodstream and in the case of girls get into their vagina. With cloth there is the constant issue of keeping baby dry so they are more comfortable and sleep better. With both cloth and disposable nappies there is the age old problem of nappy-rash which can be painful and difficult to clear up. An ECed baby will never have nappy rash and ECing parents will never have to purchase nappy rash salves or preventative barrier creams. Elimination Communication reduces the risk of UTI’ and constipation plus enables parents to take closer note of baby’s elimination patterns to develop a better sense of a child’s digestive system and potentially react to allergens more quickly.

Elimination Communication supports positive child development

EC is considered to be the approach to toileting that optimises healthy sexual development. A baby who is constantly wearing a nappy becomes to an extent desensitised to that area of the body and can’t get in touch with their bodies uninhibited by a nappy. EC respects babies’ abilities to communicate their needs from birth which builds the baby’s self-confidence. Older siblings can be involved in the EC process thereby reducing rivalry and also helping them to develop healthy attitudes about bodily functions.

Elimination Communication leads to enhanced bonding

Perhaps most importantly, the development of a trusting relationship between the parent and the child is enhanced through communication about a basic human need. Baby feels more secure: “Mummy and Daddy listen to what I am saying and respond to my needs.” Parents learn to trust their instincts through accurately reading their baby’s body language building their confidence in their parenting ability. They have an additional parenting tool under their belt because they understand that a baby may be crying due to the need to eliminate and can therefore respond in the appropriate way.

What happens when a nappy free baby is old enough to use the toilet?

Achieving toilet independence for nappy free babies means a gradual transition from needing help to confidently using the toilet on their own. One big advantage for families is that many children are dry at night from around 12 months of age and have achieved complete toilet independence by 14 months. However, while early independence is common with ECed babies due to their increased awareness of their bodily functions, that is never the aim and indeed some ECed babies are independent from an age that might be considered late.

While the focus of being nappy free is primarily on being responsive to our babies and respecting their awareness of their elimination needs and ability to communicate those needs from an early age, the benefits to the whole family as well as to society are many.

Hi all! I'm super excited about this forum - I'm learning so much from everybody's sharing - so encouraging and inspiring - and I really really appreciate it.

I got interested in the Primal Diet when I found "Raw to Radiant" at my library - just researching raw diets/cookbooks. I was about to buy AV's second book (mostly for the recipes b/c I know it's going to take me awhile to transition), but after my online research (including on this forum), I decided that I want to go Omnivorous Raw Paleo to start. That's what feels right and doable for me at the moment. (I don't think I'm ready to get into juicing, but that may change in the future. I do love veggies...  )

So I was wondering which RPD books you think are the best. I'm more interested in info on transitioning and recipes/tips/menu ideas - not as much in lengthy explanations, as I don't need to be "sold" on the diet. I'm all ready to try it! Thank you!