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Raw Paleo Diet Forums => Hot Topics => Topic started by: pc701 on October 23, 2009, 11:28:51 am

Title: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: pc701 on October 23, 2009, 11:28:51 am
Why have we been cooking our meat all this time if afterall ajonous and science tells us that cooked food and meat is less healthy for us....

Is it just purely because it tastes better?....Thats the only reason i can think of...But then again, I believe that instictively eating what you/eating what you want/following your taste buds,  leads to health problems
So we have been eating cooked meat for more than 100,000 years and have not attributed out health problems to the cooked meat and foods?...Is this a correct assumption?.I think it's plainly obvious that wild animals are much more healthier than humans as a whole, and animals dont cook their food. is this percisely because they dont cook ther foods?


Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: Josh on October 23, 2009, 02:25:21 pm
I had an idea - we would have been used to fresh raw meat and meat that was warm from the sun. Then the ice age comes along...suddenly all the meat is frozen or really cold which is unappetising..so people start warming it up from the fire. They learn to like rare meat and the whole cooking thing starts from there. No idea if that's true or not.
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: majormark on October 23, 2009, 04:02:58 pm

I think it's for the same reasons we started eating any other junk food. Curiosity, addiction, etc.
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: TylerDurden on October 23, 2009, 05:17:57 pm
Cooked foods in general and grains and dairy all contain opioids in them which are highly addictive.
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: goodsamaritan on October 23, 2009, 08:21:58 pm
Why do people drink coke?
Why do people eat pizza?
Why do people eat spaghetti?
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: SkinnyDevil on October 23, 2009, 08:22:33 pm
Way back when I was a kid, we ate at a restaurant about once a year. Soda was for the holidays. About once a month, we'd get to go to a convenient store and get a slushy. Halloween was a big deal because that's when we'd get candy.

By the time I was in high-school and skateboarding all over the place, I started grabbing a hot dog (they were cheap) while I was out and maybe a fruit pie. I did this because where we moved didn't have apple trees (which we used to eat all day while we were out playing). Somehow, soda for most people I knew became a weekly affair.

Fast-forward a coupla decades....now soda isn't even a daily affair, it's what people drink all day. Candy is for multiple daily snacks (often replacing a proper meal), and I know kids who think hitting their favorite fast food place on the way to school and again on the way home is a god-given right. I watched a kid getting their music lesson where I teach get mad at his mom because they were going straight home instead of to McDonald's.

Re-wind to 10,000BC: Dude is munching his raw meat, staying warm by the fire. Dude is playing around and sticks hunk of meat over fire. It sizzles. He munches a bit of the burnt edge. YUM! Does this once a month or so for a treat, but knows instinctively you don;t wanna do this all the time. Looks over at his mate who is feeding the baby....

Fast-forward to when baby is now 15. Spoiled brat who sizzles his meat every day and mouths off when dad says "stop that!".

The wheel turns.....
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: William on October 23, 2009, 10:05:05 pm
Why have we been cooking our meat all this time if after all ajonous and science tells us that cooked food and meat is less healthy for us....

Why are we self-destructive?

Consider the mind.
We are possessed of a demon which makes us destroy ourselves.

This IMO is the message of the stones at Gobekli Tepes.


Same as saying that we are cursed. If you can mentally get a grip on that, the next step is to consider who would create such a daemon, and why.


Note that creating a daemon in not such a big trick - I've done it, and put it in this computer, so that every time the computer goes online the demon gets a time update from the ntp pool, and also updates the hardware clock. An operating systems is said to be modelled on the way our minds work.
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: Paleo Donk on October 24, 2009, 01:24:36 am
We are clearly not self destructive on purpose. We evolved to continue our genes by any way possible and so in my opinion cooking probably helped us stay alive longer. Cooking lets us eat certain foods that are not available to us raw.  Cooking also drastically changes the taste of food.

I haven't eaten raw foods long enough to tell if its acculturation getting in the way, but cooked meat still tastes better than raw. There has to be a reason why cooked food can taste so good yet be potentially harmful to us. I can't imagine us evolving to have taste buds that crave something that is so bad for us. My guess is that there clearly must be some short term benefit, perhaps faster availability of some of the nutrition and energy.

Or maybe its more psychoactive like cocaine, where we will crave more and more of it until we eventually overdose and die. In the example of cocaine, the short term benefits are obvious and immediate (euphoria and energy) and the potential harmful long term effects are of much greater magnitude. So cooking can be thought of an extremely mild psychoactive drug with small magnitude short term benefits.  I look at sugar in a similar manner. As always this is just speculation and I am confused but to me it seems there must be some short term benefit to cooking or else we wouldn't do it at all.
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: SkinnyDevil on October 24, 2009, 03:43:13 am
Yes, Donk, you have a good point. You are correct that cooking makes certain foods available that otherwise would not be edible.

Cooking allows access to extra nutrition & cheap calories when food is scarce. The problem, of course, is when it becomes the norm....as in the mildly facetious scenario I outlined above.
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: Hannibal on October 24, 2009, 03:18:47 pm
I haven't eaten raw foods long enough to tell if its acculturation getting in the way, but cooked meat still tastes better than raw. 
That's definitely acculturation.
The longer I eat raw meats the better they taste. Now they taste better than cooked ones.
Look at the young childern - thay crave raw ground meat, but mothers tell them it isn't good to eat
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: TylerDurden on October 24, 2009, 04:11:33 pm
What I find interesting is that I feel the psychoactive component of cooked foods(mainly cooked meats) much more keenly than in pre-cooked days(taking into account worse health, prerawpalaeodiet). Just a couple of days ago, I ate some cooked animal food for various reasons(only a relatively small amount) and felt drugged and weak for 24 hours afterwards.
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: alphagruis on October 24, 2009, 06:56:33 pm
That's definitely acculturation.
The longer I eat raw meats the better they taste. Now they taste better than cooked ones.
Look at the young childern - thay crave raw ground meat, but mothers tell them it isn't good to eat

I agree. Acculturation is most likely the major culprit. Our brains of ex-cooked meat eaters have to be definitely re-wired to get rid of the imprinted false equation: raw meat or fish or eggs = disgusting food. This has no rational basis, it's actually the other way around. Science has clearly shown that taste and smell senses unfortunately are not "objective" and attraction or repulsion does not just depend on the chemicals that come into contact with taste buds or olfactory receptors but on many other informations stored in the brain, in particular our metabolic state and also undoubtedly our culture.

Initially a practise that usually helps is to dry the stuff more or less in an air stream below 40°C. This produces only a very tiny quite negligible amount of AGEs or oxidation at the surface and results in a "food that much more resembles usual cooked or smoked meat or ham". 

 

 

   
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: TylerDurden on October 24, 2009, 07:11:40 pm
One also has to bear in mind that babies tend to like the foods the mother eats during pregnancy, due to habituation to the chemicals involved.
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: instant on October 24, 2009, 07:17:14 pm
i agree with SD that for example soda 50 years ago was a treat now its a daily beverage.

i think cooking was initially used to help preserve food in tough times? Then it eventually became the norm.?
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: Paleo Donk on October 24, 2009, 10:29:44 pm
I agree that the longer I've tried raw meat the better it has begun to taste and now crave it though still prefer a nice rare steak. What has not really changed as much though is the palatability of raw fat. It is far far easier to eat and far tastier when cooked. I've chewed on pieces of raw fat (usually from the rim of the steak) for easily 30 minutes without being able to take it down. I actually was looking for a substitute for gum and it has worked out nicely. This has me puzzled again on how paleos would get adequate fat if they were truly carnivorous without cooking or grounding it up.
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: yon yonson on October 24, 2009, 10:42:29 pm
I agree that the longer I've tried raw meat the better it has begun to taste and now crave it though still prefer a nice rare steak. What has not really changed as much though is the palatability of raw fat. It is far far easier to eat and far tastier when cooked. I've chewed on pieces of raw fat (usually from the rim of the steak) for easily 30 minutes without being able to take it down. I actually was looking for a substitute for gum and it has worked out nicely. This has me puzzled again on how paleos would get adequate fat if they were truly carnivorous without cooking or grounding it up.

paleodonk: if you had to chew it that long, i don't think it was fat. might have been connective tissure or something. i've found that good quality fat is waaay better raw than cooked. id recommend trying some marrow or hide fat
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: goodsamaritan on October 24, 2009, 11:41:59 pm
The taste of just caught very fresh raw fish is so phenomenally more satisfying at the beach than when it is transported to the cities.

The taste of grass fed just slaughtered beef and never refrigerated is also so phenomenally satisfying than those frozen and transported to cities.

If everyone had those above conditions available to them, they would eat more raw meat.

This is what the art of Japanese sashimi tries to enhance.  Thus Japanese people eat a good amount of raw meat.

Raw meat done right just tastes fabulous.

I just tasted New Zealand raw beef for the first time this lunch time and it tasted really good for something previously frozen.

Maybe the rise of civilization and townships led people to cook and flavor their meats to make up for the rotten non-fresh taste.
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: DeadRamones on October 24, 2009, 11:56:39 pm
The taste of just caught very fresh raw fish is so phenomenally more satisfying at the beach than when it is transported to the cities.

The taste of grass fed just slaughtered beef and never refrigerated is also so phenomenally satisfying than those frozen and transported to cities.

Man, you are spoiled!

I agree with one of the previous post. Cooking was more likely used to preserve food. Although I'll admit, eating some warm food gives me a comfortable feeling when it's cold out.
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: William on October 25, 2009, 01:29:34 am


i think cooking was initially used to help preserve food in tough times? Then it eventually became the norm.?


Hmmm. How about cooking made crummy meat resemble the taste of good dried meat/jerky? This might explain why people accepted the change.
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: Hannibal on October 25, 2009, 04:04:52 am
Cooking was more likely used to preserve food. 
Drying meat was much better preservation.
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: alphagruis on October 25, 2009, 04:10:24 am

 Cooking was more likely used to preserve food.


It seems strange to me that cooked might be better than raw to preserve food. Paleomen could not use airtight tins to prevent cooked meat from bacterial rotting and if left in ambient atmosphere and at room temperature cooked meat decays rather faster than raw meat, as far as i could judge.
I agree with Hannibal. Raw meat could be easily dried specially in windy (even hot tropical) countries when cut in thin slices and easily preserved in this very simple and natural way. No need and most likely even quite bad to cook anything before drying. For instance, european sailors in the Caribbean Islands, did it. Arctic peoples too.  
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: yon yonson on October 25, 2009, 05:27:11 am
yeah, i don't know how the hell cooking could preserve meats if you didn't have pressure canning or other modern inventions. it would have been much easier and more efficient to just dry the meat.
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: instant on October 25, 2009, 07:37:55 am
The only thing that's kind of interesting there are no modern hunter gather tribes that are raw foodists; and some of these tribes have been completely cut off from civivlation.
http://www.beyondveg.com/tu-j-l/raw-cooked/raw-cooked-1a.shtml

even the Okinawans cook most of there food and seem to have remarkable health.
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: goodsamaritan on October 25, 2009, 08:00:10 am
I think cooking became popular as a survival mechanism as cooking grains and potatoes gave people a stable source of starchy nutrition.

Cooking also allowed people to consume massive quantities of vegetables.

So cooking is mainly for the consumption of cooked starches and cooked vegetables.

Cooking also allows people to make bone broths and get some more nutrition from animal bones and animal parts that cannot be consumed raw.

In times of plenty, humans do not need cooking.  Cooking seems to be an adaptation to the times of starvation.

So we raw paleo dieters are living our lives in the times of plenty. And in times of plenty we are healthy.

Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: DeadRamones on October 25, 2009, 12:58:23 pm
http://www.beyondveg.com/tu-j-l/raw-cooked/raw-cooked-3a.shtml (http://www.beyondveg.com/tu-j-l/raw-cooked/raw-cooked-3a.shtml)

# Typical responses to wildfires by predators and other animals as guide to early primitive human relationship to fire. Based on present-day observations of how animals react and respond to wildfires, which can be used as a behavioral baseline, one can infer that early humans would have exhibited at least as sophisticated responses to it. Typically, predators move in soon after a fire to forage for food among the charred or partially burnt remains. Ruminants later visit to lick at the ashes (for salt), and in general, mammals visiting the site appear to enjoy its warmth at night. Goudsblom refers to these types of behavior as "passive" use of fire. It may also have been at this stage that humans would first have begun to appreciate not just the different and perhaps appealing taste of fired food, but more importantly its effects in preserving meat for later consumption when it would otherwise spoil if not soon eaten--a survival advantage.
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: Hannibal on October 25, 2009, 01:03:15 pm
Cooking also allows people to make bone broths and get some more nutrition from animal bones and animal parts that cannot be consumed raw. healthy.
Re bones - the only nutrition is in marrow and it is easily consumed in raw state
Which parts cannot be consumed raw, but can be consumed cooked?
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: yon yonson on October 25, 2009, 01:05:25 pm
maybe im just blanking right now but i really can't think of a way to preserve meat by cooking without modern technologies and refrigeration... anyone care to help me out? i mean, smoking is i guess but that's not really cooking (it's akin to drying in my book).
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: goodsamaritan on October 25, 2009, 01:33:02 pm
Re bones - the only nutrition is in marrow and it is easily consumed in raw state
Which parts cannot be consumed raw, but can be consumed cooked?

They say the minerals in the bones can be leached with bone broths.
Also some cartilage are just too tough when raw, but easily consumed cooked.
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: alphagruis on October 25, 2009, 04:49:40 pm
Re bones - the only nutrition is in marrow and it is easily consumed in raw state
Which parts cannot be consumed raw, but can be consumed cooked?

It's the protein part of the hard bone structure. Boiling the bones permits to extract it in the form of gelatine in a broth.
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: alphagruis on October 25, 2009, 05:08:33 pm
http://www.beyondveg.com/tu-j-l/raw-cooked/raw-cooked-3a.shtml (http://www.beyondveg.com/tu-j-l/raw-cooked/raw-cooked-3a.shtml)

# Typical responses to wildfires by predators and other animals as guide to early primitive human relationship to fire. Based on present-day observations of how animals react and respond to wildfires, which can be used as a behavioral baseline, one can infer that early humans would have exhibited at least as sophisticated responses to it. Typically, predators move in soon after a fire to forage for food among the charred or partially burnt remains. Ruminants later visit to lick at the ashes (for salt), and in general, mammals visiting the site appear to enjoy its warmth at night. Goudsblom refers to these types of behavior as "passive" use of fire. It may also have been at this stage that humans would first have begun to appreciate not just the different and perhaps appealing taste of fired food, but more importantly its effects in preserving meat for later consumption when it would otherwise spoil if not soon eaten--a survival advantage.


Sure, wild fires are a very good opportunity to get easy food on the one hand and on the other hand  wild animals are also tremendously attracted by the addictive Maillard reaction products left after heating the biomolecules in burnt plant or animal remains, as we are, unfortunately.

Yet, this doesn't mean this behavior isn't harmful. And wildfires and relevant orgies are rather rare events and the consequences therefore easily detoxified, a situation that has little to do with the every day cooking practice adopted by modern man.

And once more, as pointed out by Yon Yonson, one cannot see any rational basis for this so-called "preservation of meat by cooking", which is just myth. Exactly the reverse is true actually, raw meat decays more slowly than cooked meat.

Unless the stuff has been completely converted into charcoal, which no more decays indeed, but it's just because !t's no more food ;D

Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: alphagruis on October 25, 2009, 07:33:40 pm

.  Cooking seems to be an adaptation to the times of starvation.

So we raw paleo dieters are living our lives in the times of plenty. And in times of plenty we are healthy.



Interesting.

Yet, cooking was initially first used to grill meats rather than cook rice. The latter had rather to wait until the invention of pottery and neolithic revolution.
 
And even in present times of plenty almost all humans still cook their food.

I think that cooking is basically an addictive behavior, our species had unfortunately and inevitably to stumble on and adopt. Until experience and science recently discovered its adverse effects.

On the other hand, cooking is also a big wasting because of the systematic destruction of nutriments it causes. Once on raw food for a while, one eats actually fairly less than on cooked food diets and gets nevertheless much better nutrition. Not to mention the now drastic environmental consequences of cooking in terms of the energy needed to produce the heat (deforestation, massive fossil fuel burning etc)    
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: TylerDurden on October 25, 2009, 07:40:05 pm
On the other hand, cooking is also a big wasting because of the systematic destruction of nutriments it causes. Once on raw food for a while, one eats actually fairly less than on cooked food diets and gets nevertheless much better nutrition. Not to mention the now drastic environmental consequences of cooking in terms of the energy needed to produce the heat (deforestation, massive fossil fuel burning etc)     

Yes, that's something I should mention next time I update rawpaleodiet.com(the reference re cooking destroying the environment via chopping down ancient forests for wood etc.)
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: William on October 25, 2009, 08:57:57 pm
Since there isn't any sane reason for cooking, the answer most likely will be found in the field of psychology, which nobody dares consider.

Carvings attributed to paleoman are at Gobekli Tepes, and compared to the cave paintings of europe, they appear to be a curse applied by standard techniques of magic.
Now we have scare stories of global warming, swine flu, terrorists; then they had unpleasant animals:

"Hodder is fascimated that Gobekli Tepes pillar carvings are dominatrd not by edible prey like deer and cattle but by menacing creatures such as lions, spiders, snakes and scorpions."
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/gobekli-tepe.html?c=y&page=3
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: instant on October 25, 2009, 10:26:44 pm
Quote
I think that cooking is basically an addictive behavior, our species had unfortunately and inevitably to stumble on and adopt. Until experience and science recently discovered its adverse effects.

But just because it "may" be addictive doesnt really mean its unhealthy (just basing it off of everything other culture that eats cooked meat that has good health)
Raw meat is superior to cooked meat, but i dont think cooked meat causes health problems;
i still think the sugar is the number one cause of most sickness; this is one thing that all healthy people avoid.

im going on an raw meat diet starting today!
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: goodsamaritan on October 25, 2009, 10:37:55 pm
But just because it "may" be addictive doesnt really mean its unhealthy (just basing it off of everything other culture that eats cooked meat that has good health)
Raw meat is superior to cooked meat, but i dont think cooked meat causes health problems;
i still think the sugar is the number one cause of most sickness; this is one thing that all healthy people avoid.

Cooked meat does cause illness.  Cooked meat cannot cure diseases as well as raw meat.  There are many diseases where cooked meat just will not do. 

The reason I'm on raw paleo is for the awesome curative powers and massive health improvements.
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: Hannibal on October 25, 2009, 11:10:38 pm
They say the minerals in the bones can be leached with bone broths. Also some cartilage are just too tough when raw, but easily consumed cooked.
But many of these minerals are destroyed during cooking, and you've got extra toxins from this procedure.
Re cartilage - is isn't neccesarry to bite it; you can swollow it
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: instant on October 26, 2009, 12:25:44 am
Quote
Cooked meat does cause illness.  Cooked meat cannot cure diseases as well as raw meat.  There are many diseases where cooked meat just will not do.

What type of diseases are these?
Have you met anyone who hasnt cured there disease because they were simply eating cooked then all the sudden were cured from because they switch to raw meat?

Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: alphagruis on October 26, 2009, 01:39:59 am
Yes, that's something I should mention next time I update rawpaleodiet.com(the reference re cooking destroying the environment via chopping down ancient forests for wood etc.)

Yes, Tyler, i think it may be helpful. Often "environmentalists" show a tendency to blame substantial meat or animal product eaters, as we are, for their "carbon footprint" or similar environmental impacts and promote unhealthy necessarily cooked plant based diets as being the more sustainable diets.

Facing such people, it is important for us to be able to give them some "food for thought" and explain them that their position is probably nonsense and they might well be quite  mistaken because of:

-the cooking issue

-the fact that raising grassfed cattle needs very little or no fossil fuel input and no pesticides and is the most environmentally friendly way to get a high quality food, one can think of, even on mountainous or wet land inappropriate for agriculture.

- the fact that grain production needs very large fossil fuel input,  pesticides, fertilizers, water etc and is the least environmentally friendly way to get a low quality unhealthy food, one can think of, and is restricted to cultivable land.

- curing illness or just to care for the sick has also a strong environmental impact

to name just a few points, i can think of.

    
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: DeadRamones on October 26, 2009, 02:18:32 am
preservation of meat by cooking", which is just myth

Southern way of preserving pork. I forget the name it's given but it's basically fried pork in it's on fat. The muscle meats are fried, the pork fat is boiled in this huge pot. Once rendered the muscle meat is thrown in the mix of fat. Allowed to get to room temperature & then it's preserved. (Almost like pemmican but not dehydrated)

Just a speculation of mine. But I imagine smoking meats were probably first method of cooking rather than on the straight fire.

Also, we all know that raw meat provides the best nutrition. But people have lived healthy lives while mixing raw& cook & even all cooked foods. I strongly believe that grains & sugars/starches are bigger enemies to avoid.
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: TylerDurden on October 26, 2009, 02:55:23 am
Also, we all know that raw meat provides the best nutrition. But people have lived healthy lives while mixing raw& cook & even all cooked foods. I strongly believe that grains & sugars/starches are bigger enemies to avoid.

It's misleading to suggest that people have led healthy lives while eating cooked foods. There are so many other factors involved which might mitigate against a cooked diet(which no longer feature generally in our modern environment) such as intermittent fasting/caloric restriction or adding some raw animal foods to help counter inflammation/toxins caused by cooking. I mean, hunter-gatherer tribes like the Masai, who WP et al like to point to as mythical examples of so-called "perfect" health, generally turn out to have atherosclerotic tendencies etc. which make them not healthy at all(just "less unhealthy" than Westerners).
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: TylerDurden on October 26, 2009, 03:02:44 am
But just because it "may" be addictive doesnt really mean its unhealthy (just basing it off of everything other culture that eats cooked meat that has good health)
Raw meat is superior to cooked meat, but i dont think cooked meat causes health problems;
i still think the sugar is the number one cause of most sickness; this is one thing that all healthy people avoid.

im going on an raw meat diet starting today!

An addictive substance is by definition unhealthy. It forces you to eat it to the exclusion of other kinds of foods and the very nature of addiction causes negative influences on the brain re the opioids in cooked foods, fouling up the hormonal system etc.

Secondly, before you start making dubious claims re cooking not being unhealthy, please read the child boards of the general discussions forum(the info for newbies section), where there is a thread which goes into great, scientific detail on the myriad ways that cooked foods harm our health(there are already multiple other studies online, not referenced in the thread, which go into exhaustive detail on the negative effects of cooking, and which incidentally, point to cooked-meat-consumption as being far more unhealthy than just sugar:-

http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/important-info-for-newbies/info-on-toxins-in-cooked-foods/
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: alphagruis on October 26, 2009, 03:11:06 am
preservation of meat by cooking", which is just myth

Southern way of preserving pork. I forget the name it's given but it's basically fried pork in it's on fat. The muscle meats are fried, the pork fat is boiled in this huge pot. Once rendered the muscle meat is thrown in the mix of fat. Allowed to get to room temperature & then it's preserved. (Almost like pemmican but not dehydrated)

Just a speculation of mine. But I imagine smoking meats were probably first method of cooking rather than on the straight fire.


I had paleo times in mind re meat preservation by cooking.

Rendered fat is indeed a traditional way to preserve meat after frying or cooking but it is a neolithic practice that needs pottery. Here in France they traditionally preserve duck or goose in their own rendered fats; the basis of a famous dish called "confit de canard ou d'oie"  
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: instant on October 26, 2009, 03:55:18 am
Message deleted due to trolling - just mindless, rude blatherings promoting  Gary Taubes' cooked views and stupid, ignorant condemnations of all rawists as  being supposedly extremists and sickly etc. I mean, these anti-raw fanatics simply cannot accept the fact that no one would touch this type of diet unless they'd tried everything else and this diet alone worked for them.There are too many social restrictions against raw-foodism for there to be any other reason.*tylerdurden*
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: TylerDurden on October 26, 2009, 04:43:53 am
Well, I was right when I posted a cautionary e-mail re the above troll(Instant) to the moderators earlier today. Turns out he's an out-and-out troll, like I guessed, earlier today, and I suppose when I called him out earlier, he realised he couldn't get away any more with such ill-informed anti-raw utterings. The only thing of substance he said(other than the anti-raw abuse against members claiming they were all ill, without evidence etc.) was a stupid, ignorant claim derived from that dodgy guru Gary Taubes, claiming that cooked meat digested better. In fact, as shown in the thread below, there are links to 2 studies which show that cooked meat is, in fact, less digestible than raw:-

http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/important-info-for-newbies/info-on-toxins-in-cooked-foods/

 I've posted the troll's original deleted post to the moderators forum so as to make my reasons clear.But, given the abuse involved, I don't think it's worth keeping here on open forum, trolls post such unpleasant texts solely to disrupt the forum and waste other peoples' time). While questioning raw diets in a civilised manner is fine as it allows some flexibility, outright attacks and virulent public condemnations of all raw diets(with no  evidence) is absolutely unacceptable, as this is a forum meant for support for rawists, not a mainstream forum including SAD diets and whatever else.
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: goodsamaritan on October 26, 2009, 08:42:58 am
What type of diseases are these?

Any disease you can name.  Any disease unnamed as of yet.

Have you met anyone who hasnt cured there disease because they were simply eating cooked then all the sudden were cured from because they switch to raw meat?

I am one them.  My children are some of them. 

After a long and winding diet hopping journey I landed in what is labeled today as raw paleo diet.  Detoxes and cleanses and herbs fall short.  The correct diet must be found.  And I found it for me.  It just happened to be called raw paleo diet.  Lucky coincidence. I used to have eczema, wrecked digestive system, liver stones, etc.

My 8 year old boy was diagnosed with tuberculosis.  Raw, rare, bloody beef for him.  So far so good.

My 6 year old boy a year ago had bad eczema and painful on his hand and ears.  Just 1 week of raw paleo diet cured him.

If you check out the cooked meat eaters at zero carb forum on psoriasis:
Quote
"I have been 100% beef and water ZC since April 17th, but no improvement in my psoriasis (shins, elbow, scalp, in ears)."

If the man turned to fully raw paleo diet he will have great results.  And for healing I suggest you open to the broad range of raw paleo diet.  The broad range of fruits, vegs, meat and ratios of whether high fat or low fat. 

Some carnivores have good results like the bear only eats seared meats so most of it is still raw.

Raw is the bomb.  Raw is curative.  Food is your best medicine and raw paleo diet is it.
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: wodgina on October 26, 2009, 09:06:48 am
I think raw fat is the key
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: goodsamaritan on October 26, 2009, 03:53:33 pm
you are right, raw fat is the key.
i believe what they sell in the market in those tiny capsules are raw fats
like fish oil, lyprinol, oleaia, etc.
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: RawZi on October 26, 2009, 07:35:22 pm
i believe what they sell in the market in those tiny capsules are raw fats
like fish oil, lyprinol, oleaia, etc.

    What is oleaia?
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: DeadRamones on October 27, 2009, 04:53:07 am
I believe fish oil caps(depend on brand) Is not raw. I read it has to get extracted (most from fish heads) filtered & spun(I think it's a form of sterilizing). Not so sure if it gets heated.
Title: Re: Why have we been cooking all this time?
Post by: DeadRamones on October 27, 2009, 05:06:53 am
It's misleading to suggest that people have led healthy lives while eating cooked foods. There are so many other factors involved which might mitigate against a cooked diet(which no longer feature generally in our modern environment) such as intermittent fasting/caloric restriction or adding some raw animal foods to help counter inflammation/toxins caused by cooking. I mean, hunter-gatherer tribes like the Masai, who WP et al like to point to as mythical examples of so-called "perfect" health, generally turn out to have atherosclerotic tendencies etc. which make them not healthy at all(just "less unhealthy" than Westerners).

Yea it was misleading, since it can have different meanings upon each individual. Maybe Lengthy lives would be a better word. Since there is a thread discussing centenarians who don't follow a strict raw diet. Your right about the other factors as well. unfortunately I wish there were more modern or long term studies done with an all RVAF diet. I do admire WP for his work but I'm also aware of the possibility that most of it could of been distorted.