I agree with your 'should'.  But sometimes people's ideas or thoughts get in their way of expressing the love that is already there.  So then, all I was indicating was the notion of giving them, and maybe yourself one less thing to think about, so that it can be more of a spontaneous celebration.  That's all.      Have you ever met Barry?  Does his hair and skin shine?  Does his breath smell good? Waist line trim?  I am curious.

I am glad you two are living up to your morals; that of saying what you believe.  Many good points have been raised.  Please excuse the following if it rambles a bit.  First there may be no perfect way of eating.  For the concept includes the idea that a particular food(s) is what sustains us. When probably there are many factors, like love, hope, intuitive guidance, maybe even God.  Hence the mind is only one facet of knowing, and so it may be true with diet. A crazy for instance; those monkeys, if they chose to forgo the fermented fruit, might not have the delight in life as much as those that didn't.  Might cherish their own life more, might make up for it in other ways.  Silly, I know, but how we take in life seems very important to our health.

 The person who forgoes a hot bowl of soup and spends the evening wishing they hadn't probably suffers more than if they hadn't.  The point is that mental restrictions may not always lead to perfect health.  Once every month or so I shop at whole foods.  I would almost always sample in a little one ounce sample cup their soups.  I at one point really liked them, but denied myself.  Now, they have little attraction for me.  When I had to deny myself, I noticed there was inner conflict.  Hard to describe in detail, but it caused a slight discomfort.
It didn't last long, for about 15 minutes later, the taste of the soup had gone bad in my mouth and repeatedly I was glad I hadn't eaten more.  But that may not be true for everyone.  For it seems that from having been raw or various sorts for over thirty years, I have lost the ability to handle cooked foods, maybe an enzyme thing.  Others do seemingly well with cooked.  
     And then from the rational point of view, I can't imagine anything 'good' happens to the ingredients  in the soup from having been cooked.  Just like explaining 'raw' food to a newly interested person.  I always say, what do you intuitively think is healthier, an apple just picked from a tree or one that has been baked for an hour?  Pretty much the same is true with anything you could put in a soup, unless you wanted to breakdown grains or bones.   I made a Sally Fallon soup for my daughter.  Lots of bones, etc, slow cooked.   And then I tried it.  Wasn't bad as soups go.  But from a perspective of having eaten raw for so many years, I knew it wasn't right for me.    And that's where I'll end it here, because for some, I am sure It may have been.
 

  I would add that my goats, one in particular gave me one half a gallon of milk for over two years.  She was thriving during that time, and now.  So it is possible.  But once again, usually it is done with the use of high protein grains that stimulate milk production. Cows can get up to  30 lbs a day.   There can be a wonderful exchange when milking.  She gives you her milk, and you give her your love and protection/care.  I believe in my situation, my goat knew that.  They are very smart.  Years ago many families had their pet cow or more often goat for food supplies.  The relationship probably was similar then.

chickens are what they are,  unless raised on pasture, rich pasture. 
Even cows that are fed grains put on their first 800 or so pounds eating grass. 
But chickens from day one get mashed grains that are already oxidized from a bag filled many months prior.  I have experienced several times allergic cold symptoms using goat milk that included grains used during the milking process, and zero reaction when the grains were not fed.  It is easy to see the effect of cows or goats eating large amount of grains, the amounts necessary for a farmer to increase yield.  Those animals have mucous running out of their noses.  Not a natural condition for animals.  Also you can learn about cows fed a high grain diet which causes their foot structure to collapse due to the high protein low mineral ratio of grains compared to grass. These 'perfectly good' milkers are then sent to slaughter and not because they aren't producing, but because they are no longer mobile.    The minerals are suspected to be leached out to supply them to the milk for their 'young'.     There are many sources of naturally raised animals and products on the internet.  I think the problem is that we are used to doing something or believing in something and shifts sometimes are hard to assimilate.  But then who really knows?

vaccum sealed meats and fat keep really well.  I also, and not just for traveling, scoop out the marrow and put it in plastic containers with good lids.  The trick is to pack it hard to express the air. It then keeps well refrigerated.  Three or four brown bags inside each other with a frozen pint of water keeps it all cold in my suitcase when flying till I get to my room with a fridge or minibar.   But I do like eating meats from different places, like when I went to Slovenia this last summer.

  You can get whatever you like from North Star Bison.  I am so impressed with their operation; to their method of  field kill only,  which is wonderful for the animal and the quality of the meat, ie, tenderness, their method of vacuumed packed products, to the incedibly low shipping price for next day, office telephone people ect. etc.  It's the best.  Not to mention the flavor., grass fed only, no antibiotics.....  I could sell for them.  I have been experimenting with all their organ products.  I think I have been missing what's in them for some time now.  They were all eaten times past, and to think we should just bypass them now, well...  I think the Bear may not have gotten results or noticed anything for having eaten grain fed chemical/drug fed cows.  Hard to imagine believing there's no difference between cows/bison raised on grass in open prairies vs. feed lots given all sorts of drugs etc..   But then in Australia where he lives, they don't hardly grain at all anyway, so who knows what his real opinion is?

  Ok,  you should be able to see the article at www.ThePaleoDiet.com.   It is in their last news letter.  Let me know if that doesn't get you there.

    Hi Coconinoz,  Have to read your words several times.  For there seems to be layers of information.  It is hard to sit and write what we truly are thinking, or feeling. At least all of it.  I really much more prefer speaking, so much more room for give and take. 
  So the several times I did try high meat,  I felt really none of the highs mentioned here.  It did seem to digest quite well, and had overall positive effects with stool, although fairly negligible.   The last batch I made was a couple of weeks ago.  I ended up throwing it away for it had such an ammonia smell to it.  Seemed intuitively not right.  I had written earlier on the forum here that I was concerned that living right on the coast in norther ca. that I was probably inoculating the meat  by airing it outside twice a day with the local molds and fungus's so prevalent here on the coast; the stuff that grows on every north facing building. 
   I have read that in
Europe where they still make cured meats, that they have very sophisticated inoculants that they use in the curing process.   Which brings me  back to asking you about your veg. or herbal ferments.  Still in the experimentation phase?  Have you tried the EM products?  When I read about those, they all seem to be maintained on molasses.  Hence a carbohydrate food source.  And once again, since I don't eat carbs,  I am suspicious that my gut would not harbor them happily.  For example most human derived acidopholis and other intestinal flora need carbs especially lactose to flourish. 
   Another thing I am curious about is the ph of the large intestine.  The lactic acid bacteria create an acid envirement, which in turn contributes to peristalsis.  My understanding that an all meat/fat diet creates an alkaline ph in the large intestine.  I wonder how much this acidity or alkalinity effects one whole body.  Does either ph condition or effect the blood that filters through the intestinal membranes? 
   In your last response, are you suggesting that the high meat has become a carb due to fementing?   And without flipping back to your earlier email and risk losing what I have written,  you write that your diet is rich in dha or, ??  I can't remember the initials.  Is this different from eating animals/fish/etc raised on green?
   Coconinoz, you have my attention,  know that whatever you share will be muchly appreciated.  Van

    Coconinoz,  just went back and read all your posts.  You certainly have an inquiring mind.  Would you be willing to share your discoveries with your veg, ferments.   And any additional insights as to why you gave up high meat.  I understand your viewpoint as to how the process may degrade the lipids,  but was not the bacteria/yeasts etc. helpful for you?   Having for a couple of years now shifted to almost zero carb,  I still intuit that a complete 'shift' with intestinal flora has not occured.  I mean afterall, for almost all of my life whatever bacteria I harbored ate freely off of carbs.  Now that there are none, a whole different set of bacteria have probably 'moved in'.  Watching my dogs, who eat entirely raw,  they love to eat deer and goat pellets and 'rotten' meat any chance they get....  What do you think, what do you know...  Care to share?  Van

  Coconinoz,  I would really like to learn more about how freezing destroys essential fatty acids in fat.  I have frozen stores of fat that I bought from very healthy grass fed cows.  I also eat bone marrow.  My understanding is that when meat is frozen, the water in the meat cells bursts the cell membrane when frozen, thus when defrosted, exposes the contents to air...  But with fat, there is not enough water to cause this damage.  Could you please let me know what source you gleened your info from.  Thanks.

Wondering if my high meat,  don't have a lot of experience with it, is 'good'.  It has a biting hottish ammonia taste and smell.  Can anyone tell me if that's to be expected, or what their high meat is like, taste and smell wise.  Thanks

I have heard that raw scallops out of the shell are kept firm with some chemical which I can't remember,  same with Uni