how long is beef good for after thawing?

[awesomeame]

So my paranoia has set in slightly lol.

After I thaw beef from the freezer, and left in the fridge, how many days "should" it still be ok for to eat raw?  I've been letting it go max 24hrs, but timing things all the time can get complicated.

And what if left in a lunchbag for a few hrs at a mediocre cool temp...how long can I leave it before cooking might be needed?

Opinions welcome

Matt

[TylerDurden]

Cooking is never needed. Meats should be eaten as soon as they have thawed to room-temperature, as freezing ruptures the cell-membranes, so that nutrient-loss occurs swiftly after it starts thawing. However, one could eat thawed prefrozen meats quite safely for weeks/months afterwards. Indeed a few RPDers make their "high-meats" from prefrozen meats, apparently.

[Iguana]

I take care not to eat anything that has been frozen.

[raw-al]

Iguana,
It makes a lot of sense what you say, as I find anything frozen tastes quite a bit different when thawed and I would add that it is not as good. It certainly won't hurt you but I think as Tyler says some nutrition is definitely on the missing list.

[Dorothy]

My number one trial with paleo is trying to find unfrozen grass-fed meats that are good. Apparently farmers all get their meats back from the butcher frozen automatically so all that nice grass-fed meat at the farmer's market is frozen.    I doubt that I've even tasted unfrozen meat yet. Even the $35 a pound bison I tried was frozen. Grass-fed to me is my highest priority and I have yet to find any that has not been frozen somewhere in the delivery process. I got some ground grass-fed beef from whole foods that looked like it would be amazing - they said it was never frozen. But when I got it home only the outside was appealing/red/fresh and the middle looked brown and yucky.    My dog wouldn't even eat it. Hubbie cooked it.

The US/Texas is a tough place to find fresh raw or I just haven't been able to figure out how to get the good stuff. Sigh.

[TylerDurden]

My number one trial with paleo is trying to find unfrozen grass-fed meats that are good. Apparently farmers all get their meats back from the butcher frozen automatically so all that nice grass-fed meat at the farmer's market is frozen.    I doubt that I've even tasted unfrozen meat yet. Even the $35 a pound bison I tried was frozen. Grass-fed to me is my highest priority and I have yet to find any that has not been frozen somewhere in the delivery process. I got some ground grass-fed beef from whole foods that looked like it would be amazing - they said it was never frozen. But when I got it home only the outside was appealing/red/fresh and the middle looked brown and yucky.    My dog wouldn't even eat it. Hubbie cooked it.

The US/Texas is a tough place to find fresh raw or I just haven't been able to figure out how to get the good stuff. Sigh.

Don't be ridiculous. There are always local farms which can deliver raw meats chilled within ice-packs, not prefrozen, upon request. One just needs to do a bit of searching online in organic food- or grassfed meat-directories like eatwild.com.

Isn't Slanker's in Texas one  such farm?

[Dorothy]

Don't be ridiculous. There are always local farms which can deliver raw meats chilled within ice-packs, not prefrozen, upon request. One just needs to do a bit of searching online in organic food- or grassfed meat-directories like eatwild.com.

Isn't Slanker's in Texas one  such farm?

It DOES seem ridiculous doesn't Tyler?! But it's the way it is so far. Slanker's meat is frozen. All the local farmers here get their meat delivered back from the butchers frozen by the butcher. The butchers that the farmers here use are way out in the country (Texas is big) and there is a possibility of getting some if I were to drive out to the slaughterhouses before they freeze the meat - but most of them are several hours away. Farmers here rarely slaughter and package their own meat. There are all sorts of laws and regulations involved. It also has been over 100 degrees for over 70 days here in Texas and the only way that they feel that they can safely transport the meat with the FDA up their noses snooping with a magnifying glass is to transport it frozen. I've been talking to the farmers that are part of the Weston A. Price Foundation here and every farmer at the farmer's market and it's the same story. I found only one farmer so far that said that they might be able to get me wild boar if I got a group together to make it worth the effort and it would be pretty pricey. The price didn't bother me - but the meat itself in the frozen version was not good (my dog wouldn't eat it either) so I did not bother trying to get it fresh / unfrozen.

I have not heard of eatwild.com. Thanks for the lead. I'll check that one out today.

I buy Panorama pre-packaged grass-fed organic from a store near me and emailed them last week to ask if the meat had been frozen or not but have not gotten a reply. It's very good tasting and my dogs wag their tails like flags - which is always a good sign.

I'm in Austin - so if anyone has any other leads to grass-fed besides Whole Foods please let me know.

I'm not making it up Tyler. Really. Big Brother here in the USA is making it harder and harder to get raw natural foods. I feel lucky when I can find anything that has not been pasteurized or deep frozen. We have more diversity and offerings here at our farmer's market than most places in the country to boot. I can get duck eggs with the blooms still on that are only refrigerated and processed in no other way. This week, I'm going to call and see if they would be willing to bring me some that were not refrigerated. That's a major find that I couldn't locate anywhere else I have lived.

It took me half a year to find a source of grass-fed raw milk (it's like the underground railroad - quite secretive) - so I'm sure I'll find some good fresh unfrozen grass-fed ground raw beef or lamb eventually. Whre there's a will - there's a way.
 

[zaidi]

I have got the opportunity to buy Frozen stag meat.

I have not found grass fed animals in Germany up till now.

I want to avoid any thing Frozen, but it seems I don't have any other choice  (other choice is to get Mackerel/Sardine and I am eating it for a long long time now).

Some where I read that Fish meat is good for brain, while beef has separate function of regeneration of cells.  Is it true?

[sabertooth]

I trolled craigslist off and on for months before I found an ad from a woman who was selling her flock of sheep, she didn't want to sell them to me for meat but she had a friend that raised meat sheep and gave her my number. She lives 20 minuets from my house on a 90 acre farm in the hills. The pastures are lush and clean and she doesn't use any chemicals at all.

What's even more awesome is that I don't think she has been to a grocery store for meat in 20 years so she doesn't know about the inflated price of lamb, and sells it for 1.25 per pound on hoof. She also grows tomatoes and sells those for I dollar per pound and can get Raw milk for three dollars a gallon, that I buy for my children.

She lets me slaughter the animal on her property and even helps with the  roundup and cleanup. The key to finding fresh meat is finding a farmer who will let you buy an animal live. Lamb, goats and calf's are all fairly cheap and not to difficult to butcher. Plus this way you can keep the best parts of the animal that usually get thrown away like the brain, organs, tongue, and the fat lining of the innards which I love so much.

If you are going to adopt this raw paleo lifestyle then you might as well go all out and make sure you can obtain and consume the whole animal so as to get the maximum benefits of the super foods like marrow, and organ meats.

I have been slaughtering a lamb and quartering the carcass and keeping it uncovered in a fridge set at the coldest temperature(right above freezing). I will then just cut off what I need for the day. It seems to be keeping just fine this way, although I can't say how it would work for extended storage, because I will finish off a whole lamb within a couple of weeks. I freeze some of the organs and other scraps that wont keep good this way, so that I have a little bit of a stash to fall back on during hard times.

Start calling the craigslist farm and garden people. You would be surprised about how many local farming people in America are just as adamant about clean food as we are.

[cherimoya_kid]

I have got the opportunity to buy Frozen stag meat.

I have not found grass fed animals in Germany up till now.

I want to avoid any thing Frozen, but it seems I don't have any other choice  (other choice is to get Mackerel/Sardine and I am eating it for a long long time now).

Some where I read that Fish meat is good for brain, while beef has separate function of regeneration of cells.  Is it true?

Fish fat, in particular, is good for the brain. 

[sabertooth]

Brain is also good for the brain so long as its from a clean pasture source.

[zaidi]

Fish fat, in particular, is good for the brain. 

Thanks for the reply.

Would it be possible for you to provide me with some useful links to read about it in more details.

Tchüß

[RawZi]

Big Brother here in the USA is making it harder and harder to get raw natural foods. I feel lucky when I can find anything that has not been pasteurized or deep frozen. We have more diversity and offerings here at our farmer's market than most places in the country to boot. I can get duck eggs with the blooms still on that are only refrigerated and processed in no other way. This week, I'm going to call and see if they would be willing to bring me some that were not refrigerated. That's a major find that I couldn't locate anywhere else I have lived.

It took me half a year to find a source of grass-fed raw milk (it's like the underground railroad - quite secretive) - so I'm sure I'll find some good fresh unfrozen grass-fed ground raw beef or lamb eventually. Whre there's a will - there's a way.

    I know there have been Primal Dieters in Austin.  I've never been there.  From what I've heard previously, it sounded like one of the best cities in the US to avoid a lot of the garbage they 'feed' to the rest of the country.  

    As for ground lamb, good luck!  I don't normally get ground, but I ordered some in an order from a farmer.  He charged me for it, but that part did not ever arrive.  Don't think I want to order it a second time.  What about grinding your own?

[Iguana]

Ground meat is too easy to eat which can lead to overeating and metabolic overload, also because fat and muscle are mixed. Meat grinders aren't paleo anyway.

[eveheart]

The US/Texas is a tough place to find fresh raw or I just haven't been able to figure out how to get the good stuff.

The US is too large a country for such a generalization. I have searched around in my area and on the internet. After six months of RPD, I'm still finding new sources of fresh grass-fed meats. Why, there's a CSA drop-off just a mile from my house. I learned about that ranch from a comment in Lex's journal - and Lex lives a day's drive from me.

Farmer's markets, in my experience, are not great places for grass-fed beef. In my city, I favor markets or supermarkets with a full-service butcher department. True, WF aspires to be one such market; however, WF does not have the philosophy of food that caters well to raw paleo.

It's like finding good yarn for knitting. If you keep walking into Walmart and looking for fine wool, you won't find it. If you patiently keep your eyes and ears open without complaining, you will meet with success.

[TylerDurden]

Farmer's markets, in my experience, are not great places for grass-fed beef. In my city, I favor markets or supermarkets with a full-service butcher department. True, WF aspires to be one such market; however, WF does not have the philosophy of food that caters well to raw paleo.

It's like finding good yarn for knitting. If you keep walking into Walmart and looking for fine wool, you won't find it. If you patiently keep your eyes and ears open without complaining, you will meet with success.

  Exactly. When I first started, I could only find one source of organic, grassfed meat costing ten times the usual amount. Eventually, after spending most of my saturdays and sundays searching around, I found endless different sources of raw wild game or raw grassfed meats etc.

The only thing I should add is that while farmers' markets don't usually seem that great in the US(except perhaps in Vermont?), they are  a really worthwhile option for rawpalaeos in the United Kingdom.

[raw-al]

Ground meat is too easy to eat which can lead to overeating and metabolic overload, also because fat and muscle are mixed. Meat grinders aren't paleo anyway.

We thought ground meat was the answer initially, but soon found we did not like it. We've tried ground beef and pork. We noticed that it was easy to overeat. The nice thing we found out about the raw diet was that overeating did not come naturally the way it does it with a cooked diet.

[eveheart]

We thought ground meat was the answer initially, but soon found we did not like it.... The nice thing we found out about the raw diet was that overeating did not come naturally the way it does it with a cooked diet.

I concur. The initial appeal of ground beef was its texture - more "broken down" like cooked beef. Once I learned that raw beef was tender enough to chew, ground beef felt too mushy to eat. Chewing, per se, has many digestive benefits. It helps my appetite feel satisfied, and it gets my juices going to signal proper elimination.

[Dorothy]

RawZi wrote -   I know there have been Primal Dieters in Austin.  I've never been there.  From what I've heard previously, it sounded like one of the best cities in the US to avoid a lot of the garbage they 'feed' to the rest of the country.

That is in some ways quite true Zi - and that's why it's so surprising to me as the farmer's market here is the best I've ever seen so far in any place that I have lived up to now. There is a local farmer here that waters their pastures that has great frozen ground lamb btw. I don't seem to overeat it. I have been able to easily find excellent frozen grass-fed meats and organs so far of many different types. The challenge has only been finding fresh unfrozen grass-fed meat. 

You are perhaps right Eve - I made too big of a generalization. It's just from talking to farmer after farmer about their legal and practical concerns that I figured it was more than just the area surrounding Austin that those concerns would be relevant. I've been picking the brains of the fairly large Weston A. Price group here in Austin that includes a great many farmers and that is where I learned that the farmers get back their meats frozen and how impractical it is for them to be able to provide fresh meat (other than small animals). I've gotten quite an education from them.

I didn't think of what I said as "complaining" - just discussing my challenge. I will keep on searching.

Btw, I don't care much about the cost of fresh meat if I can get it. I find that eating raw animal foods is dramatically cheaper than eating all organic raw vegetables, fruits, seeds and grains that even the $35 a pound frozen grass-fed bison steaks I got from the farmer's market were cheap in comparison. I only need about a third of pound of meat a day to be completely satisfied. That, along with the eggs from my chickens and how long one gallon of milk will last me has made incorporating raw animal food into my diet the cheapest diet I've been on. I had to eat so much more volume before. With the price of organic vegetables what they are now and how much I had to eat --- raw animal foods is less expensive, easier and takes up dramatically less space and time.

Frozen grass-fed is fine, tastes good and is easy to find. I just really want to try some fresh grass-fed meat and I would like to try high meat. If I never find it, it wouldn't be the end of the world. I'm just really curious if that one aspect would make much of a difference. If it is not going to make a difference to how I feel or taste much different, then I would stop searching and buy a quarter or half an animal from one of the struggling local small farmers in the Price yahoo group and put it in my freezer as the farmer's market meat vendors are quickly dwindling because of the drought. Even the duck eggs are now gone. The farmer told me she used 100,000 gallons of water last month and still had almost no eggs to show for it because of the heat. We drove out to the country yesterday and the landscape is brown. Because of this, I am contemplating not spending so much time searching for fresh and making sure my freezer is full of frozen while I can still get local grass-fed at all and start my search again when the weather breaks.

[Ioanna]

ground meat still remains a large part of my diet because it is affordable, convenient and is an easy way for me to incorporate organs (i get a ground organ mix from my farmer) that i like. i do not like nor dislike the texture, and it does not at all remind me of cooked meat.  it's just what i eat when i'm wanting organs.  cutting little by little from the meat hanging in the fridge to age is great too.  whatev i'm eating, ground still has a place for me.

[Dorothy]

I like ground too loanna because I can so easily add egg yolks from my chickens and tiny bits of seasonings and it tastes like a delicacy to me - especially the lamb - and I really trust that farmer. It's also the easiest because hubbie takes his part and makes a rare cooked burger and the dogs get their raw helpings with their eggs all from one package at once.... it's even a great little treat for the chickens. Easy peasy. Yummy. Everyone happy.