Photos of recipes from the new book Tender Grassfed Barbecue
Photos of recipes from the cookbook Tender Grassfed Meat
A New Pot Roast Recipe for the Holidays
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat
Traditional Belgian ingredients make this pot roast special.
I have had the honor and pleasure to do a guest post for my friend Raine Saunders of Agriculture Society, which is one of the very best real food blogs around. There are many excellent articles on every aspect of real food and real health. Raine is a superb writer, and the blog posts are clear and comprehensive. I highly recommend this blog.
I contributed a new and unusual pot roast recipe, based on traditional Belgian ingredients. Pot roast is a wonderful food for the winter, and this one is absolutely delicious. The use of raspberry lambic beer is unique, but trust me, the combination of ingredients in this recipe is both exotic and comforting, and the taste is outstanding. There is a subtle raspberry flavor that is set off perfectly with the traditional Dijon mustard to create one of the tastiest gravies ever.
The name of the recipe is Traditional Pot Roast with Belgian flavors and you can find it here:
Easy, Exotic Grassfed Pot Roast for the Holidays
How to Find Steak in Pot Roast, and Save!
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat
Seven-bone pot roast cut from the chuck.
One of the biggest problems people have with grassfed meat is the cost. All meat is expensive, and grassfed meat is usually more expensive than factory meat. But knowing your meat can result in paying pot roast prices for tender steaks. I do it regularly.
The ordinary chuck pot roast, also known as a seven-bone pot roast, contains several different cuts of meat. Two of them make wonderfully tender and delicious steaks that you can easily cut from the pot roast.
So, get ready to find steaks in that pot roast.
How to Find the Steaks in the Pot Roast
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and seeing is believing. The top photo is of the typical seven bone pot roast, cut from the chuck. Can you see the tender rib steak and flat iron steak in the picture?
Unless you are a butcher, probably not. But they are there.
Rib steak, chuck pot roast, and flat iron steak.
The second photo shows the same pot roast, cut into three pieces.
The top piece, which has a bone on top, is a bone in rib steak. That is right—the meat is the same in flavor and tenderness as a rib steak that would sell for at least three times the price of the pot roast. The bone gives incredible flavor to the meat.
The piece of meat in the middle is the chuck pot roast, a tough cut of beef that is suitable for pot roasts or stews, not steaks.
The piece of meat at the bottom, below the long bone, is the flat iron steak, a very tender and flavorful piece of meat that makes a very popular and delicious steak. Flat iron steak sells for at least twice the price of the pot roast, often more.
It takes me about two minutes, or less, to separate the steaks from the pot roast.
How I Save Money on Steaks
First, I look at the pot roast carefully before buying. Some seven-bone pot roasts have a much larger rib steak and flat iron portion than others. It all depends on the exact area of the chuck that the roast is cut from. I select the pot roasts that have the biggest rib and flat iron portions. Fortunately, the larger rib portions and flat iron portions occur together. In other words, the bigger the rib, the bigger the flat iron.
I will buy several of these pot roasts, and separate them into three parts, as shown in the second photograph. I group the same cuts together, and now have several meals of rib steak, flat iron steak, and pot roast. All for the price of pot roast. I wrap each meal size portion in natural wax paper coated with extra virgin olive oil, place it in a gallon-sized freezer storage bag, and freeze what I am not going to make in the immediate future.
There is another saving you get by selecting grassfed meat. Grassfed meat has far less water in it that factory meat, and you end up with more meat and less water after cooking, as there is much less shrinkage.
Tender Grassfed Meat has some great recipes for rib steaks and flat iron steak, as well as pot roasts. These steaks are absolutely delicious, and you can have them for the price of pot roast!
This post is part of Real Food Wednesday and Fight Back Friday blog carnivals.
The Joy of Fat, Why We Lost It, and How to Get It Back
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat
Grassfed sirloin roast, with a delicious, nutritious fat cap.
“People are missing out on the joy of fat. It keeps the meat tender, makes the meat taste so much better.â€
These words of wisdom came from my friend Brian, head of the meat department at my local market. Brian is not only a master butcher, he is a classically trained chef who studied in France and cooked in Denmark. Brian knows grassfed meat.
We were talking about customers who want all the fat trimmed off every piece of meat they buy. These customers and so many others are truly missing out on the joy of fat.
The Joy of Fat—Taste, Tenderness, Satisfaction, and Nutrition
The natural fat on a piece of grassfed meat cooks down into the meat, keeping the meat tender while adding fantastic flavor and nutrients. The wonderful smell given off by the roasting fat is the best appetizer on earth, causing our bodies to prepare for digestion, and the joy of a great meal. You can roast vegetables like potatoes, carrots, peppers, celery, etc. right in the same pan, and the melting fat will brown them, caramelize them, and give them incredible taste and flavor that goes so well with the meat.
There is also the joy of satisfaction. Meat and vegetables cooked with grassfed fat are the most satisfying food on earth. After a serving of this delicious food, full of all kinds of nutrients, hunger disappears and the urge to eat and eat and eat that plagues so many people disappears. You stop eating because you are satisfied, and no longer want to. When your body has the nutrients it needs, the desire to eat is gone.
The fat from grassfed animals and wild fish has the natural ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 essential fatty acids, and contains many other beneficial substances that factory meat and farmed fish lack. This fat was cherished by our ancestors, who ate as much of it as they could, and our bodies have evolved to know how to use it. It is prime fuel for our bodies. More information on the benefits of animal fat is explained here.
All of the healthy peoples studied by Dr. Weston A. Price ate plenty of animal fat, from animals that were wild or pastured. Most of them ate as much fat from wild seafood as they could get. These healthy people had perfect teeth, and were free from the chronic diseases that plague us.
How the Joy of Fat Was Replaced by the Fear of Fat
Most people are afraid of animal fat. They fear that eating animal fat will clog their arteries with cholesterol, causing heart attacks and strokes. They fear that eating animal fat will make them fat. They fear that eating animal fat will give them all kinds of diseases. All of these fears are just not true. In fact, cholesterol is beneficial, as explained in this article: Cholesterol: Friend or Foe?
So why does the government, the news media, the medical profession, the food industry, the drug industry, and the educational system, all support and repeat this misinformation?
The answer is very simple—money.
It has been written that “Money is the root of all evil.†There is much truth in that statement.
Extensive marketing campaigns, backed by many “studies†based on incomplete, mistaken, or biased research, convinced the public to fear real fat. When people were convinced to avoid the most important nutrient, it had to be replaced with something. This created several very lucrative markets.
The Food Industry Makes Money from the Fear of Fat
Real animal fat satisfies hunger like no other food. When you remove fat, people are hungry because they are not getting the nutrients their bodies crave. When people are hungry they buy more and eat more.
This process was described beautifully by my friend Sarah Pope, of the Healthy Home Economist blog:
“. . . some brands of commercial ice cream are now called “dairy dessert” instead of ice cream as they have lowered the butterfat content so much it can no longer even qualify as ice cream. This is deliberate because when the butterfat content decreases, the customer EATS MUCH MUCH MORE and the ice cream becomes more addictive as sugar replaces the butterfat! . . . You can get addicted to sugar but you can’t get addicted to butterfat.â€
Addiction and overeating makes a fortune for the food industry. The food industry favors products based on grains, sweeteners, artificial flavors and preservatives, and modern vegetable oils. These ingredients are highly processed, and the raw materials are very cheap for the food industry. The products they create with these ingredients lack vital nutrients, so the customer’s hunger will never be satisfied. Yet the ingredients are often addictive, so the customer will buy more and more of the product. This is why people can eat a whole bag of cookies and still be hungry.
Fear of Fat Makes a Fortune for the Diet Industry
If you look at old photos of Americans at the beach taken during the early 20th century, you will be astonished at how fit almost everybody was. Obesity was very rare. Prior to the demonization of animal fat, most doctors had a simple and effective cure for overweight people who wanted to lose weight. Reduce the amounts of carbs and sugars, and eat a high-fat diet full of butter and other animal fats. These kinds of diets worked, because nothing satisfies like animal fat. There was no diet industry.
Once people became afraid of animal fat, these time-tested, high-fat diets went out the window, and the diet industry came to life. The diet industry has created a myriad of ways to lose weight, based on counting calories, eating a low-fat, nutrient-poor diet, and exhausting exercise. All of these programs are expensive. All of these programs are difficult to do, which allows the victim to be blamed when the program does not work. Typically, these programs work well for a few people, and some may lose a lot of weight on them, but the weight always comes back, and the victims end up fatter than ever, and are soon looking for a new diet program, which is always there. The severe malnutrition and exhaustion that many experience during such programs often leads to chronic illness, sometimes death.
The Medical Industry Makes a Fortune from the Fear of Fat
The fats of wild and pastured animals contain many nutrients that are found nowhere else, except in wild fish. Our bodies need these nutrients for the natural functions of the body to work properly. One of the most vital functions of our bodies is the immune system. When the immune system is compromised, people get sick with all kinds of illnesses. Another important function is the ability of the body to repair itself. Most of the symptoms of old age are greatly worsened when the body’s repair functions are compromised, again leading to illness, including the failure of organs, bones, joints, and the mind.
This causes people to seek relief from the medical profession, leading to countless prescriptions, surgeries, tests, radiation sessions, and other procedures that are expensive and often harmful. Many medical interventions never cure anything, but require the “patient†to have ever increasing amount of “care,†with huge profits being made from the “patient’s†illness. Many medical interventions create a new problem in the “patient’s†body, which requires yet more medical interventions, which creates yet more problems, until the cycle is finally stopped by death.
How We Can Rediscover the Joy of Fat
I did relearn the joy of fat. The first step I took was to follow the dietary guidelines of the Weston A. Price Foundation.
The second step was to find grassfed meat, and cook it with the fat on. I also learned the way of our ancestors and cooked all meat and vegetables with plenty of pastured animal fat, like pastured butter, real cream, beef tallow, duck fat, pork lard, lamb tallow, bison fat, and others.
If you are not used to eating fat, it is best to start with small amounts, so your system may get used to it. Use the best, most natural ingredients you can afford, and you too may rediscover the joy of fat.
This post is part of Monday Mania and Real Food Wednesday and Fight Back Friday blog carnivals.
The Pleasure of Pastured Pork
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat
Scored roast pork.
I have often been asked why Tender Grassfed Meat has no recipes for pork. The answer I always give has been the same—conventional pork, even organic pork, is just too lean, lacks flavor, and is always fed a large amount of soy. Soy feeding, in my opinion, will ruin the taste of any meat. These pigs were specially bred to be lean, and have no real flavor. Nearly all the traditional ways of cooking pork were designed for fatter pigs, with every roast having the skin and a thick layer of fat attached. Traditional ways of cooking pork just did not work with the modern pig, a creation of fear, the fear of the fat we need to be healthy.
I knew there were some creative, intrepid farmers who were actually raising pork in the old way, by letting them roam in the forests, letting them root in harvested fields, giving them the skim milk left over from making cream and butter, and giving them table scraps. But I was unable to get any of this fabled pork—until now.
My local farmers’ market now carries real pastured pork. This pork is so much better than anything I was able to get before that it seems like a different species. The meat has incredible flavor, perfect fat content, and makes me feel good after eating it, something that never happened with any other kind of pork.
Real Pork
These pigs are not penned and stuffed with soy and garbage, but roam the woods, eating their natural diet of mast, which is composed of seeds and fruits fallen from trees, various plants, bugs and the occasional small animal. They are also allowed to root in harvested organic vegetable fields and orchards, and are given the skim milk left over from making cream and butter. Even better, these pigs are from the famous Berkshire heritage breed, a breed developed for fine eating in England, long ago.
Interestingly enough, a number of Berkshire pigs are raised in the United States, but almost all of them are exported to Japan, where their meat is called kurobata. But these Berkshires were raised and available locally.
Still better is the fact that these pigs come with a nice coating of their own life-giving fat. In fact, the pork shoulder roasts come with the skin on, and with all the beautiful fat under the skin. This is something I had read about, but almost never seen. Almost all the traditional recipes for pork roasts called for the skin to be left on. Now I would have a chance to taste why pork was so loved in traditional European cooking.
Roasting Real Pork, or Rediscovering the Lost Art of Scoring
I made the first pork roast. I roasted it carefully in a traditional way. I was surprised to see that there was very little fat in the pan. The meat was very good, with a nice flavor, fairly tender, and tasted nothing like the soy-fed pork that I disliked.
But something was missing. It was very good, but not great. Great is my standard for grassfed meat, not good. Good is just not good enough. It is not that I am a great cook—it is that traditional meat does taste great, when properly cooked, and anyone can learn to properly cook grassfed meat. The greatness is in the natural meat humankind has been eating for thousands of years. In other words, the greatness comes from the meat, not the cook. There is a very old saying—“God gives us good meat, the devil sends us cooks.â€
If I cook grassfed meat and it tastes only good, then I know I have done something wrong.
I did a bit of research, and learned about the lost art of scoring. Several old books stated clearly that scoring was the most important part of cooking a pork roast. Most Americans have never even heard of it. The old books assumed everybody would do it as a matter of course.
Scoring means making long parallel cuts through the skin and fat of the pork roast, stopping short of cutting into the meat. Some books advocated making these cuts every quarter inch. I started to score my next roast, and learned that it was not easy to cut through the tough, slippery skin. I sharpened a sturdy knife, got a glove that would give me a good grip, and set to work, being careful to angle the edge of the knife away from the hand holding the pork. This went much easier, though I decided that making cuts every half inch was sufficient.
I roasted the pork the same way I had the previous roast, with the only difference being the scoring. The smell coming from the oven made me so hungry it was hard to wait for the meat to finish cooking. The taste was fantastic, like no pork I had ever tasted before. Very tender, juicy without being wet, rich without being greasy, with a wonderful deep flavor that makes me hungry just to think of it. I now understood why pork roasts were so loved in the past. I felt good and renewed after eating the roast—again a new experience.
And this was a shoulder roast, one of the cheapest parts of the pig!
It is only necessary to score large cuts of pork that have the skin on. Smaller cuts can be delicious without being scored, but trust me on this, a scored pork roast is more than worth all the extra work.
My next book, which will be on barbecuing grassfed meat, will have some wonderful recipes for pastured pork. My thanks to the heroic farmers who are reintroducing real pork to the American people.
This post is part of Real Food Wednesday and Fight Back Friday Blog Carnivals.
Three Steps to Great Lamb
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat
photo credit: Tambako the Jaguar
Lamb is very unpopular in the United States. The amount of lamb in the diet of the average American has declined steadily. When I mention lamb to my friends, most of them say “I don’t like lamb.†This dislike is so intense that most of them will not even taste it.
Yet lamb is extremely popular and valued in all of Europe, the former Soviet Union, the Middle East, India, Australia, South America, New Zealand, in most of the world. In fact, lamb may be the world’s favorite meat.
Why do Americans dislike lamb? Why does the rest of the world love it?
The answer is very simple. The lamb eaten in the rest of the world is very different than most American lamb. There are two major differences.
First, American lamb is usually grain finished, while lamb in the rest of the world is almost always raised exclusively on grass.
Second, American lamb often comes from animals that are also used for wool. Lanolin, a substance present in sheep bred for wool, gives an unpleasant taste and smell to the meat. Most of the lamb eaten in the rest of the world comes from breeds raised for meat, not wool.
Grassfed Lamb Tastes Better
Most American lamb is “finished†on grain, in a feedlot. “Grain†usually means a mixture of GMO corn and GMO soy. This kind of grain is not the natural food of lambs, who are ruminants designed to live on living plants in the pasture, not processed grains.
Most of the lamb eaten in the rest of the world is fed grass only, and is never put in a feedlot.
This is a crucial difference, as the taste of lamb is heavily influenced by what the lamb is fed. For example, lambs raised in central Spain eat a number of herbs in the pasture, which gives a wonderful, herbaceous taste to their meat. Lamb raised in the salt marshes of Brittany is valued for its delicious meat, which has a slightly salty taste, from marsh plants growing in salty soil.
Lamb fed GMO corn and GMO soy has its taste altered by this feed. I consider the taste of such grain fed lamb to be awful.
Grassfed American lamb is wonderful. I have been fortunate enough to get lamb from the Willamette Valley in Oregon. This lamb has a wonderful flavor from some of the richest, greenest grasses in the world.
I have also been fortunate enough to get lamb raised on the Great Plains of the United States, which has grazed on the rich native grasses that were used to nourish the buffalo. The taste of this lamb is also wonderful, though it is different from the Oregon lamb, because the native forage is different.
Grain feeding, in my experience, makes the lamb greasy, with an unpleasant texture. One rancher described this lamb as tasting like “a great, greasy glob of nothing.â€
Grassfed lamb has a sweet, clean taste, redolent with the flavor of the living herbs and grasses eaten on the pasture. It is never greasy, and the texture is firm and tender.
The first step to eating great lamb—buy grassfed and grass finished only.
Lamb Bred for Meat Tastes Better
Humankind has developed many breeds of sheep over thousands of years. Some breeds were developed for their wool, which was used to make clothing. The wool and meat of these breeds contain a great deal of lanolin, a substance that smells bad and gives an unpleasant flavor to meat.
Breeds that have been developed for meat do not have lanolin, and their meat smells good and lacks the unpleasant flavor given by lanolin. Many of these meat breeds have a wonderful flavor and texture of their own, when grassfed.
Unfortunately, much of the lamb sold in the United States comes from breeds that are used both for wool and meat. This is the cause of the unpleasant smell and taste so many Americans associate with lamb.
Meat breeds smell good and taste better.
The second step to eating great lamb is to only buy lamb that was bred for meat, not wool. US Wellness Meats is a great internet source of grassfed lamb from breeds that have been developed for meat.
Traditional Cooking Means Great Lamb
Once you have grassfed and grass finished lamb, from a meat breed, you have to know how to cook it. Lamb is not difficult to prepare, but it is easy to ruin. There are many traditional ways of cooking grassfed lamb that are both easy and wonderful, and a number of them are in my cookbook, Tender Grassfed Meat.
The third step to having great lamb is to learn traditional ways of cooking it.
The Three Steps to Great Lamb:
- Buy only grassfed and grass finished lamb.
- Buy only lamb that is raised for meat.
- Learn how to cook this wonderful meat.
This post is part of Real Food Wednesday Blog Carnival at Kelly the Kitchen Kop.
This post is part of Monday Mania Blog Carnival at the Healthy Home Economist.
Traditional Barbecue Methods Avoid Risk Factors
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat
Barbecuing tender grassfed meat with indirect heat.
Is barbecue safe? There are a number of studies that conclude that eating barbecued meat creates carcinogenic substances. However, traditional peoples barbecued constantly and were free of cancer.
The studies all focused on meat grilled with modern methods, using very high direct heat. The traditional methods are very different. No study bothered to contrast the difference between modern grilling methods and traditional methods. In fairness, the researchers were almost certainly unaware of the dramatic difference in cooking methods.
The researchers’ solution is to stop eating barbecue. My solution is to change your cooking method to avoid the risk factors by barbecuing the way our ancestors did.
What the Researchers Found
The studies showed that grilling meat over direct high heat can cause the formation of substances known as HCAs, which are considered carcinogenic when given in large amounts to laboratory animals. HCAs are formed when meat is cooked with very high direct heat, especially when flames hit the meat, and a hard crust is formed by the searing heat.
The studies also found that fat dripping from the meat directly on to the heat source would be changed by the heat, and driven back into the meat as a carcinogenic substance.
What is crucial to understand is that both of these substances are created by grilling the meat directly over a very hot heat source, whether gas or charcoal briquets.
As far as I could tell, the barbecued meat used in the studies was cooked with modern fuels like charcoal briquets and propane gas.
Some researchers found that marinating meat reduced the amount of HCAs by as much as 100%.
How Traditional Barbecue Methods Avoid the Risk Factors
Traditional peoples did not barbecue over direct high heat. In fact, they did not barbecue directly over any heat source, unless the meat was so high over a low fire that there was no chance of flames hitting the meat, and the meat only received low heat.
The prerequisite for forming the carcinogenic substances found by the studies—direct high heat—was never used.
Meat was always cooked in front of, never over, the fire. The fire was always allowed to burn down to smoldering coals—nobody cooked directly over leaping flames. This method did not create hard charred crusts or grill marks, but a delicious, tender, browned coating.
Cooking grassfed meats over direct high heat will make them tough and inedible. Grassfed meats can be very tender when grilled by moderate to low indirect heat, which is how our ancestors grilled them.
Traditional peoples almost always marinated their meat before barbecuing it.
Traditional Peoples Used Different Fuels
Almost all barbecue cooked in the United States today is made over a very hot fire fueled by propane gas or charcoal briquets. Traditional peoples never used these fuels.
Charcoal briquets were invented by Henry Ford as a way to make money from the scrap wood left over from making automobiles. These briquets included many other ingredients besides wood scraps, including anthracite coal, petrochemicals, and various binding materials and chemicals. They were never used by humans before the 20th century, as they were invented in the 20th century.
The use of propane gas as a barbecue fuel also began in the 20th century.
Traditional peoples used various natural substances as fuel. The most common was wood, which was always burned down to coals before the cooking began, or lump hardwood charcoal, which was made by partially burning wood in a way that caused it to form charcoal. The art of charcoal burning goes back thousands of years.
Traditional Barbecue Is Better for Grassfed Meat
Factory meat contains much more water than grassfed meat, which means that it can withstand direct high heat. The most common way to ruin grassfed meat is to cook it over direct high heat. Grassfed meat can be wonderfully tender when cooked with traditional methods.
We can avoid the risk factors identified by the studies by never using direct high heat when barbecuing. We can barbecue like our ancestors did, using lump hardwood charcoal or wood coals for fuel. We can marinate our meat like they did. Not only is this way of cooking safer, it is ideally suited to cooking tender grassfed meat.
This post is part of Real Food Wednesday at Kelly the Kitchen Kop.
This post is part of Fight Back Friday at Food Renegade.
This post is part of Monday Mania Blog Carnival at the Healthy Home Economist.
The Benefits of Organ Meats
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat
Liverloaf made with US Wellness Meats Grassfed Braunschweiger.
The standard American diet, known as “SAD†(and it is really sad, especially for those who eat it) does not contain any organ meats. In fact, organ meats are demonized for having fat and cholesterol. This is truly a shame, because organ meats from grassfed animals are one of the most nutrient-dense foods available, being packed with vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and other nutrients.
Our ancestors knew the value of organ meats. They gave great value to liver, heart, and kidney, and used these foods to support the health of their own organs. We can do the same.
Organ Meats Were Crucial in Traditional Diets
When I did the research for Tender Grassfed Meat: Traditional Ways to Cook Healthy Meat, I read a number of old cookbooks. I was astonished to find literally hundreds of recipes for all kinds of organ meats. Liver was considered a staple of the diet, and was sautéed, made into dumplings and pastries, eaten raw, puréed, roasted, and minced. When hunters killed an animal, it was a tradition to eat the warm liver on the spot, raw, with everyone in the hunting party having a share. This was not only a tradition among European hunters, but was also done by the Native Americans, and other people all over the world. Even predators such as lions, bears, and tigers will eat the liver first. There are hundreds of traditional European sausages made from liver, liverwurst being just one of them. Pâtés are one of the tastiest results of this tradition.
There were a myriad of recipes containing kidneys, heart, brains, sweetbreads (thymus gland), intestines, even lungs, spleens, and other organs. These organs were also made into sausages, pies, soups, fritters, and preparations unique to each organ. It was also traditional to stuff the stomach of an animal with chopped organ meat and other foods, the famous Scottish Haggis being an example of this. Most of these recipes were a great deal of work, because most organ meats require a great deal of trimming. There are often membranes, veins, arteries, and other inedible parts that must be removed, and the edible portions often required soaking, often multiple soakings, pounding, and intense cleaning. These recipes would often go into great detail as to how to prepare the organ meats for cooking.
The healthy peoples studied by Dr. Weston A. Price all ate organ meats, and valued them highly. Their traditional preparations of these meats also involved a great deal of work in cleaning and preparing the organs.
It should be noted that many of these dishes did not taste particularly good, and were resisted by children. People ate them anyway, and forced their children to eat them.
Why did all of these traditional peoples go to all that work and trouble? Because they knew there was something in these organ meats that was good for them, and because this knowledge had been handed down from generation to generation.
The Traditional Use of Organ Meats to Support Organ Functioning
Many traditional peoples, including the Native Americans, and even the pre-drug medical profession, believed that eating the organs from a healthy animal would support the organs of the eater. A traditional way to treat a person with a weak heart was to have the person eat the heart of a healthy animal. There were a number of country doctors who reported success with using this method. Eating the brains of a healthy animal was also believed to support clear thinking. People with bladder and kidney problems would be fed kidney meat from healthy animals. Native Americans with a vision problem or eye injury would be given the eyes of animals to eat. There are many reports confirming the success of such practices. In modern times, a number of people who need thyroid hormones have eaten the thyroids of animals, as an effective alternative to thyroid medication. However, I do not recommend that anybody do this on their own, without the supervision of a qualified medical professional. Nevertheless, many people have reported success with this practice.
Liver was often given to sick people, as the huge amounts of quality nutrients in this organ helped rebuild their bodies. Great emphasis was placed on only eating the organs from healthy animals.
However, most of the organ meats were eaten as part of the regular diet, by healthy people whose culture knew that eating these organs would support the natural functioning of their bodies. That is why they went through all the work necessary to prepare them.
Science Has Confirmed the Nutritional Benefits of Organ Meats
The development of the ability to identify and test for the presence of nutrients has confirmed what most people already knew—organ meats are a nutritional powerhouse, full of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and many other substances vital for nutrition. Liver in particular is crammed full of vital nutrients, which is why predatory animals eat it first, and why it has been so valued over the course of time.
Unfortunately, organ meats have been demonized because they contain fat and cholesterol, and most people are afraid to eat them. The cholesterol myth is just that, a myth, and the fat of healthy animals is beneficial for human health, as shown in these articles: Know Your Fats Introduction and Cholesterol: Friend or Foe?
The organ meats eaten by our ancestors and traditional peoples have great nutritional value.
An Easy Way to Eat Organ Meats
We can get the benefits of organ meats, even today. I do not recommend eating the organs of factory animals. The organ meat of factory animals is not the same meat that has been eaten for thousands of years, but is different, as the animals have usually been given hormones and antibiotics, and have not been fed their natural feed. My personal choice is to eat the organs of grassfed and grass finished animals only. In the case of omnivorous animals such as pigs and chickens, I choose to only eat the organs of pastured animals.
But I will confess that all the preparatory work that is necessary for enjoying most organ meats is more than I want to do. I will buy organ meats that come ready to cook, but my favorite way to eat organs is by eating organ sausages.
Great care must be taken in choosing sausage, because all kinds of undesirable ingredients are often added to them. I insist on knowing everything that is in a sausage before I eat it. Currently, I know of only one Internet source for grassfed organ sausage that has no undesirable ingredients. These sausages are of the highest quality, and I eat them at least once a week. These are the organ sausages made and sold by US Wellness Meats. They make a delicious liverwurst that contains liver, heart, and kidney. They make two kinds of braunschweiger that contain a lot of liver: one cooked, and the other one raw. They also sell a headcheese that contains tongue and heart. These sausages can be made into delicious recipes. Here is a link to a recipe I created for the raw braunschweiger: liverloaf. There are also recipes using these sausages on pages 179-182 of Tender Grassfed Meat.
Organ meats are some of the most vital and nutrient-dense foods available to us. Our ancestors knew this, and we can learn from them.
This post is part of Real Food Wednesday Blog Carnival at Kelly the Kitchen Kop.
This post is part of Fight Back Friday Blog Carnival at Food Renegade.
This post is part of Monday Mania Blog Carnival at the Healthy Home Economist.
A New Podcast Interview about Grassfed Meat
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat
Real Food Media blogger Ann Marie Michaels, also known as Cheeseslave, has done a podcast interview with me. Ann Marie is an expert on real food, and it was an honor to be interviewed by her. We covered a number of issues concerning grassfed meat: why it must be cooked differently from factory meat; how I learned how to cook grassfed meat; some barbecue tips for July the Fourth; why grassfed meat is sustainable and better for the planet; how it differs from conventional meat; how grassfed meat is so nutrient-dense and satisfying; the benefits I received from eating grassfed meat; how traditional food combinations provide complete and superior nutrition; even what to add to US Wellness liverwurst to make it into a spreadable pate; and more!
I found Ann Marie’s questions and comments to be insightful and invaluable, and I really learned a lot during this interview, which I greatly enjoyed. Ann Marie has been spreading the word about real food for some time now, and I highly recommend her blog.
Here’s the link to the podcast:
New Podcast: Stanley Fishman Talks About Tender Grassfed Meat
This Free Ingredient Makes Everything Taste Better
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat
My wife made this appetizer in the shape of a heart for me.
There is an ingredient that makes all food taste better. It is not MSG. This ingredient also makes your food healthier. It is not a vitamin or mineral. This ingredient also makes it easier to cook the food, and makes the cooking more enjoyable. It is not a cooking gadget. Where can you buy this ingredient? You can’t. But you can create it. And it is free.
This secret ingredient is to maintain a cheerful, happy, loving, thankful attitude while you cook.
I know this kind of attitude is totally opposite from the competitive frenzy shown on so many cooking shows. These shows imply that good food is created through stress, conflict, complex cooking techniques, time pressure, and competition. I consider this modern attitude to be the psychic equivalent of factory food. But I know the ancient secret.
I came across this ancient secret while I was researching my cookbook, Tender Grassfed Meat. I read a number of old cookbooks, from every corner of Europe, America, and other parts of the world. Time and time again I came across this advice, in dozens of old cookbooks, from many different countries, expressed in many ways—never, ever cook when you are angry or upset. Be cheerful, happy, and grateful while you cook.
I also remembered the story of Marya Palma. Marya Palma was the family cook for my grandparents. My grandfather, an eater of mythic proportions, ate a meal at her tiny restaurant in Poland. The meal was so good that he paid her a small fortune to travel to his home in Manchuria and cook for him. Marya Palma was a huge, combative, formidable woman who had known great tragedy in her life, and was afraid of nothing and nobody. But when Marya Palma cooked, she was happy and cheerful. Marya Palma was such a magnificent cook that it was common for the guests to carry all 300 pounds of her around the dining room after a dinner, the ultimate tribute they could give to a cook.
Since I kept reading this advice, over and over again, I decided to take it. That was a very good decision indeed.
First, I plan the cooking so as to minimize any chance of being angry or upset. I select a recipe I have time for. I prepare and organize all the ingredients so they are pre-measured and ready to be added when the time comes. I do not start cooking until everything is in its place.
I learned to create this cheerful attitude by focusing on the food and thinking about its benefits. I look at the good ingredients, think of where they came from, of how much work and effort and wisdom it took to raise this good food, which will nourish and sustain the lives of me and my family. I think of how the real, healthy food I cook will nourish my family and friends. I think of how this good food will make them stronger and healthier. I think of how much they will enjoy the tasty food. And, to be honest, I think of how much I will enjoy the food. After a few minutes of this, I am quite cheerful and happy. I maintain this attitude by paying attention to the food as it cooks. I watch the changing colors of the browning meat, the deep green color of perfectly cooked vegetables. I listen to the sounds the food makes as it cooks. I smell the enticing smells of cooking meat, as my mouth waters. Good food appeals to all our senses. All we have to do is pay attention.
I became a much better cook when I added this free ingredient.
I know this may sound mystical, and there is no way to prove this through science, but I truly believe that the happy, cheerful feelings I cook with somehow improve the food, making it healthier, more digestible, and certainly tastier. Traditional wisdom supports my belief.
If you add this free ingredient to your food, I predict that your food will taste better. Everything you cook will taste better, and you will enjoy cooking so much more.
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Cooking Real Food—The Most Important Task
Two Simple Rules for Good Nutrition
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat
These beautiful pastured eggs were raised by my dear friend Sheri. Note the beautiful orange yolks full of nutrition.
Understanding nutrition may seem hopeless. There are hundreds of books, thousands of articles, thousands of studies, dozens of conflicting theories, and endless advertisements. All this information can be very confusing. But you don’t have to know all of it. I enjoy the benefits of great nutrition by following two simple rules.
Rule Number 1: Eat only the natural, whole, and unmodified foods humankind has been eating for thousands of years.
Rule Number 2: Eat only those natural, whole, and unmodified foods which have been raised, processed, and prepared by the methods humankind has used for thousands of years.
Following these rules has literally taken me from constant chronic illness to robust good health. Here is why I follow these rules:
Rule Number 1: Eat Only the Natural, Whole, and Unmodified Foods Humankind Has Been Eating for Thousands of Years
Our bodies know how to digest and handle natural molecules, especially those that humankind has been eating for thousands of years or longer. For thousands of years, our bodies have adapted to digest these molecules, and this knowledge is passed down in our genes, and in the very makeup of our bodies. We are born with it.
When we eat foods made up only of natural substances that our bodies are programmed to digest, our bodies and organs know exactly what to do. The nutrients are extracted from the foods and used to nourish, fuel, and regenerate our bodies. The waste and toxins are identified and removed from the body.
Unfortunately, now humans eat foods where the very molecules have been modified into something no human body has ever been programmed to deal with. This started a few hundred years ago with refined sugar and refined flour, increased enormously in the 20th century, and is very common today, with all kinds of hydrogenated foods, trans fats, many thousands of artificial laboratory-made and/or modified foods and chemicals, artificial fertilizers, pesticides, livestock raised on feed that is not part of their natural diet, the use of artificial hormones and antibiotics, and other unnatural foods.
Our bodies literally do not know what to do with these new molecules, which do not exist in nature and are created by technology.
Rule Number 2: Eat Only those Natural, Whole, and Unmodified Foods which Have Been Raised, Processed, and Prepared by the Methods Humankind Has Used for Thousands of Years
The knowledge of how to raise, process, and prepare food has been passed down over many thousands of years. This knowledge represents the collective experience of many millions of our ancestors, who learned over time how best to raise, process, and prepare food. They knew a lot more that they are given credit for.
For example, they did not have refrigeration, but they knew how to preserve food, by natural fermentation, smoking, drying, salting, and many other methods, including cold storage and freezing when permitted by the weather. These methods often increased the nutritional value of the food.
Our ancestors knew how to process foods so the nutrients were available, often by soaking, sprouting, fermenting, and other such methods.
Our ancestors knew how to cook foods so as to preserve and enhance the nutritional value, and how to combine different foods into nourishing meals.
Our bodies adapted to the traditional methods of raising, processing, and preparing foods over thousands of years, and know how to digest such foods.
Modern methods of raising, processing, and preparing food change the very molecular structure of the food, once again giving us molecules that our bodies do not know how to digest, or what to do with.
Even the most natural and traditional foods will have their molecular structure and content changed by modern methods such as: cooking with very high heat; using cookware made of space age materials like aluminum and the metals in non-stick cookware; irradiation; microwaving; hydrogenation; modification; homogenization; preservatives; artificial colors and flavors; and many other modern methods of dealing with food. Again, our bodies do not know what to do with these artificially changed molecules.
The result of following these two rules is that you know what food to put into your body and your body knows what to do with the food you put into it.
How I Follow These Rules
Learning how to follow these rules is simple, though it is a lot of work. The blessings of good nutrition are more than worth the effort. And it becomes easier and easier, once you are used to it.
I rely on two cookbooks in following these rules. Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats, the magnificent work by Sally Fallon and Dr. Mary Enig, provides information and recipes on just about everything except how to cook grassfed meat. Tender Grassfed Meat: Traditional Ways to Cook Healthy Meat, my cookbook, provides information on grassfed meat and how to cook it, in detail. Yes, I do use my own cookbook.
This post is part of Real Food Wednesday Blog Carnival at Kelly the Kitchen Kop.
This post is part of Fight Back Friday at Food Renegade.
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