Photos of recipes from the new book Tender Grassfed Barbecue
Photos of recipes from the cookbook Tender Grassfed Meat
The Traditional American Right to Eat Good Meat
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue
photo credit: Gerry Dincher
We live in a time when the eating of all meat, any meat, is under attack. We are constantly told we must eat less meat, especially less red meat, or should eat no meat at all. We are given many reasons, which are false when it comes to grassfed meat. The attacks on meat never distinguish between the pure, grassfed meat of eaten by our ancestors, and the very different factory meat that eaten by most people.
Yet restrictions on eating meat are not new, and go back thousands of years. In most human societies after the advent of agriculture, meat eating and hunting were heavily restricted. Only the ruling classes and some of their servants were able to get enough. Before the founding of the United States of America, this was still true for most of the world, including Europe.
While most people think of well known American freedoms like freedom of speech and freedom of religion, most never think of a freedom that is just as traditional and possibly even more important—the right to eat enough good meat.
The Old Restrictions on Meat, and the American Difference
In Europe, most people ate very little meat. The policies of the governments prohibited most people from hunting, as all game was considered to belong to the crown or the nobility. People who killed a rabbit to feed their hungry family were guilty of the crime of “poaching,” and were often executed for that “crime.” While peasants and farmers would often raise animals, they would keep them mainly for milk. The surplus animals would usually be sold so the peasants could pay the high rents and taxes to the nobles and other landowners. In fact, in Ireland, the pigs raised by families were known as “the gentleman who pays the rent.”
The result was that most Europeans had to survive on a diet consisting mainly of grains, vegetables, seasonal fruits, with some dairy products and some fish. The result was a population so stunted and malnourished that a man of 5 feet 4 inches was considered tall, even into the nineteenth century.
Some of these people immigrated to the British, French, and Spanish colonies in North and South America. There were very few nobles and rich people there, especially in the British colonies. But there was a huge supply of wild game, and no one to restrict hunting. The early settlers learned a lot about hunting from the Native Americans, who were expert hunters, and much taller, stronger, and healthier than the first European immigrants. Anyone who wanted to hunt could, and meat immediately became a huge part of the colonial diet. In addition to wild game, pigs and cattle were imported, and quickly thrived on the almost unlimited grazing of the new lands, multiplying in huge numbers. Keeping animals for meat was cheap and easy, and these immigrants were able to eat their fill of good, grassfed and pastured meat for the first time.
The Benefits of Good Meat.
The research of Dr. Weston A. Price established the fact that people need animal foods, especially animal fats, to thrive and be healthy, and grassfed and pastured meat are perfect animal foods. The benefit of these foods was shown by the history of the United States.
The population of the English colonies in North America exploded, as people thrived on the meat-heavy diet. A number of people immigrated to these colonies just because they heard that even poor people could afford meat there. In fact, the diaries of immigrants, even in the early twentieth century, reveal that one of the most important motivations for moving to the Americas was the ability to afford and get good meat.
Not only did people live longer, but they were taller, stronger, healthier, and more independent. British visitors to the thirteen colonies were astonished at the height, strength, and health of the Americans, who often towered a foot or more above their English relatives. The genetics were the same, the difference was in the diet, and the Americans ate huge amounts of good, natural meat. A diet that only the wealthy and privileged could enjoy in England.
Good meat and fat nourish the brain, and these tall, strong people were very independent minded, would not just do what they were told, and took pride in thinking for themselves and making their own decisions. “Yankee ingenuity” became a byword in Europe. Eventually, these well nourished people founded the United States of America, defeated the greatest military power on earth in a bloody, yet completely successful revolution, and founded one of the best systems of government the world had yet seen. A system that had many flaws, yet allowed more freedom and personal responsibility than any system existing in Europe at the time.
These ideas were exported to Europe, and eventually resulted in the freeing of most Europeans, giving them a degree of freedom that they never had before.
The right to eat good meat has been a basic American freedom, and it is a right that everyone on earth deserves to have.
Switching to grassfed meat, using the grazing practices pioneered by Allan Savory, would greatly increase the supply of good meat and increase the amount of grasslands and water throughout the world.
This post is part of Fat Tuesday and Real Food Wednesday blog carnivals.
The French Paradox Solved—It’s the Butter
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue
photo credit: Fr Antunes
We have been told, for decades, that butter and other animal fats will cause heart disease, obesity, diabetes, many other illnesses and death. Yet the purveyors of this claim were faced with evidence that could not be denied. The French ate huge amounts of butter and other animal fats, yet had low rates of these diseases, and were far less obese than other people. This situation was described as “The French Paradox.”
Some research was done, and some scientists explained the French Paradox by claiming that all the benefit came from drinking a glass or two of red wine daily, which supposedly counteracted the “harmful” effects of all that fat. This explanation never convinced me, because I knew that many other nations consume similar amounts of red wine and do not experience the better health enjoyed by the French.
But it was not until I had the pleasure of actually eating traditional French butter sauces that I realized the truth of the matter—it is the butter and quality animal fats that have the beneficial effect, not the wine.
It is the butter that helps give the blessing of good health.
My Fear of French Sauces
I did not always know about the benefits of traditional animal fats, like butter. Like most people, I believed the bogus “lipid hypothesis,” thought that butter was harmful, and avoided it. “Rich French butter sauces” got so much bad press that I never used them.
After studying the research of Dr. Weston A. Price, and eating a diet based on his discoveries, I experienced great health improvements. This meant eating a diet rich in traditional animal fats, including butter. Yet I still did not eat French butter sauces. Besides, these sauces were supposed to be very difficult to prepare. I had avoided them for so long that it did not even occur to me to try them, except occasionally in restaurants. The restaurant versions were boring and did nothing for me.
Rich butter sauces such as Hollandaise and Béarnaise are a big part of traditional French cuisine, often served with red meat. It did not even occur to me to put such sauces in my cookbooks, Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue, though I now realize they go wonderfully with grassfed meat. My mind still was influenced by the old mesmerism that French butter sauces were to be avoided, at all costs, though this belief was subconscious.
I was so wrong.
My New Appreciation of French Butter Sauces
When I was reading a traditional French cookbook, I turned to the section on sauces. As I started to read the ingredients of butter sauces, I realized that their main components were butter and egg yolks, two of the healthiest foods on earth, and two of my favorite foods. I actually became aware of the ridiculous attitude I had—if butter and egg yolks are good outside a sauce, why would they not be good in the sauce?
And, as I read the recipes, I came to realize something else. These sauces did not sound that difficult to prepare.
I prepared a Béarnaise sauce to go with some grassfed steaks two weeks ago. This was easy to make, though it required concentration. The resulting sauce was mostly butter, and had nothing in common with the pallid restaurant versions I had tasted before. It was absolutely delicious, and greatly enhanced the flavor of the grassfed steak without overwhelming it. But the real surprise was how good I felt. I always feel good after eating good grassfed meat, but this time I felt even better. Much better. The sheer enjoyment of the wonderful taste, the immense satisfaction of eating so much butter, and the wonderful combination of animal fat and meat, left me feeling full of energy and happiness, ready to do just about anything.
It struck me that this wonderful feeling of satisfaction, of enjoyment, of well being, was my body rewarding me for eating something wonderful, something highly nutritious. I never felt anything like this when I drank red wine.
I had exactly the same feelings of contentment, satisfaction, energy, and well being after I ate some homemade Hollandaise sauce on Mother’s Day, combined with some grassfed tenderloin steak.
To me, this solves the “French Paradox.” It is the butter. And my next cookbook will have easy, traditional ways of making these wonderful sauces.
This post is part of Fat Tuesday and Real Food Wednesday blog carnivals.
The Joy of Grassfed Barbecue
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue
Mediterranean Pork Roast from Tender Grassfed Barbecue
Barbecue season began for me yesterday. I opened Tender Grassfed Barbecue to the recipe for Roast Pork with Mediterranean Myrtle, in the Style of Sardinia. I marinated a pastured pork loin with traditional ingredients. I took the barbecue out of the garage, set it up, arranged the coals, lit the fire. I watched the first coals catch, and spread the fire to the others. I watched the flames as the hardwood charcoal burned down, filling the air with the fragrance of wood smoke.
When the coals were ready, I placed the pork loin in front of the fire, added some Mediterranean myrtle leaves to the coals, put the cover on, and inhaled the fragrant smell, feeling great satisfaction.
I adjusted the vents to control the temperature, added coals when called for, and enjoyed my mastery of the fire. The smell of the burning coals, fragrant leaves, and roasting meat made me so hungry.
I was enjoying one of humankind’s oldest experiences, cooking real meat in front of a real fire.
It got even better when the meat was finally ready, and I cut thin slices of fragrant pork, and tasted the flavors of the meat, the herbs, and the wood. So good. So satisfying. So old, yet so new. And utterly delicious.
The Goodness of Barbecue
Barbecuing meat has been associated with health risks, based on various studies. Yet our ancestors, and the peoples studied by Dr. Weston A. Price, cooked most of their meat in front of a fire, without developing the diseases indicated by the studies.
A review of the studies on the subject led me to realize something important. The risk factors were always associated with cooking the meat over direct high heat. While most Americans associate barbecue with cooking directly over a hot fire, whether charcoal or gas, our ancestors rarely did this.
By cooking their meat in front of, but never directly over, the fire, they avoided scorching their meat, and avoided the risk factors identified by various studies.
Concern has also been expressed about some chemicals that are released from burning wood, such as creosote. Our ancestors had this one covered as well, as they invariably burned their wood down to coals before placing the meat in front of it. By the time the wood burned down to coals, the chemicals had burned off. Our ancestors often cooked with natural charcoal, which was and is made by partly burning wood. This process also burns off the toxic chemicals.
It is just about certain that most of our ancestors cooked their meat in front of the fire, and that this is the oldest human way of cooking meat. Our bodies have no doubt adapted to the combination of meat cooked with wood coals. I cook grassfed meat in many delicious ways, and enjoy all of them, but real barbecue has always been my favorite. Grassfed meat is humankind’s oldest food, and wood coal fires are humankind’s oldest way to cook it. The meat and the method go together in delicious perfection.
The Taste of Barbecue
Cooking with fire gives grassfed meat a flavor, texture, and tenderness that cannot be matched in any other way. I usually cook with charcoal, as it is much easier than burning wood logs down coals, and is the oldest cooking fuel after wood itself. I only use lump charcoal, or briquettes made from 100 percent hardwood charcoal with a starch binder. This helps recreate the traditional flavors, and makes for a fire that is very easy to control.
I barbecue grassfed beef, grassfed lamb, grassfed bison, pastured pork, and sometimes chicken or even wild fish. No matter what I make, I love it.
Barbecuing can be very difficult, or very easy. I prefer easy, and have perfected a simple method to cook meat in front of the fire, not over, control the temperature, and produce absolutely delicious barbecue meats. This method is detailed in Tender Grassfed Barbecue, along with more than a hundred delicious traditional recipes for many kinds of barbecued meats. I am getting hungry now.
This post is part of Fat Tuesday, Real Food Wednesday and Fight Back Friday blog carnivals.
Let Them Eat Grass
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue
photo credit: Jeff Pang  Grassfed sheep thriving in rocky pastures.
Yet another arm of the United Nations is demanding that we stop eating meat, “to save the planet.”
It is valid to be concerned about artificial fertilizers, which have caused great harm. But the UN solution, to stop eating meat, is, to be polite, nonsense.
The UN Scientists reason that eighty percent of artificial fertilizers are used to grow crops fed to meat animals. Thus, they think, if we stop eating meat, we will use less artificial fertilizers. But the truth is that if we stop eating animal foods, we will all suffer from severe malnutrition, and the myriad illnesses that come with the lack of vital nutrients. The research of Dr. Weston A. Price established that we need good animal foods to be well nourished and healthy.
My solution is practical, and will greatly increase the food supply. Stop feeding grains and other crops to meat animals Let the animals eat the their natural food, the food that makes them healthy.
Let them eat grass.
Is There Enough Grass?
Yes, there is enough grass to feed all grass-eating meat animals, and we can greatly increase the supply.
Most of the scientists and government officials who attack the eating of meat dismiss the grassfed solution by claiming there is not enough farmland to feed grazing animals. But they are ignorant of one key fact—you do not need farmland to feed grazing animals. You need grazing land, which is not the same thing. Animals can graze and thrive on land that is not suitable for crops, and the earth is full of such land, largely unused. And the earth is full of deserts and wastelands than can be turned into great grazing land by the techniques created by the Savory Institute, which has turned millions of acres of desert into rich grazing land, with trees and streams. The techniques involve using concentrated herds of cattle to engage in a pattern of rotational grazing, the same system used by nature to create the grasslands in the first place.
We can use these techniques to greatly increase the grazing land available. It should be noted that several grazing meat animals, like sheep and goats, can thrive even in poor grazing land, but do even better in great grazing land.
We do not need any artificial fertilizer to grow grass and restore watercourses. But we do need grazing animals to do this, and the meat and milk of such animals is our best and most nutrient-dense food source.
But What Will They Eat in the Winter?
There are huge areas of unused grazing land in areas where animals can graze all year round. In other areas, where there is good land but cold winters, grass can made into hay and dried, and provide adequate food for the animals.
But Isn’t Grassfed Meat Tough?
Properly grazed grassfed meat is tough only when it is cooked wrong. Our ancestors knew how to cook grassfed meat, and celebrated this wonderful food in their traditions, literature, and stories. Unfortunately, most have forgotten how to cook grassfed meat, as cooking grain-finished meat is very different. The techniques developed to cook grain-finished meat ruin grassfed meat, which is why grassfed has a “tough” reputation.
I ran into this problem when I started eating grassfed meat to rebuild my body. After ruining much good meat, I researched the traditions of our ancestors and learned how to cook it. I have made much of this knowledge available in my cookbooks, Tender Grassfed Meat , and Tender Grassfed Barbecue.
I eat only grassfed meat, and it is always tender and delicious.
Grassfed Meat Is More Nutritious and Satisfying, So Less Is Needed
Grassfed meat has far more nutrients than grain-fed meat, and has these nutrients in perfect balance. Even the fat is different, with grassfed meat having an ideal ratio of omega-6 fatty acids to omega-3 fatty acids, while grain fed meat has a huge imbalance of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids. An excess of omega-6s has been linked to inflammation, and to many illnesses.
This means that grassfed meat is much more satisfying to the body and appetite. I have found that I am satisfied with eating only half the meat I used to, if it is grassfed. I did not intend to reduce my meat consumption, it happened naturally, because my body got the nutrients it needed and was no longer hungry. Based on my experience, people will be satisfied with less meat, but be much better fed.
We can solve so many problems, if we just let them eat grass.
This post is part of Fat Tuesday, Real Food Wednesday and Fight Back Friday blog carnivals.
Our Ancestors Thrived on High-Fat Diets
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue
Grass-fed beef with its natural fat cap.
If you study the history of food, and read what contemporary people wrote and said about it, you will be struck by one inevitable fact—our ancestors considered fat a vital nutrient, and loved to eat it. The only bad thing about fat was the difficulty in obtaining it, as it was often expensive and hard to get.
This fact is shocking to modern people, who have been subject to a propaganda campaign that labeled most fat as bad, unhealthy, and the cause of most illness. This propaganda campaign began in the 1960s, and became accepted as absolute fact in the 1980s. Even though there never was any real evidence to support the all-animal-fat-is-bad theory, nearly everyone believed it. Even today, most people believe that fat, especially saturated animal fat, is bad for health and should be restricted.
This belief remains common even though it has never been proven and many studies and much research has totally discredited it.
Now, I am not a doctor, or a nutritionist, or a scientist. But I am an attorney, and I have been one for a very long time. Attorneys are experts in evaluating evidence. I have evaluated the available evidence on fat, and it is my opinion that animal fat from healthy animals eating their natural diet is one of the healthiest, most vital, and most needed foods we can eat.
The Case Against Traditional Animal Fat
The claim that fat is bad and causes illness began with the infamous “lipid hypothesis “developed after World War II. This unproven theory tried to connect cholesterol with heart disease, and eating fat with the creation of excess cholesterol.
This theory was of great benefit to the makers of factory vegetable fats and modified foods, who had to find a way to get Americans to drop the healthy traditional foods of their ancestors, so they would buy the new products. It also created a whole new set of illnesses and medical conditions, which increased revenue for the medical profession and the drug industry. These powerful forces supported the lipid hypothesis and the related belief that eating saturated animal fat caused too much cholesterol, and therefore, heart disease. Since eating factory foods makes people fat, a huge diet industry grew and added its money and power to the propaganda campaign. Eventually, these industries were able to persuade most people and institutions that eating traditional animal fats caused many other illnesses. Since these industries have a great deal of influence over government, they were able to get government agencies to support the fat and cholesterol myths.
A number of careful reviews of the studies supporting the lipid hypothesis have shown that there is no real evidence to support the theory. The same is true of the theory that eating animal fat is unhealthy. A number of these reviews are available at the website of the Weston A. Price Foundation. The lipid hypothesis is believed not because it is true, but because it has been marketed so effectively.
The Case for Traditional Animal Fat
Human history and even animal history establishes conclusively that traditional animal fat is a vital nutrient. The very first part of the animal eaten by predators is the fatty liver, followed by the other fatty organs. Caves which sheltered prehistoric peoples are full of bones that have been cracked open to get at the fatty marrow. Nearly every traditional people valued natural animal fat as one of their most important foods. Pemmican, the traditional survival food of the Native Americans who lived on the Great Plains, was one-third bison fat. European poets wrote poems about their love and appreciation for fatty foods. There are countless other examples.
Dr. Weston A. Price, a dentist and researcher, became aware that each generation of his patients had worse teeth than the preceding generation. He noticed how healthy some traditional peoples seemed to be. He decided to visit a number of them, all over the globe, and learn what made them healthy. Dr. Price was convinced that nutrition was the key, and expected to find that these people were vegetarians. He spent ten years travelling the world, visiting these healthy peoples in person and learning what they ate, and did not eat.
He learned that none of them were vegetarians, and all of them relied heavily on what he called sacred foods—which were always foods rich in animal fats, including butter, the back fat of moose, fish eggs, seal blubber, cod livers, milk that had six times the fat content of American milk, and other similar foods.
These people were healthy, having perfect teeth, no degenerative diseases, no mental illness, and no birth defects. When the very same people began to eat the processed foods of civilization, their health collapsed, they lost their teeth, and became the victim of many horrible illnesses, like tuberculosis.
Dr. Price had thousands of traditional foods studied in labs, and concluded that the most important nutrients were found in traditional foods rich in animal fat.
I find Dr. Price’s research convincing, and adopting a high animal fat diet based on his research brought me from being very ill to being free of all illness.
My cookbooks, Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue, are true to the principles discovered by Dr. Price, and make full use of traditional animal fats in the recipes.
This post is part of Fat Tuesday, Real Food Wednesday , and Fight Back Friday blog carnivals.
Grassfed Fat, the Real Brain Food
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue
Pastured butter—the best brain food.
We are seeing an epidemic of mental illness and poor mental functioning that may be without parallel in human history. The frequency of many mental illnesses is expanding an alarming rate. A huge and constantly increasing percentage of children are being diagnosed with learning disabilities. The psychiatric profession claims that the increase is due to “better diagnosis,” and that the problems were always there, but I disagree.
When I was a child, learning disabilities were pretty much unknown. So what is the cause of the vast increase in mental illness and learning disabilities?
In my opinion, it is malnutrition. To be more specific, it is the lack of enough good fat in most diets. Because the very saturated fats that our brains need to develop and function properly have been demonized and removed from the diets of so many people, especially children.
Our Brains Need Saturated Fat
We are constantly told that saturated fat, especially saturated animal fat, is deadly, and will clog our arteries and cause heart attacks and strokes. This theory has never been proven, but is generally accepted as fact, due to persistent marketing by the industries who make a fortune from this false belief.
Most people, throughout most of history, have cherished saturated animal fat as their most valued and sacred food. Heart attacks and strokes were very rare throughout most of human history, despite the widespread eating of saturated animal fat in large amounts.
The truth can be seen in the composition of mother’s milk. Nobody really denies anymore that mother’s milk is the very best and healthiest food for babies. Yet more than half the calories in mother’s milk is from saturated animal fat. Nature herself has thus proclaimed the need for saturated animal fat.
Our brains our made largely from fat, and need fat and cholesterol to maintain themselves and function properly. Our ancestors knew this, and many traditional remedies for grief and depression involved the eating of rich, fatty foods. People who had lost loved ones were constantly urged to eat fatty foods. It helped calm the mind.
Dr. Weston A. Price designed a special lunch program for some poor children in Ohio. He intended the diet to improve the health of their teeth. It was a diet very high in saturated animal fat, containing plenty of marrow, grassfed meat fat, butter, and whole milk. Not only did the teeth of the children improve substantially, but their performance in school went from horrible to superb, as reported by their teachers.
Grassfed Fats Are Better
Unfortunately, not all saturated fat is the same. Prior to the twentieth century, most saturated animal fat came from animals fed their natural diet. For grass eating animals such as cattle, sheep, and bison, this meant grass. The twentieth century saw the introduction of feedlots and grain feeding for these animals. The change in diet made their fat different. While the fat of a grassfed animal has a perfect balance of omega-3 fatty acids to omega-6 fatty acids, grain feeding causes a huge imbalance in the ratio, creating a great excess of omega-6 fatty acids. Excess omega-6 fatty acids have been associated with a number of illnesses. The chemicals used in the raising and feeding of factory cattle also changed the content of the fat, to something that had never been eaten by humans before. The change in the composition of the fatty acid ratio is shown in this chart and the accompanying article, Health Benefits of Grass-fed Products.
While the full effect of the change in the composition of animal fats from grain feeding is not fully known, I am much happier eating the same traditional fats that humanity has always eaten.
The best way we can get the good saturated animal fats our brains need, in the proper form, is to eat plenty of fat from healthy grassfed animals. I eat the fat on the meat, use the grassfed tallow in cooking, and eat plenty of grassfed butter, milk, cheese, and cream.
Since I have done so, my mental functioning, which was always good, has improved greatly, allowing me to learn new things much faster and to think quickly and effectively. In fact, with my traditional diet, I learn more as time passes.
This post is part of Fat Tuesday, Real Food Wednesday, and Fight Back Friday blog carnivals.
Did Paleo People Eat Lean Meat, or Fat?
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue
photo credit: david__jones      The plentiful fat in the bison’s hump was prized by Native American hunters.
The question of what Paleolithic people actually ate is hard to answer, and the Paleo and Primal communities are divided. One of the biggest controversies is whether Paleolithic peoples ate lean meat and had little fat in their diet, or whether they ate all the animal fat they could get, and plenty of it.
There is some evidence, in the form of bone piles in caves, and there is the research of Dr. Weston A. Price, who actually met and studied the diets of traditional peoples who lived completely by hunting and gathering.
It appears that hunter-gatherers, whether in Paleolithic times, or in the twentieth century, prized animal fat as one of their most crucial foods, and ate as much of it as they could get.
The Evidence for Lean Meat
When the Paleo eating ideas were first expressed, the belief was that our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate lean meat, not fat. One of the strongest reasons to support this theory is that the meat of wild game is much leaner than the meat of domestic animals. The old hunters ate wild game, which has lean meat. While this is true, the fact is that wild game animals, especially older animals, actually have plenty of fat, especially in the late fall, when they put on extra fat to prepare for winter.
The fat is not in the meat, but in a huge layer of fat in the back, and in the internal organs, and in the bones, in the form of marrow.
The other basis for thinking that early peoples ate lean meat appears to be based on the common false belief that animal fat is unhealthy. Actually, fat from grassfed and pastured animals is a vital nutrient as seen in the article The Skinny on Fats.
The Evidence for Eating Fat
Some caves have been found that were occupied by early hunter-gatherers. Along with pits showing the use of fire, there is almost always something else—a bone pile. The bones are those of wild animals, and the bones have been split open. It is universally assumed that the bones were split open so the hunters could eat the bone marrow. In addition to being one of the most nutritious foods that can be eaten—bone marrow is almost 100 percent animal fat.
Dr. Weston A. Price met and studied several peoples who got all their food by hunting and gathering. This was in the 1930s. One of the peoples he studied lived in the far north of Canada, and got most of their food from hunting, as gathering was impossible during much of the year. The diet of these people had never changed in the memory of the tribes, and so could have been the same in very early times.
This native people preferred to hunt older animals, because these animals had more fat. They ate liberally of the back fat and the fatty organs, as much as they could get. They had perfect teeth and no disease, even though they were deprived of all plant foods for most of the year.
The Inuit, who lived even further north, valued the fat of sea mammals, game animals, and fish above all other foods. They would throw the lean meat to their dogs, and eat the fat and organs themselves. They would often eat pure animal fat, in addition to the fatty meats. It is likely that their traditional diet had been the same for uncounted thousands of years. These people were also free of tooth decay and had no chronic illnesses.
The traditional diet of the Native Americans was recorded when they were contacted by Europeans, and it is clear that the hunting peoples ate as much animal fat as they could get, and valued animal fat as a survival food. The Native Americans who lived on the Great Plains lived mainly off the bison herds.
Now, bison is a very lean meat. But bison carry a huge amount of fat in their humps, and the hump was the most prized part of the bison. The Native Americans of the Great Plains made most of the bison into a survival food called pemmican, which would keep indefinitely without spoiling. Pemmican was one-third dried lean meat, one-third dried fruit, and one-third bison fat, mostly from the hump. It was very nutritious.
These are just a few examples, and I could provide many more. In fact, it appears that every hunting people ever studied ate plenty of animal fat from their prey.
If you want to eat a diet similar to those of Paleolithic peoples, you would do well to eat plenty of animal fat from grassfed animals and wild game, in my opinion.
My cookbooks, Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue emphasize the use of traditional animal fats in cooking and eating.
This post is part of Fat Tuesday, Real Food Wednesday, and Fight Back Friday blog carnivals.
Animal Fat for the Winter
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue
This delicious roast duck is perfect for winter.
Our ancestors usually ate their food in season. This did not just apply to fruits and vegetables, but also to meats which were available all year round. In Europe and America, this used to mean that a great deal of animal fat was eaten during the winter. In fact, the people who lived in cold climates, all over the world, prized animal fat and ate a great deal of it when the weather was cold. This enabled people to survive and thrive in some very cold climates, even within the arctic circle.
This was not just done for cultural reasons, but because of an important fact I just learned for myself—animal fat makes winter better—much better.
The Problem with Winter
Cold weather had always been difficult for humans. In fact, many people counted winters rather than years when describing someone’s age. To these people, surviving the winter was a real accomplishment. It has been more common for people to get sick and die during a cold winter. There are several reasons for this. There is little sunlight, which means much less Vitamin D. Vitamin D is crucial for the proper functioning of the immune system. The cold is a strain on the body, which is made worse by rain and snow, much worse by freezing weather and blizzards. Most people just try to stay warm and dry.
But our ancestors did not consider shelter to be enough. They had another remedy for winter that was very important to them—animal fat.
Traditional Winter Foods
Many European peoples would eat fattier foods during winter. Even the game they hunted put on fat for the winter, so older, fatter animals were prized at that time. Rich pork dishes from fat pigs, using lard and the skin, were winter favorites. Fatty lamb roasts and stews were a winter favorite. In fact, every kind of meat stew was made in winter, always with plenty of animal fat. Geese and ducks were usually eaten during the winter, because of the fat they carried. Winter was the most likely time for people to have meat, and many animals were slaughtered and salted, often in the form of hams or fat sausages, in preparation for winter.
All of this animal fat was pastured, as factory foods did not exist at this time.
In old Russia, fat foods for winter were so prized that poems were written about them, praising the virtues of the various kinds of fat, including lamb fat, beef fat, butter, and the favorite, real pork lard.
Eating animal fat during winter was considered vital for health. Unfortunately, many people were too poor to afford enough fat and fatty meats, and were unable to get the benefits. But for those who could afford it, fatty meats and animal fat played a crucial role in winter survival.
The Benefits of Winter Fat
The benefits of good animal fat have been documented by the Weston A. Price Foundation, as shown in this excellent article The Skinny on Fats.
Pastured animal fats are particularly valuable in winter because they are rich in Vitamin D, especially the fatty organ meats, and butter. Pastured animal fats are wonderful fuel for the body, providing perhaps the best source of energy, with none of the negative effects of sugar or too many carbs. This helps the body to function better.
Recently we were hit with a spell of unusually cold weather, and I decided to up our intake of real animal fats. We ate fatty roasts and stews, used more real lard, butter, beef tallow, and other such fats, and enjoyed fatty ducks and organ meats. The results of this experiments is that my energy increased, and I felt strong and eager for the work of the day. The tiredness I might feel from the cold and gloom disappeared with a nice bowl of fatty stew, or hot broth made from real bones and meat scraps.
This is just my experience, but it helped me to understand why my European ancestors valued fat in the winter so much.
This post is part of Fat Tuesday, Real Food Wednesday and Fight Back Friday blog carnivals.
Grazing Animals Are the Solution—Eat Grassfed Meat
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue
Rich, healthy land at Chaffin Family Orchards.
Before I went to the recent Weston A. Price Foundation Conference, I decided I would blog about the most important thing I learned there, and share what I had learned. I thought it would be a difficult decision. I was wrong.
The recent Weston A. Price Conference had many lectures, and many themes. They covered a huge variety of topics involving food and the raising of food, disease and ways to avoid or cure it Yet one of these topics was so vital, so important, so overwhelming, that it dwarfed all the others. I learned this at a fantastic talk given by Chris Kerston, of Chaffin Family Orchards, a true real farmer, whose farm uses no chemicals.
This is a concept that most people have never heard of, yet it holds the solution to almost everything that is wrong with the condition of our planet , our food supply, and our water supply.
This concept was not created by scientists, and uses a technology older than humanity. It uses the very laws of nature to build soil, increase green vegetation, sequester carbon in the earth, bring water back to long-dry streams and rivers, enrich the soil, and provide a healthy and nutritious food supply.
The concept is to use large herds of grass-eating animals, grazing them in a manner that mimics the patterns of nature, to rebuild the soil and create grasslands and forests. This method is how the grasslands and forests were created in the first place, and was invented by nature, not humans.
Modern Agriculture Destroys the Soil and Creates Deserts
We have become so seduced by technology and science (and the quick profits it can bring), that we have forgotten one of the oldest rules of every civilization. The rule that nature’s laws must be obeyed.
Instead of using the hard won agricultural knowledge of our ancestors, we have poisoned the soil with a huge variety of chemicals, using them to kill insects and undesirable plants, along with crucial microflora that are vital for the health and nutrition of the soil. We have used techniques like monocropping and artificial fertilizers to produce huge crops of plants like soy and corn, without giving the land a chance to rest and renew.
These methods have led to huge amounts of once fertile grasslands and farmland turning into desert, as the soil blows away, and is not replaced. The lack of grass and growing green plants has disrupted the balance of the atmosphere, and led to increasing water shortages. The food that is grown on the declining soil lacks the nutrients it should have, and animals grazing on such soil are less healthy than they should be. Artificial feed compounds the problem, as food animals are fed species-inappropriate food that reduces their health and nutritional value, while making them grow at an unnaturally fast rate.
The loss of soil and green plants cannot be sustained. If this trend continues, the food supply will be greatly reduced, more and more land will return to desert, and the future will be very bleak.
It should be mentioned that nothing developed by science or the greedy biotech companies has done anything effective to solve this problem. Instead, their theories and products only make things worse, and hasten the decline of the soil.
The Natural Solution—Properly Managed Herds of Grazing Animals
Dr. Weston A. Price, the greatest nutritional researcher of all time, said
“Life in all its fullness is mother nature obeyed.â€Even in the early twentieth century, Dr. Price knew that the soil was depleted of nutrients, and that every generation of his patients was sicker and weaker than their parents. He knew the key was in nature.
Alan Savory, the founder of the Savory institute, made a very important discovery about the laws of nature. Herds of grazing animals, moving from place to place, staying tightly packed to protect against predators, renewed the soil.
The process bears a stunning resemblance to traditional farming, and works as follows.
The herds eat all the old growth, digging up the earth with their hooves, trampling the grass seeds deep into the soil, and fertilize the soil with their rich manure. This creates ideal conditions for the growth of new grass. The herd moves on, letting the land rest and renew its life and richness. The growing grass holds water in the soil, with lead s to the creation of streams and watercourses. This leads to the growth of trees, which promote rain and release beneficial elements into the atmosphere. When the herd returns, it is greeted by lush green living grass, the perfect food for grazing animals. And the whole cycle repeats itself, resulting in even richer soil, greener grass, and more water, trees and plants.
This is nature’s way, and nature’s law, and we can work in accordance with it, and prosper, or ignore it, and ultimately perish.
Alan Savory and his Institute have turned millions of acres of desert into lush grasslands, by using herds of cattle, grazed and managed in accordance with the techniques he developed that follow the laws of nature. Long dead streams and rivers have come back when this program is followed, and the rich grasslands provide the perfect food for grazing animals, grass.
And these grazing animals provide the perfect food for humanity, grassfed meat, grassfed fat, real milk, and real dairy products. This has always been humanity’s richest, most valuable food source.
In summary, I cannot think of anything that could help us more than to follow the Savory Institute’s method of renewing the land, the soil, and the water supply by using properly grazed herds of grass-eating animals. This is the solution to our problems with soil and food. It is right before us, and has been proven to work, with none of the horrifying side effects of modern, chemical agriculture.
Eating the grassfed meat and other foods from animals grazed in this manner is one of the best things we can do to support nature’s way of healing the planet. Many grassfed ranchers use these methods, and supporting them by buying the food they raise not only helps their soil, but gives us some of the healthiest, life-supporting food we could possibly eat. Food like this makes you strong and healthier, and is utterly delicious.
Related Posts
Grassfed Farmer Renews the Land
A Better, Sustainable Way to Farm
This post is part of Monday Mania, Fat Tuesday, Real Food Wednesday, Fight Back Friday, and Freaky Friday blog carnivals.
U.S. Wellness Meats Featured Chef of the Month with New Recipes
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue
Herbed Holiday Prime Rib
I am happy to announce that I have been selected as the U.S. Wellness Meats Featured Chef for November. This is quite an honor.
Being the Featured Chef means that I was asked to develop four new recipes that will be posted on their website. The first of these recipes, a magnificent prime rib with an herb crust that would be ideal for a special holiday dinner is already up. The other recipes will be posted later this month.
U.S. Wellness Meats holds a special place in my heart. They sold me the first grassfed meat I successfully cooked. Since then, I have been a regular customer.
I am also an admirer of John Wood, the founder of U.S. Wellness Meats. John has made quality grassfed meat available through the Internet in an astonishing variety of cuts, along with a wonderful line of organ meat sausages that make it easy to get the unique nutrients of organ meats in a tasty form. There are many other great products available from U.S. Wellness Meats that are hard to find elsewhere, such as grassfed beef tallow and grassfed lamb tallow. John has also used holistic land management techniques developed by the Savory Institute to constantly improve and enrich the soil of his farm, while raising quality cattle. This is a model that I would like to see spread throughout the entire country, replacing the CAFOs and factory farms.
U.S. Wellness Meats is a longtime sponsor and supporter of my favorite organization The Weston A. Price Foundation, which spreads the truth about food and nutrition. John will be speaking at the WAPF Wise Traditions 2012 Conference that will be taking place November 8 to 12th, in Santa Clara, California.
I am also grateful to John Wood for the great support he has given me in the creation of my books. Not only did John give me valuable information about raising grassfed meat, he gave me constant encouragement and support while Tender Grassfed Meat was being written. When the book was published, John immediately bought a large number of copies, and U.S. Wellness Meats began selling the books.
Here is the link to my Featured Chef page at U.S. Wellness Meats, which also includes some interesting food questions and my answers:
Featured Chef Stanley Fishman
Here is the link to the four recipes I hinted at last month. They are delicious, and free. A magnificent prime rib, a Spanish short rib dish, a tender brisket, and the ultimate Paleo meatloaf, with organ meats. Enjoy!
Tender Grassfed Meat for the Holidays
This post is part of Weekend Gourmet blog carnival.
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