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Tender Grassfed Barbecue: Traditional, Primal and Paleo by Stanley A. Fishman
By Stanley A. Fishman
Link to Tender Grassfed Meat at Amazon
By Stanley A. Fishman

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DISCLOSURE AND DISCLAIMER

I am an attorney and an author, not a doctor. This website is intended to provide information about grassfed meat, what it is, its benefits, and how to cook it. I will also describe my own experiences from time to time. The information on this website is being provided for educational purposes. Any statements about the possible health benefits provided by any foods or diet have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

I do receive some compensation each time a copy of my book is purchased. I receive a very small amount of compensation each time somebody purchases a book from Amazon through the links on this site, as I am a member of the Amazon affiliate program.

—Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat

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To Use Your Food Senses, Eat Real Food Only

By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue

Hollywood Farmer's Market
Creative Commons License photo credit: JohnnyRokkit

Have you ever wondered why the sight, smell, texture, and taste of food is so important to us?

The answer is simple. Our bodies use these senses to decide what food should be eaten, what food should be avoided, to prepare the digestive system, and to tell us how much of a particular food to eat.

That is right, how much to eat. Our bodies do not follow calorie counting charts, but use sensory input to decide what to eat and how much. Every person is different, and our dietary needs vary from day to day. Our bodies have a magnificent system already in place to guide us with certainty as to what and how much we need to eat. Most of our ancestors trusted and used this system, and obesity was very rare.

But there is a problem in modern food that cripples our sensory food input—chemical flavor enhancers that are literally designed to fool and trick our senses, so our bodies think they are eating something they are not.

These chemicals create the equivalent of hallucinations for our taste buds, and appetite regulation system. They are completely legal, and fool the natural system we have for regulating our appetite and desiring food.

The only way to avoid them is to eat real food only, and avoid all factory foods.

 

Factory Foods Are Designed to Fool Our Senses

The food industry depends on foods raised as cheaply as possible, and demands that these foods have a long shelf life. The problem for the food industry is that the natural taste, sight, and smell of such foods is not very good, and people’s senses would reject them. The first factory foods that were introduced were almost completely rejected by the public, because their senses rejected them.

The food industry turned to science, and science came up with chemical flavor enhancers, and chemicals that change the very appearance, taste, and smell of the food. These enhancers are designed to trick the senses into thinking that a food is much more desirable than it is, and some of them actually make people want to eat more of that food.

 

Tricking the Eyes

These techniques fool the eyes by using chemicals to change the natural appearance of the food. One example is the use of carbon monoxide gas to make factory meat appear red, rather than brown or gray.

This fools the eyes, which do not find brownish or grayish raw meat appealing.

Other such techniques include putting chemical waxes on fruits, using gas to give a ripe appearance to fruits and vegetables, using chemical dyes in food, and others.

 

Tricking the Nose

The natural smell of factory food is often very bad. The food industry uses many different chemicals and processing techniques to remove the bad smells, and other chemicals to give a bland or enticing smell. This totally deceives our sense of smell.

 

Tricking the Taste

The natural taste of many factory foods is vile, and people will not eat food that tastes so bad. But chemicals are used in many products to hide the natural bad taste and add a good taste.

Factory foods are often bleached and deodorized with chemicals, to kill the horrible smell and taste of items like unfermented soy.

Chemical flavor enhancers are added to all kinds of foods. Scientists are able to use chemicals to add almost any desired taste to a particular food, and are constantly developing new artificial tastes. These chemicals not only make the food taste much better than it would naturally, but can fool our bodies into thinking they are eating something they are not. This confuses the digestive system and the appetite.

Chemicals are also added to many factory foods that make people want to eat more of the food, just because of the chemical. This causes many people to overeat, and is believed to be a huge cause of the rampant obesity that plagues the modern world.

 

When You Only Eat Real Food, It Is Natural to Eat Only what You Need

By avoiding foods with chemicals, we set our senses free to do their job of regulating our diet. It may take a while, but I have found that my senses tell me what I want to eat, and how much. When I have eaten enough of a certain food, I am no longer hungry for it. When I stop eating, I am happy, content, satisfied, and never stuffed or uncomfortable. I have no digestive problems when I eat real food. I can trust my senses to tell me what to eat, and how much, because they are not fooled with chemicals. And my health has improved so much.

This post is part of Fat Tuesday, Real Food Wednesday and Fight Back Friday blog carnivals.

Even Delicious MyPlate Meal Results in Hunger

By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue

A meal without good protein and fat has a lot in common with an empty plate.

A meal without good protein and fat has a lot in common with an empty plate.

MyPlate, the new federal guidelines telling us what to eat and how much, will leave you hungry, and malnourished.

The truth of this was brought home to me recently. I had an absolutely delicious meal in a new restaurant. A restaurant that only used organic ingredients. A restaurant that featured grassfed meat, and organic meat. A restaurant that featured traditional food, and boasted about it.

In other words, this sounded like a perfect restaurant for me. And I must say, everything was perfectly cooked, the food was of the highest quality, and everything I ate was delicious.

Yet I left the restaurant much hungrier than I was when I went in, and had to eat a second lunch.

What was the problem? The problem was that the restaurant followed the MyPlate government guidelines in determining the contents and amount of food they served. Guidelines that leave us hungry and malnourished, based on my own experience.

Taste is not enough.

 

The Meal

The restaurant served Mexican food, and it was much better than Mexican fast food. We ordered empanadas, which were described as having a wonderful filling of “organic, grassfed, Piedmontese beef,” braised with various vegetables and spices. Sounded delicious. The price was $11.95.

The plate arrived. It contained a single empanada, of medium size, surrounded by empty white plate. Also included was a clump of raw greens, which covered a third of the plate, a small dish of guacamole, holding about a tablespoon, and a couple of tomato slices. A bowl of beans was brought in, which contained about a quarter cup of beans in a broth. That was all of it.

When I cut into the empanada, I realized that there was a lot of empty air under the crust. I looked at the filling, and determined it consisted of no more than a tablespoon of ground beef, and a few tablespoons of finely chopped vegetables, in a small amount of sauce.

Now the empanada and its scanty filling was delicious. It seemed to have been prepared with a very small amount of fat. The tomatoes were good, and the beans, the first beans I had eaten in five years, were very tasty, which was a huge surprise to me. I did not touch the greens, as I did not recognize them, and some raw greens can block nutrient absorption. I finished everything else.

At the end of the meal, I was much hungrier than when I came in.

 

The meal Conformed to MyPlate Standards

MyPlate essentially demands that we eat mainly vegetables and fruits, filling up on legumes and grains. Very little protein or fat is allowed by these faulty standards.

The meal was almost entirely vegetables and grain, with the crust of the empanada being made of grain. There was far more crust than filling. The meat content, which was no more than a tablespoon, conformed with the low protein standards of MyPlate, and the fat content seemed non-existent, again in conformance with MyPlate.

 

Why I Was Hungry

I had received almost no fat or protein in this meal, nearly all of it being vegetables and grains, which, while delicious, just did not provide me with the nutrients I needed. I became much hungrier because my body was crying out for the fat and protein it expects at every meal, and because we need good fat to absorb and properly digest nutrients.

This absurd imbalance of nutrients made me much hungrier because the foods it contained needed the fat and protein that were missing to be properly absorbed and digested. When we passed a couple of fast food places on the way home, I got very hungry and wanted to eat their food, which normally never tempts me. When I got home, I quickly ate a fair amount of butter, cheese, and some leftover grassfed beef, being ravenously hungry. Only after I had eaten a lot of this was I satisfied.

The lesson I relearned was this—MyPlate is an unbalanced, starvation diet. Much better to eat the traditional unmodified foods of our ancestors, rich with healthy animal fat.

This post is part of Real Food Wednesday and Fight Back Friday blog carnivals.

Tax Fat, Get Fat — and Sick

By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue

Pastured butter is a great way to get healthy animal fat.

Pastured butter is a great way to get healthy animal fat.

The proponents of a truly bad idea never give it up if it fails. Especially if they are in the medical profession. Even if totally fails. Especially if it totally fails.

A case in point is the fat tax. The idea is that you can make people thinner by heavily taxing the purchase of foods containing the “ultimate evil”—animal fat. This truly bad idea was tried in Denmark in 2011. A tax ranging as high as twenty percent was placed on foods containing saturated animal fat, like butter and cheese. The Danes did not reduce their consumption of these foods at all, often buying them from other countries. After a year of total failure, the Danish government admitted failure and abandoned this stupid, tyrannical tax.

Yet medical voices in the U.S., completely aware of the Danish failure, are still calling for a fat tax in America. A tax that would have to be high enough to stop people from buying foods containing animal fat.

 

Reducing the Consumption of Healthy Animal Fats Will Make People Malnourished, Not Thinner

The basic idea behind the fat tax, that forcing people to eat less fat will make them thinner, is just not true. A huge campaign to reduce the eating of animal fats has been waged in the U.S. for over fifty years.

Americans eat much less saturated animal fat than they used to, which is the goal of the fat tax. And what is the result of this “success”?

  1. Americans are much fatter and sicker than ever before.
  2. Seventy five percent of young Americans who try to join the military are rejected as physically unable to serve.
  3. Chronic illness, especially among young people, has greatly increased.
  4. The U.S. spends far more money on medical costs per person than it did before fat restriction was advocated.

Reducing the amount of animal fat eaten by Americans will only get us more of the same. More obesity. More illness. More medical costs.

The truth is that fat from healthy animals is perhaps the most needed and vital food we can eat. (See The Skinny on Fats.) Restricting this vital food only results in malnutrition, and the illness that it brings.

Americans are suffering greatly from malnutrition, due in large part to not getting enough healthy animal fats. Taxing animal fats will only make this worse, and make food even more expensive, making it almost impossible for the poor to get the nutrition they need.

 

Eat Healthy Animal Fats, Lose Weight

Before fat was demonized, doctors treated obesity by prescribing a diet high in animal fats. These diets worked, and nobody needed a diet industry. This fact has been carefully concealed by various industries, which thrive on sickness and people trying to lose weight.

The solution to obesity and illness is not to intensify the same methods that made the problem much worse, but to make it easier for people to afford and get the nutritious traditional food they really need.

An educational program teaching people the truth about food—that the unmodified foods of our ancestors is what we need to be strong and healthy—would greatly increase the demand for such food, which people already crave. Subsidies should be stopped to industrial farmers and chemical makers, and given to sustainable farmers who raise real food, to increase the supply. People who give up factory food and eat only real food almost always become much healthier and happier. I have seen it happen time after time, with my own eyes.

Factory foods are far inferior to real food, and chemicals in food can do great harm. True health and normal weight come from real food, the food of our ancestors. That is the only proven solution to the problem, and we should take it.

 

People Have a Right to Choose their Food

It is a basic human right to decide what food you will eat, and how much. No one has the right to make that decision for you. Not the government, not the corrupt medical profession, not the greedy food industry, not anybody or anything. Many people make horrible food choices because of propaganda and misinformation. In my experience, when people actually learn the truth about food, they change what they eat and become much healthier.

Education is the answer, not coercion.

This post is part of Fat Tuesday, Real Food Wednesday and Fight Back Friday blog carnivals.

A Video Worth Seeing about Truth in Food

By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue

 

Normally, I do not do blogs about YouTube videos. But this video is different.

It corrects some of the biggest false ideas most people have about eating. The message is clear, simple, and compelling. Modern eating makes us fat and sick. Traditional eating, eating the foods humanity ate before industrial food was invented, keeps us slim and healthy. Too much exercise wears us out, and does not make us lose weight.

Eating high quality food is the way to go. Counting calories is a waste of time. Most diets are worthless. The basic, unmodified foods of nature are best. Sugary, starchy foods are the worst. The more natural, the better. Eat grassfed meat. And many other good ideas, clearly presented.

This is all good advice, and totally contradicts the false precepts of the Standard American Diet (SAD), the diet that makes Americans the weakest, sickest, most crippled rich people in history.

I have corresponded with Jonathan Bailor, the maker of the video. His goal is to spread awareness of his message so it can actually reach the mainstream. This is a magnificent goal, as the mainstream believes in SAD, diets, high-carb eating, factory food , calorie restriction, and exercising until they are worn out as the way to be healthy and slim. That sounds ridiculous even as I write it—but most Americans believe this nonsense.

Many of you already know the truth about food, but we are a tiny minority. Ultimately, if we remain a tiny minority, the corporations and governments will make it impossible for anyone to get real food, including us. Knowing the truth about food will do us no good if we cannot get quality food. The best protection we can get is to have our knowledge go mainstream, and Jonathon has a plan to get there.

Jonathon’s immediate goal is to get one million views of this video, as he believes that will get attention and engage the interest of many people. I do not know if he is right, but I hope he is. So I support his goal of one million views.

Ultimately, it is vital that most people learn the truth about food, the sooner the better. If everyone knew the concepts on this video, and followed them, the health and understanding of most people would greatly improve. And that is a worthwhile goal, which is why I am asking you to consider viewing the video.

If you like the video, please consider spreading news of it to the people you know, and inviting them to view it.

The more people who understand the truth about food, the better our chances of being able to have real food in the future.

Here is a link to the video:

Slim Is Simple .org – The Non-Profit Nutrition Education Effort

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.

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.

Real Lard, Great Food

By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue

Natural, unhydrogenated, pastured pork lard.

Real pork lard.

Most Americans are horrified by the very thought of eating lard. Some seem to think that even a small amount of lard will stop their hearts, or make them obese, or both. Yet lard was once the most popular cooking fat in America. Lard was also the most popular cooking fat in China.

Lard was demonized so margarine, hydrogenated oils, and other creations of the processed food industry would sell. The artificial fats created by the food industry taste and feel much worse than the traditional fats of our ancestors. This means that the only reason people would buy the factory fats is if real fats are believed to be unhealthy. There are no shortages of scientists and studies that the food industry could and can buy to scare people into giving up real food. Lard, and all saturated fat, was blamed for heart disease, and countless other illnesses.

The truth of the matter is that real lard, from healthy pastured pigs, is very healthy and nutritious, and one of our best sources of vitamin D.

Real lard is one of the very best cooking fats, having a high smoke point, and being unlikely to spatter in most circumstances.

And food cooked with real lard can be incredibly delicious.

 

The Two Types of Lard

Nearly all the lard you will find in the supermarket is hydrogenated, which means that the very molecular structure of the fat has been changed to something that never appears in nature. This lard almost always comes from pigs that have been kept in confinement, may never see the sun, and are fed almost totally on GMO soy and GMO corn. This lard does not need to be refrigerated, which means that it has been processed to the point that it will not spoil. But lard like this has a horrid, greasy, slimy texture, and a truly disgusting taste, at least to me, and many others. It will, in my opinion, ruin any food cooked with it.

Real lard, the lard enjoyed by our ancestors, is not hydrogenated. It comes from pigs raised in the open air, who forage for a great deal of their own food, and see plenty of sun. It is hard to find, but it tastes and feels a thousand times better than the hydrogenated abomination. You can get this kind of lard at some farmers markets, though it can be very expensive. My favorite Internet source is U.S. Wellness Meats, which sells rendered lard from pigs who spend most of their life in the open, foraging for a large part of their food. The price is also quite reasonable.

 

The Benefits of Real Lard

Real lard gives incredible flavor to food. It is great for basting meats, and has been used for that purpose for thousands of years, from Sardinia to China. Meat basted with lard is more tender, retains more of its juices, and tastes fantastic.

Real lard is also great for baking, and played a huge part in traditional European and American biscuits, pies, cakes, and breads. It gives incredible flavor and texture to these dishes, one that is unique and wonderful.

Real lard is perhaps the best fat for frying and sautéing. It has a very high smoke point, spatters rarely, and adds its own wonderful flavor to the food that is cooked in it. We do not have French fries or fried chicken very often, but when we do, it is usually fried in real lard. It is the fat of choice in most of our stir fries. Not only is frying easier, safer, and smoother, but the taste benefits are immense.

And real lard is healthy, to the great surprise of most people. The Weston A Price Foundation, which I consider to be the most knowledgeable food organization on earth, recommends the use of real lard in cooking. Not only does real lard provide a valuable balance of essential fatty acids, it is one of the best sources of natural Vitamin D, and other nutrients.

Today, following the suggestion of a seventh generation English butcher, we fried eggs in real lard for the first time. Awesome.

We use real lard in cooking all the time, and enjoy it immensely.

This post is part of Monday Mania, Real Food Wednesday, Fight Back Friday, and Freaky Friday blog carnivals.

Traditional Sea Salt Is a Vital Nutrient

By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue

Natural Celtic Sea Salt and industrial factory salt

Natural Celtic Sea Salt on the left and factory salt on the right.

Salt is one of the most vital human nutrients, and our ancestors knew this. Yet, the consumption of salt is now under attack.

The government is trying to reduce the amount of salt people consume, claiming that it will improve health and prevent strokes and heart disease.

Part of the Paleo movement is opposed to adding salt to food, believing that our Paleolithic ancestors did not add salt to food.

Many people believe salt is very harmful.

Because I advise against pre-salting grassfed meat in my cookbooks, some people assume I do this to reduce salt consumption.

All of these beliefs are mistaken. If we do not consume enough salt, our bodies do not function properly. Ultimately, if people do not get enough salt, they die.

 

The Two Types of Salt

While all salt originally came from the sea, it is available in different forms. It must be understood that two general types of salt are available. They are not the same.

The most common salt is factory salt, which is composed of salt that has been stripped of its minerals, and has had chemicals and flavoring agents (often including sugar) added. This salt is a pure white color. It is ground very fine and flows easily out of a salt shaker, almost never caking. This kind of salt did not exist before the twentieth century. This is by far the most common form of salt in the United States, used extensively in processed foods and by most people, who are usually unaware that the minerals have been stripped out, or that chemicals and even sugar have been added to the refined salt.

Then there is pure, unmodified salt from nature, often harvested from the sea, though it is also found in solid deposits on land. This salt, consisting of nothing but sea salt and minerals, is the traditional salt that humanity has used since the beginning. This traditional salt is the only salt I use or recommend.

 

Humans Have Added Salt to Food Since the Earliest Times

The belief that early humans did not add salt to food is mistaken. I remember reading about how the early colonists of the United States would choose a site for settlement. They would always have someone, usually a skilled hunter or scout, follow some of the wild animal trails in the area. They were looking for one thing they absolutely had to have, or they would not settle in that area—salt. Wild animals also need salt, and they would find salt deposits, usually called “salt licks.” The animals would find salt deposits, and get their salt by licking them. There is every reason to believe that early hunters and gatherers did the same, and found salt by following wild animals or their trails.

All the old writings on cooking, including those going back thousands of years, describe the addition of salt to food. Salt was greatly valued in ancient times, being more expensive than gold in some areas.

The reason is quite simple. Our ancestors knew that they needed to add salt to their food to live and thrive.

Our ancestors used salt to preserve and ferment foods, and created many artisanal foods based on the use of salt, including sauerkraut, ham, cheese, jerky, sausage, and countless others. Our ancestors ate far more salt than we do.

 

Why We Need Salt

Salt is one of the most crucial nutrients we need. Our bodies use salt for many body functions, including digestion, regulating blood pressure, creating and regulating hormones, proper adrenal function, proper functioning of the nervous system, and proper functioning of the brain, among others. (See The Salt of the Earth.)

If we do not get enough salt, these vital body functions are adversely effected. If you were to put anyone on a totally salt-free diet, they would eventually die, after much suffering.

We often crave salt, because our bodies so desperately need it. If you crave salt, it may be that you are not getting enough.

 

Is Salt Good? Or Bad? Or Both?

There is a belief in mainstream medicine, supported by some research, that associates salt intake with increased risk of heart disease or strokes. There is other research that disputes this theory, and shows great harm occurring from salt restriction. (See The Salt of the Earth.)

In the past when heart disease and strokes were very rare, traditional peoples and most humans consumed much more salt than people do today. And we know that the Japanese, who have the highest average salt consumption on earth, have among the highest average lifespans on earth.

So how do we know what is true, when the research is conflicting and history contradicts some of the research?

My own personal, anecdotal, common sense belief is this:

The difference may be in the type of salt consumed. Prior to the twentieth century, all the salt consumed on earth was traditional salt, without chemical additives, with the natural minerals left in. I believe that this kind of salt is not harmful, and is vital to our health. The studies done that support the idea that salt increases the risk of stroke and heart disease were all done at a time when factory salt was used. These studies are only relevant to the use of factory salt. To the extent that studies have found harm from salt consumption, it may be because of the chemicals, or the fact the minerals are stripped out, or both. So my own personal belief is that it is good, and important, to eat all the traditional salt I want, without fear. At the same time, I avoid factory salt as much as possible.

Please be aware that I am not a doctor, or a scientist, and I am not legally qualified to give any kind of health advice to anyone, so I am not giving advice—just stating my personal belief and what I do.

I do feel that the salt restriction now being pushed by the government, part of the medical profession, and the food industry is ill-advised, and I base this belief on history, and the excellent research done in this article, which I highly recommend. (See The Salt of the Earth.)

 

Salt and Grassfed Meat

I advise against salting most grassfed meat too far in advance. This advice is given solely because I have found that long pre-salting tends to toughen some grassfed meats. I do use plenty of traditional salt at the table, and will often salt meat just before it is cooked. The right amount of salt really brings out the flavor of food, and is absolutely vital to the taste, nutrition, and flavor of homemade broth.

I do enjoy the salt of the earth, and I do not fear it.

Related Post

Natural Salt vs. Industrial Salt

This post is part of Fat Tuesday, Monday Mania, Real Food Wednesday, Fight Back Friday, and Freaky Friday blog carnivals.

 

Real Food—The Best Way to Improve Schools

By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue

Pastured butter is an easy way to get vital nutrients from animal fats.

Pastured butter is an easy way to get vital nutrients from animal fats and it's delicious!

The poor academic performance of so many American schoolchildren is a matter of great concern. Over the years, more and more money has been spent on schools. Many programs to enhance education have been introduced. Class sizes have been substantially reduced. Many teachers have aides to help them teach. A host of administrators, counselors, special educators, and other specialists have been hired. Despite recent cutbacks, the amount of real money per child spent today is much higher than it was during my schooldays, yet the academic results are far worse.

It is clear that throwing more money to the schools will not fix the problem. We have been doing that for many years, and performance continues to decline. Money for education is important, but it is not enough.

Academic performance continues to decline, and the U.S. is far behind many other countries, nearly all of whom spend far less money per child on education. Why? Whose fault is it? The teachers? The schoolchildren? The curriculum? The parents? My answer would be—none of the above.

I am convinced that the real cause of poor academic performance is the Standard American Diet, known as SAD. The fact of the matter is that schoolchildren need proper nutrition for their brains to develop and function well, and many of them are not getting it.

SAD makes some kids appear to have learning disabilities. But the problem could be solved by feeding children the foods they need for their brains to develop and function well. The food is animal fat. The most demonized, yet the most desperately needed food of all

The Brain Needs Traditional Animal Fats to Develop and Function Well

Traditional animal fats such as butter, lard, beef tallow, chicken skins, fatty fish, and others are the best source of omega-3 fatty acids. Omega-3 fatty acids are necessary for the brain to develop and function properly. It is that simple. Cholesterol is desperately needed by the brain to function properly. In fact, mother’s milk is higher in cholesterol than any other food. Nature recognizes the need of children for cholesterol, and so should we.

Yes, cholesterol and animal fats have been demonized through massive marketing campaigns. The demonization is just not true. These vital nutrients promote good health, and are vital for survival. See The Skinny on Fats.

The current emphasis on avoiding animal fats and cholesterol deprives children of the nutrients they need for their brains to develop properly and function. How can they possibly learn and do well in school when they are starved of the nutrients they need for their brains to function properly? How can they be expected to behave well when their brains are deprived of the very nutrients needed to keep them in balance? The effect of nutrition on the brain and learning is described by Sally Fallon Morell, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation, in this excellent article: Nutrition and Mental Development.

Vegetable oils and factory fats lack cholesterol and lack omega-3 fatty acids. These oils and fats have a huge imbalance of omega-6 fatty acids that can cause inflammation and have other harmful effects. When you substitute vegetable oils and factory fats for animal fats, the children do not get the vital nutrients they need for their brains. It is that simple.

This problem is especially bad for children who depend on the government for food. The government provides free formula to two million infants. Yet the only formula allowed in the program is made from GMO soy, which contains a number of toxins and none of the vital fatty acids needed by developing brains.

The revised school lunch program only makes things worse, being virtually fat-free and severely restricting protein. It is a prescription for malnutrition and even poorer academic performance.

 

Real Food Has Improved Academic Performance in the Past

It stands to reason that giving the children the very nutrients they are deprived of, the animal fats that are rich in omega-3 fatty acids and cholesterol are exactly what are needed. This has been done before, with great results.

Last week, I wrote of the school lunch program devised by Dr. Weston A. Price, and the wonderful results it had for some poor children. These children ate an early form of SAD—factory bread and pancakes served with lots of sugar and syrup. They had terrible teeth, poor health, and did terribly in school. Some had severe behavior problems. Dr. Price fed them a lunch rich in animal fat and meat, including plenty of bone marrow and butter. Not only did their dental decay stop cold, but two of their teachers sought Dr. Price out to ask why a particular child, who had been the worst student in the class, had now become the best student.

All that Dr. Price changed was the food they ate at one meal. The schools, parents, teachers, and children did not change. Good nutrition alone was all they needed to go from being complete academic failures to being the best student in the class.

This is only one example. There have been many description of how feeding schoolchildren a diet rich in traditional foods during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries greatly improved their academic performance and behavior in school. Many of the educators who worked with poor children made sure they arranged a good lunch for them as a vital pre-condition for their being able to learn. It should be mentioned that the healthy peoples studied by Dr. Price, all of whom had diets rich in animal fats and cholesterol, had no mental illness, and no problems in educating their children, who had to learn skills that were far harder to use and master than the easy-to-do tasks typical of modern life.

 

A Solution Worth Trying

The solution I suggest to fix U.S. schools is new, yet very old. Have an affordable school lunch program that will present students with foods rich in traditional fats such as butter, whole eggs, full-fat hormone-free milk, rich meats, bone marrow, and other animal foods that nourish the brain. Give them generous servings, and let them have seconds if they want to. Ban all GMOs, vegetable oils, and factory foods from the program. Give them real food only. If we do this, we can expect the same kind of vast improvement that was noted by Dr. Price, so many years ago. Yes, it will cost money, yet I submit that there is no better area to spend the money on. With proper nourishment, there is every reason to expect that children will be able to focus on school and learn. It has been done, time and time again. Clearly, the current system is not working. Real food is worth a try, and will have other benefits, such as good health and better behavior. It worked for Dr. Price and others, and it can work now.

Related Post

The Best School Lunch Ever — Designed by Dr. Price

This post is part of Monday Mania, Fat Tuesday, Real Food Wednesday, Fight Back Friday, and Freaky Friday blog carnivals.

 

The Best School Lunch Ever—Designed by Dr. Price

By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue

A rich meaty stew is good traditional eating, loaded with nutrition.

A rich meaty stew is good traditional eating, loaded with nutrition.

The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 is misnamed. This act mandated the recent unpopular changes to the U.S. school lunch program. The act imposes an almost vegan diet on all children in the program. The lunches are composed almost entirely of plant-based foods, with fat and protein being severely limited. Many parents and students have complained that the students are hungry and unsatisfied. Many, if not most, of the students throw out the factory fruits and vegetables that they are placed on their trays in the lunch line. Many have trouble paying attention to their classes, because they are hungry. Rather than fighting hunger, this program is causing hunger.

But it is possible to design a school lunch program that will provide excellent nourishment to children, improving their health, and even their school work. Such a program was designed by Dr. Weston A. Price, many years ago.

If his program was followed today, the health and performance of our schoolchildren would both increase greatly.

 

The Problem to Be Solved—Poor Children with Severe Tooth Decay

Dr. Price had decided to study the nutrition of children in a poor area. The depression had hit this area very hard, and the quality of food that families could afford was very low, The diet consisted of coffee, and grain-based foods such as white bread, pancakes, doughnuts, all heavily sweetened with sugar and syrup, along with vegetable oils. The children in this area were suffering from severe dental decay, showed many markers of poor health, and did poorly in their schoolwork.

 

The Solution—A Great Nutritious Lunch

Dr. Price designed a study to see if the health and schoolwork of these children would improve if given a diet based on his nutritional studies.

Dr. Price arranged for a number of these children to receive a lunch at a local mission, for six days a week. Detailed records were kept of the children’s height, weight, and dental condition, as well as their grades in school. The food they ate at home was unchanged. The only difference is that the children were given a meal designed by Dr. Price.

The menu is as follows:

Meat and Bone Marrow Stew

The main item on the menu was a very rich stew, made up mostly of bone marrow and fine cuts of meat. The meat was broiled very quickly to retain the nutrients, finely chopped, then added to the rest of the stew which was described as a bone marrow and meat broth. The stew also included various finely chopped vegetables, always including carrots. The recipe for my version of this stew is in Tender Grassfed Meat. A full pint of this stew was given to the children on most days. On a few days, for variety, organ meats or a rich fish chowder were substituted for the stew. The meat and bone marrow the children were given were from pastured animals, as factory meat did not exist at that time.

Whole Milk

The children were given two glasses of full-fat milk, which was almost certainly raw.

Rolls Made from Freshly Ground Whole Wheat, Served with Plenty of Rich Butter

The wheat for these rolls was made from freshly ground whole wheat, and the rolls were spread thickly with rich butter. The wheat was ground just before the rolls were made.

Cooked Fruit

The children also received a helping of what was described as cooked fruit, with very little sweetening.

Supplement

The children were given one teaspoon of a mixture that was made from high vitamin cod liver oil, and high vitamin butter oil.

It is interesting that no raw fruits or vegetables were served. Most of the calories in this meal were from animal fat, and the meal was largely based on fatty animal foods.

This is the exact opposite of the almost vegan diet mandated by the U.S. school lunch program, which is based almost totally on fruits and vegetables, with almost no fat or protein allowed. Many of the fruits and vegetables served in the school lunch program are raw, and calories are severely restricted.

Many of the children who are on the current school lunch program stuff themselves with candy, chips, and fast food as soon as they get out of school, because they are hungry. Student athletes have reported passing out during practice, because they are not getting enough food.

So, which diet was better for children?

 

The Results

Regular saliva testing was done on the children in Dr. Price’s program. Within six weeks, the children had changed from a condition of rampant and severe dental decay to a condition where no further dental decay was indicated. Every child who was on this program had their dental decay stop and be completely controlled. Two of the children’s teachers came to Dr. Price to ask him what he had done. Each teacher spoke of a different particular child who had been one of the worst students in the class, but was now the best student. The behavior of the children in school also improved greatly. Dr. Price mentioned that there had been other such incidents and other improvements, but he did not describe them in detail in his book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.

If the government really wants to improve the health of children in the school lunch program, I suggest they adopt the program devised by Doctor Price.

Related Post

Real Food—The Best Way to Improve Schools

When it Comes to Food, “One Size Fits All”—Fits Nobody

 

This post is part of Fat Tuesday, Real Food Wednesday, Fight Back Friday, and Freaky Friday blog carnivals.

 

 

Good Meat Comes from Nature, Not a Test Tube

By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue
Test tubes
Creative Commons License photo credit: Håkan Dahlström

Stem cells from cows are cultivated in a vat full of chemicals, including serum from animal fetuses. They multiply up to 30 times, and grow into something resembling muscle fiber. They twitch spasmodically in the vat. They are attached to strips of Velcro to stretch them out. They will be complete when they reach a size 3 centimeters long, by 1.5 centimeters wide, half a millimeter thick.

What is their purpose?

To replace meat.

 

The Frankenburger

The scientists who have created these twitching fibers have predicted that they would have a “hamburger” ready for cooking this coming October. 3,000 of these “muscle” fibers will be combined with 200 similarly created “fat” fibers to create a “hamburger.” Sound more like a frankenburger to me.

No information has been provided as to whether this frankenmeat will continue to twitch until bashed into submission with a meat hammer, or whether it will be “killed” in some other manner before cooking. Or perhaps it is meant to be cooked alive, and will contract in agony on the grill.

What could it possibly taste like?

What nutritional value could it possibly have?

Why would anybody want to eat it?

Could this possibly replace a real grassfed hamburger, from a real steer grazing on green, living grass?

Perhaps the best answer to the question of what it will taste like was provided by the creators of this stuff, who plan to ask a famous chef to cook the first one. Expect him to season it heavily, and I mean HEAVILY. If this stuff fulfills its purpose and replaces meat, expect the MSG industry to expand substantially.

It would have little or no nutritional value, as nothing like it has ever been produced by nature, or eaten by humans. Muscle fibers and fat from cells that have never been part of a whole living animal would not be meat, and have no natural nutrients. We have no way of knowing how our bodies would react to this stuff.

I cannot imagine why anyone would want to eat it.

There is no way it could ever replace a grassfed hamburger, from a real steer, raised in the sun, grazing on the living grass, full of vital nutrients straight from nature, cooked to perfection.

 

The Plan to Replace Real Meat

The creators of this technique have been quoted as saying that there would be a limited herd of donor animals in the world, which could provide millions of times more “meat” using this process.

It appears that the rest of the world’s meat animals would be done away with, as they would no longer be needed.

There also would be a limited donor herd for pigs, lambs, and chickens. This lab grown “meat” would be all that was available. This “vision” has actually attracted the support of vegan organizations that want artificial meat developed. The project is being financed by an anonymous donor, who was described as a household name, who turns everything he touches into gold.

This sounds like vegan heaven, but it would soon turn into hell for everyone, as fertile soil turned into deserts without grazing animals to renew the land. A mass slaughter of the world’s farm animals would take place, and the lost breeds could never be replaced. Countless species that depend on good soil would quickly become extinct. Grazing animals are a vital part of nature’s balance, and life as we know it will not survive without them. In a matter of years, the only food available would be created in a lab, or taken from the sea. Mass starvation would be the most likely result.

 

The Products of a Lab Can Never Equal Nature

There is an incredible arrogance among many scientists, who seem to think that they can create foods that are just as good as those provided by nature. That is just not true. No artificial food is even remotely comparable to real food. People who eat a lot of artificial food often get sick, obese, and depressed.

Scientists understand part of the picture, but their knowledge is always incomplete. New nutrients in nature are constantly being discovered, and the very fact that these new nutrients are discovered proves the incompleteness of the information relied on by scientists. The way most nutrients interact with each other is not known to science. Since they only have incomplete data, and do not understand the whole picture, how could they possibly design a nourishing artificial food?

Our bodies were meant to eat the foods provided by nature, and humanity has eaten those foods for hundreds of thousands of years. Nature contains every nutrient our bodies need. The meat and fat of grassfed animals is the oldest human food, and our bodies thrive on it. Cooked properly, it is delicious and satisfying. It rebuilt my health, and has done the same for many others.

Dr. Weston A. Price, who learned more about nutrition than anyone else, said:

“Life in all its fullness is mother nature obeyed.”

Completely true. When we follow the laws of nature by eating the traditional foods of our ancestors, we are strong, healthy, happy and long lived. We must return to the foods nature has provided for us, not eat lab-created abominations.

If I have a choice, I will never even taste the frankenmeat. I will just eat grassfed.

This post is part of Monday Mania, Fat Tuesday, Real Food Wednesday, Fight Back Friday,  and Freaky Friday blog carnivals.

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