Photos of recipes from the new book Tender Grassfed Barbecue
Photos of recipes from the cookbook Tender Grassfed Meat
The Magic of Meat and Potatoes—and Fat
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat
Grassfed meat and organic potatoes roasted in grassfed beef fat.
Meat and potatoes were once so popular that the very term came to mean the very essence, the indispensible part of anything, the “meat and potatoes.†In terms of a good main meal, meat and potatoes were always there, and anything else was optional.
The attempts to ram grain and vegetables down people’s throats, as exemplified by the ridiculous food pyramid, changed this. Meat has been demonized as unhealthy in a myriad of ways. Potatoes, with their high glycemic index and starch content, have also come under attack, and are avoided by the low-carb movement.
Yet the combination of meat and potatoes is a very old tradition in Europe, one that goes back centuries, back to the introduction of the potato. It was the foundation of the diet (when people could get meat), and they thrived on it. However, the European tradition had a third component, perhaps the most important of all—fat. Fat that was almost always from animal sources, like butter, bacon, lard, beef tallow, lamb tallow, etc. Of course, animal fat is the most demonized food of all.
Demonization aside, the combination of meat, potatoes, and fat is one of the most nutritious and delicious combinations you can have in a meal. Most of our main meals feature this combination, and we thrive on it.
But it is crucial to use the right meat, the right potatoes, and the right fat. Together they create a wonderful balance, both in nutrition and pH balance, and are one of the tastiest food combinations.
The Right Meat Is Raised in a Pasture, Not a Feedlot
When most Americans think of meat, they think of the relatively tasteless, watery, mushy, greasy, nutrition-light factory meat that comes out of feedlots, having been fattened on GMO corn, GMO soy, and a variety of other unnatural feeds that can easily include rendered chicken manure. While this kind of meat is considered safe to eat, safe is not enough. This meat just will not work as part of the traditional trilogy of meat, potatoes, and fat.
Grassfed and grass finished meat, the same kind of meat that was eaten when the meat-potatoes-fat tradition began, is a very different substance. Grassfed meat has incredible flavor, has a nice meaty texture, is not greasy, and is nutrient-dense, having the right ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acids, and a number of valuable nutrients that are often missing in factory meat.
Grassfed meat is the right meat.
The Right Potatoes Are Not Saturated with Pesticides
The potatoes eaten when the meat-potatoes-fat combination began were not sprayed with pesticides. Most potatoes in the United States are heavily sprayed with a multitude of pesticides, and are one of the most pesticide-heavy foods you can get. The only way to avoid this is to get organic potatoes.
Dr. Weston A. Price studied some of the traditional peoples of Peru, and found them to be free of chronic diseases and tooth decay. Organic potatoes were an important part of their diet, though they ate many animal foods and seafood as well.
The right potatoes are organic potatoes.
The Right Fat Comes from Animals, Not Factory Crops
The fat eaten when the meat-potatoes-fat tradition began in Europe was the fat of grassfed animals, or the fat from their milk. The one exception was olive oil, though olive oil was often combined with animal fats in cooking.
The fat that comes from modern vegetable oils just will not work for this combination, as it did not even exist when the meat-potatoes-fat combination began. These oils have a very high ratio of omega-6 fatty acids to omega-3 fatty acids, which is very undesirable. The fats that should not be used include: soybean oil, canola oil, corn oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil, cottonseed oil. An excellent article on this subject is Know Your Fats Introduction.
It is crucial that the fat comes from grassfed and/or pastured animals, eating their natural food, so the fat will be similar to the fat available when the meat-potatoes-fat combination began. This includes butter, full-fat cheese, full-fat milk, full-fat cream, full-fat yogurt, full-fat sour cream, full-fat cultured cream, natural unhydrogenated pork lard, grassfed beef tallow, lamb tallow, bison tallow, and the fat from pastured chickens, geese, and ducks. These fats are extremely nutritious and lend an incredible flavor to food.
The right fat is the fat of grassfed animals, the fat from their milk, and the fat of pastured animals.
Meat, Potatoes, and Fat Balance Each Other
I have come to understand that traditional food combinations stand the test of time because they are beneficial. Time and time again, science has confirmed the wisdom of these traditions.
For example, it is known that it is important to maintain a body pH balance that is not too acidic or alkaline, with slightly alkaline being ideal. Meat is acidic, and potatoes are one of the most alkaline foods you can eat. They are a perfect balance for each other. This may explain why the meat and potato combination was so popular, as traditional peoples always seemed to know what foods should be eaten together.
The adverse effects of the high glycemic index of potatoes are avoided when the potatoes are eaten with plenty of good fat. The fat changes the way that high glycemic foods are digested and absorbed. Again, traditional peoples seemed to know this. In Europe, potatoes were always eaten with plenty of good, natural, traditional fat. Potatoes were baked with cream and milk, fried in lard, fried in butter, fried with bacon, made into casseroles with butter and cheese, covered with sour cream or butter, and combined with cheese and baked into pies. These are just a few of the thousands of ways fat and potatoes were combined. Even the poor would dip their boiled potatoes into butter, or eat them with full-fat milk or cheese.
All of the potato recipes in Tender Grassfed Meat contain plenty of good fat, and they are intended to be eaten with meat, following the tradition.
The food trilogy of grassfed meat, organic potatoes, and natural fat provides the body with an incredible combination of nutrients—leading to satisfaction and contentment.
The taste benefits of meat, potatoes, and fat are just as incredible. I know because I eat this combination almost every day, in many delicious variations.
Here’s to meat and potatoes—and fat!
Related Post
Steak and French Fries—Still My Favorite Meal
This post is part of Monday Mania and Real Food Wednesday and Fight Back Friday Blog Carnivals.
Seven Reasons to Attend the Weston A. Price Foundation Conference
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat
The Weston A. Price Foundation is having its annual conference on November 12 to 14, 2010, in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. If I could go to any conference in the world, anywhere, this is the one I would choose, above all the others.
This conference has so many benefits: priceless knowledge; incredible seminars; the heroes of the real food movement who will be teaching, speaking and attending; and being surrounded by the nicest, healthiest, most enlightened group of people I have ever met. There is a feeling of wisdom, understanding, kindness, community, goodness, and life that is so strong you can practically touch it. There is so much to experience here: the incredible foods and products available from the vendors, and the wonderful real food that is served at every meal. If you are new to the world of real food, you will be amazed at how good it tastes and feels.
I encourage everybody who possibly can to go, and I thought I would mention just seven of the many reasons for going.
1.     The conference presents the very best information on food and wellness.
There is nothing you can possibly learn that is as important as what to eat, and what not to eat. This is the most important knowledge you can have, and most people are totally misinformed on the subject by a system that thrives on ignorance. Your physical health, mental health, emotional health, ability to fight off illness, fertility, ability to have healthy children, energy, immune system, happiness, eyesight, hearing, ability to focus, everything—depends heavily on your ability to put the right fuel into your body, so it can function properly.
The Standard American Diet, “SAD,†results in severe malnutrition, illness, premature aging, the slow loss of every one of your body functions, the need for intensive and never-ending medical treatment, and a slow, painful death. The information presented at the conference can give you the knowledge to abandon SAD and eat a diet that will actually support your body functions, and improve every aspect of your life.
2.     You may hear of miracles.
When I attended the 2008 conference, I was waiting for a seminar to start when two people sitting behind me began talking. It turned out that both of them had been diagnosed with terminal cancer many years ago. Instead of following the conventional approach of having their bodies destroyed by chemotherapy, they turned to real food instead. Not only were they still alive, they were thriving. Everyone I knew who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer soon looked like a concentration camp victim—a dying skeleton who could barely breathe. I turned around to look at these two people and was astonished at how healthy they looked. They looked healthier and more robust than most people. It is one thing to hear of a miracle, it is truly impressive to see one.
3.     You can attend Sally Fallon Morell’s superb seminar on traditional foods.
I had the joy of attending this seminar at the 2008 conference. In one day, you learn enough to drop SAD forever and learn the secrets of a healthy diet. A diet that can restore the natural functions of your body, which will then get about their job of fixing everything that is wrong with you. Sally is a magnificent speaker, and she knows the subject like nobody else. I thought I knew a lot before I attended this seminar, but I learned so much.
4.     You will be surrounded by the nicest, healthiest group of people you will ever meet.
Many of the people who attend the conference are so healthy that they literally glow, and are a walking testament to the benefits of a real food diet. People are friendly, accepting, excited, happy, and enthusiastic. These are people who have the courage and wisdom to think for themselves, who make good decisions based on reason and knowledge rather than simply obeying the authorities. The feeling of community was so strong I felt like I was always among friends. I have seen babies and toddlers at that conference who are so active, so healthy, so alert, and so enthusiastic, that they make other children seem lifeless by comparison.
5.     You can meet and hear some of the best food bloggers in the world.
Some of the world’s best food bloggers will be attending the conference. These include my friends, Kimberly Hartke (Hartke is Online), Ann Marie Michaels (Cheeseslave), Kelly the Kitchen Kop, Sarah Pope (the Healthy Home Economist), Raine Saunders (Agriculture Society), and others. These bloggers give of themselves day after day, posting nutritional wisdom on their sites, fighting the good fight on issue after issue, making desperately needed information available to all, and telling the truth about nutrition and health amidst all the propaganda that poisons the media. You can actually meet them, and talk with them, and some of them will be speaking. This is a unique opportunity to actually meet and talk to the people who write the very best real food blogs.
6.     You will be supporting the best nonprofit organization on the planet.
Attending the conference provides important financial support for the Weston A. Price Foundation, the best organization on earth.
Why is it the best? They know the truth about nutrition, and they have the will, the wisdom, and the courage to spread it, despite being under constant attack. Most Americans are deceived by propaganda into eating an unnatural diet that is starving and killing them—while making a fortune for the processed food industry, industrial agriculture, the supermarkets, the medical profession, the drug companies, the health insurance industry, and a host of other parasites who make their money by keeping Americans malnourished and sick. Poor nutrition makes everything worse, not only causing physical illness, but contributing to mental and emotional problems. Traditional peoples eating a healthy diet not only did not have illness, they did not have crime.
If the American people were to learn and follow the wisdom of the Weston A. Price Foundation, almost everybody would enjoy robust good health, and there would be little or no need for the factory food industry, the health insurance industry, the drug companies, and all the other parasites who feed off of the illnesses of the American people like vampires. The need for doctors would drop dramatically, and we would have the best possible solution to the cost of medical care—a healthy population that does not need it.
The Weston A. Price Foundation is on the right side of every issue, fighting bravely in Congress and many states to protect farmers, protect real food, challenge the propaganda, and confront the endless nutritional lies with the truth. They maintain a magnificent website, free to all, which has invaluable information about food and health. The information on that website saved my life. Unlike so many other organizations, nobody in the Weston A. Price Foundation is becoming rich from it, and you may be assured that every penny that goes to them is used to help their cause.
7.     You can help make the world better.
We live in a world that is drowning in ignorance about food. We have forgotten the wisdom of our ancestors, which has been replaced by propaganda designed to make money. Everything most people are taught about nutrition is wrong. The truth about nutrition will be presented at this conference in hundreds of ways. Here, you can learn the real truth about food, and change your life for the better—not only your life, but the lives of your family, your friends, and everybody you influence. Each person who learns the truth about food is like a spark of light against the darkness of propaganda and ignorance. When we have enough sparks, we can unite to form a bonfire that can light the way back to truth and health.
I wish I could go to the conference this year, but I can’t. I have duties at that time that cannot be postponed and cannot be delegated. But I hope that you will do what I cannot, and enjoy the many blessings of this wonderful event.
This post is part of Real Food Wednesday and Fight Back Friday blog carnivals.
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