Photos of recipes from the new book Tender Grassfed Barbecue
Photos of recipes from the cookbook Tender Grassfed Meat
The Magic of Steak and Eggs
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat
Grassfed rib steak with pastured eggs.
Scarlet fever almost killed my mother. She was only ten years old. She could not eat while the fever was raging. Her wealthy parents hired a famous doctor to treat her. When the fever finally broke, she was emaciated, and so weak she could not stand. Her immune system was exhausted, and she was in great danger of dying from other illnesses. The renowned doctor prescribed—steak and eggs.
Three times a day she was given tenderloin steak and eggs, all sautéed in butter, as ordered. At first she could not eat that much, but her appetite improved until she could eat the prescribed amount. Within a month, she regained her weight and health, and made a complete recovery.
The very steak and eggs that restored her are now demonized as unhealthy. Actually, this traditional food combination is renowned for its ability to enhance and rebuild the natural functions of the body.
The Benefits of Steak and Eggs
Grassfed steak is a nutritional powerhouse, full of valuable nutrients, including high quality proteins, amino acids, and many crucial vitamins and minerals. Eggs, especially pastured eggs, are just as full of vital nutrients, including some nutrients that are very hard to find anywhere else. See Sally Fallon Morell’s Oral Testimony to the USDA Dietary Guidelines Committee. Eggs also contain high quality fats that aid in the absorption of nutrients. Together, steak and eggs are a wonderful nutrient combination, providing a full range of vitamins, minerals, fats, cofactors, and other nutrients that complement each other perfectly, aiding in the absorption of each other’s nutrients.
Traditional peoples may not have known the science, but they did know it was good to combine steak with eggs. Steak and eggs were a valued combination in Russia, Poland, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, England, Germany, Portugal, and just about every other European country. This was true even though steak was very expensive in those countries. Steak and eggs were also very popular in the United States, Canada, Uruguay, and Argentina, nations where most people could afford beef.
By steak, I mean the 100% grassfed and grass finished beef that has nourished humanity for thousands of years. This means that the cattle graze on living plants out on the pasture when the weather permits, and when grazing is not possible are fed dried grass or hay. Nothing else, and certainly not any added hormones or antibiotics. I do not recommend the grain and byproduct-fed factory version of beef.
By eggs, I mean the whole egg. Yes, that includes the yolk, which contains almost all the nutritional value of the egg. A new practice has arisen in our fat-phobic modern society that would have astonished and outraged our ancestors—the practice of eating only the egg whites, while discarding the best part—the yolk. This reminds me of watching The Three Stooges when I was a child. I remember an episode where the Stooges broke eggs, threw out the contents of the eggs, hammered the shells into a frying pan, and tried to eat the fried shells. Throwing out the yolks is just as absurd.
The Demonization of Steak and Eggs
The makers of factory foods have always had a huge problem. The stuff they produce cannot possibly taste as good as real food. Also, the stuff they make cannot possibly compete with the nutritional value of real food. So they came upon a strategy that worked very well in the past and is still in use today—demonize good food. If people think good food is unhealthy for them, they will buy the artificial stuff out of fear.
Massive marketing campaigns convinced people that foods that made their ancestors robust and strong were unhealthy. Cholesterol, which is a vital component of every cell in the body, was blamed for heart disease and a host of other illnesses. Ignorance, fear, and marketing have largely succeeded. Most people actually believe that eating steak and/or eggs will “clog their arteries,†and cause a heart attack. This is simply not true, as shown in the following articles— Cholesterol: Friend or Foe? and Cholesterol and Heart Disease: a Phony Issue.
The food industry has made a fortune by convincing people to replace eggs with dried cereals, full of chemicals, in a form that never existed before the 20th century. The food industry has made another fortune by convincing people to replace meat with products made from soy proteins, full of chemicals, again in forms that never existed before the 20th century. No wonder they continue to demonize meat and eggs.
How to Enjoy Steak and Eggs
Many modern people have never had steak and eggs. The basic idea is to sauté a grassfed steak in butter, and to sauté a pastured egg or two, so the eggs will be ready at the same time as the steak. It is very important not to cook the eggs too long, as the yolks must remain liquid. When the steak and eggs are ready, place the eggs on top of the steak. The egg yolks provide a perfect sauce for the steak, and the combination is absolutely delicious. Tender Grassfed Meat has a recipe for this classic combination on page 68. Tender Grassfed Meat also has a number of other recipes for steaks cooked in butter, every one of which can be enjoyed with eggs. Eggs are also a terrific side dish for steak that can be used by people who are avoiding carbohydrates.
There is a reason why the combination of steak and eggs has been treasured in so many countries. They are wonderful together, both in taste and nutrition.
This post is part of Real Food Wednesday Blog Carnival at Kelly the Kitchen Kop.
This post is part of Fight Back Friday Blog Carnival at Food Renegade.
Related Posts
The Blessings of Bread and Butter
Steak and French Fries–Still My Favorite Meal
A New Podcast Interview about Grassfed Meat
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat
Real Food Media blogger Ann Marie Michaels, also known as Cheeseslave, has done a podcast interview with me. Ann Marie is an expert on real food, and it was an honor to be interviewed by her. We covered a number of issues concerning grassfed meat: why it must be cooked differently from factory meat; how I learned how to cook grassfed meat; some barbecue tips for July the Fourth; why grassfed meat is sustainable and better for the planet; how it differs from conventional meat; how grassfed meat is so nutrient-dense and satisfying; the benefits I received from eating grassfed meat; how traditional food combinations provide complete and superior nutrition; even what to add to US Wellness liverwurst to make it into a spreadable pate; and more!
I found Ann Marie’s questions and comments to be insightful and invaluable, and I really learned a lot during this interview, which I greatly enjoyed. Ann Marie has been spreading the word about real food for some time now, and I highly recommend her blog.
Here’s the link to the podcast:
New Podcast: Stanley Fishman Talks About Tender Grassfed Meat
Two Simple Rules for Good Nutrition
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat
These beautiful pastured eggs were raised by my dear friend Sheri. Note the beautiful orange yolks full of nutrition.
Understanding nutrition may seem hopeless. There are hundreds of books, thousands of articles, thousands of studies, dozens of conflicting theories, and endless advertisements. All this information can be very confusing. But you don’t have to know all of it. I enjoy the benefits of great nutrition by following two simple rules.
Rule Number 1: Eat only the natural, whole, and unmodified foods humankind has been eating for thousands of years.
Rule Number 2: Eat only those natural, whole, and unmodified foods which have been raised, processed, and prepared by the methods humankind has used for thousands of years.
Following these rules has literally taken me from constant chronic illness to robust good health. Here is why I follow these rules:
Rule Number 1: Eat Only the Natural, Whole, and Unmodified Foods Humankind Has Been Eating for Thousands of Years
Our bodies know how to digest and handle natural molecules, especially those that humankind has been eating for thousands of years or longer. For thousands of years, our bodies have adapted to digest these molecules, and this knowledge is passed down in our genes, and in the very makeup of our bodies. We are born with it.
When we eat foods made up only of natural substances that our bodies are programmed to digest, our bodies and organs know exactly what to do. The nutrients are extracted from the foods and used to nourish, fuel, and regenerate our bodies. The waste and toxins are identified and removed from the body.
Unfortunately, now humans eat foods where the very molecules have been modified into something no human body has ever been programmed to deal with. This started a few hundred years ago with refined sugar and refined flour, increased enormously in the 20th century, and is very common today, with all kinds of hydrogenated foods, trans fats, many thousands of artificial laboratory-made and/or modified foods and chemicals, artificial fertilizers, pesticides, livestock raised on feed that is not part of their natural diet, the use of artificial hormones and antibiotics, and other unnatural foods.
Our bodies literally do not know what to do with these new molecules, which do not exist in nature and are created by technology.
Rule Number 2: Eat Only those Natural, Whole, and Unmodified Foods which Have Been Raised, Processed, and Prepared by the Methods Humankind Has Used for Thousands of Years
The knowledge of how to raise, process, and prepare food has been passed down over many thousands of years. This knowledge represents the collective experience of many millions of our ancestors, who learned over time how best to raise, process, and prepare food. They knew a lot more that they are given credit for.
For example, they did not have refrigeration, but they knew how to preserve food, by natural fermentation, smoking, drying, salting, and many other methods, including cold storage and freezing when permitted by the weather. These methods often increased the nutritional value of the food.
Our ancestors knew how to process foods so the nutrients were available, often by soaking, sprouting, fermenting, and other such methods.
Our ancestors knew how to cook foods so as to preserve and enhance the nutritional value, and how to combine different foods into nourishing meals.
Our bodies adapted to the traditional methods of raising, processing, and preparing foods over thousands of years, and know how to digest such foods.
Modern methods of raising, processing, and preparing food change the very molecular structure of the food, once again giving us molecules that our bodies do not know how to digest, or what to do with.
Even the most natural and traditional foods will have their molecular structure and content changed by modern methods such as: cooking with very high heat; using cookware made of space age materials like aluminum and the metals in non-stick cookware; irradiation; microwaving; hydrogenation; modification; homogenization; preservatives; artificial colors and flavors; and many other modern methods of dealing with food. Again, our bodies do not know what to do with these artificially changed molecules.
The result of following these two rules is that you know what food to put into your body and your body knows what to do with the food you put into it.
How I Follow These Rules
Learning how to follow these rules is simple, though it is a lot of work. The blessings of good nutrition are more than worth the effort. And it becomes easier and easier, once you are used to it.
I rely on two cookbooks in following these rules. Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats, the magnificent work by Sally Fallon and Dr. Mary Enig, provides information and recipes on just about everything except how to cook grassfed meat. Tender Grassfed Meat: Traditional Ways to Cook Healthy Meat, my cookbook, provides information on grassfed meat and how to cook it, in detail. Yes, I do use my own cookbook.
This post is part of Real Food Wednesday Blog Carnival at Kelly the Kitchen Kop.
This post is part of Fight Back Friday at Food Renegade.
The Cooking Advantages of Grassfed Meat
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat
Grassfed meat has many cooking advantages over other meat. Grassfed meat is tender and tastes much better than other meat. Grassfed meat is often easier to cook that other meat. Surprised? All of these statements are absolutely true, if you know how to cook grassfed meat.
Grassfed Meat Is Different
Grassfed meat, coming from animals that have been fed the diet they were designed to eat, is quite different from other meat. It is denser, with considerably less water in it, and leaner. It has much more flavor, right in the meat. These differences mean that grassfed meat can be cooked at lower temperatures, shrinks much less in cooking, does not release water into the pan, cooks much faster, needs little or no seasoning, and is much more satisfying, so you are satisfied with a smaller amount.
No More Smoke in the Kitchen
Conventional steaks are almost always cooked over very high heat, creating much smoke in the process. The high heat is necessary to deal with the large amount of water in the meat. Grassfed meat browns beautifully over medium heat, whether on the grill or in the pan or under the broiler.
No More Water in the Pan
Conventional meat will often release a fair amount of water into the pan when it is heated. This water can really interfere with the cooking process, and can ruin the taste and texture of the meat, while diluting the flavor of any sauce or gravy. The only way to prevent this is to use really high heat. Grassfed meat does not have this excess water, and will almost never have this problem.
Shrinks Much Less in Cooking
Grassfed meat retains most of its volume when properly cooked with a dry heat method. A conventional roast will shrink in size dramatically when roasted. Grassfed meat will shrink much less, because it is denser, with much less water.
Grassfed Meat Cooks Much Faster
Grassfed meat cooks much faster than conventional meat. You can cook a delicious roast with a roasting time of 30 minutes. Steaks, stews, and pot roasts also cook much faster. This gives you considerable saving, in time and energy costs, and is much more convenient.
Grassfed Meat Needs Less Seasoning
Grassfed meat, properly cooked, has great natural flavor right in the meat and fat. This flavor is so good that it does not need much in the way of seasoning to be outstanding. The recipes in Tender Grassfed Meat are designed to bring out the great natural flavor of the meat by using just a few traditional ingredients and flavor combinations. This tastes so good that I am getting very hungry as I type this, and I just had a big breakfast! Conventional meat has a bland, uniform taste that needs all kinds of seasoning and sauce to provide flavor.
Grassfed Meat Is Much More Satisfying
Grassfed meat and fat are full of nutrients, and have much less water in the meat. This makes grassfed meat very satisfying. When your body gets the nutrients it needs, hunger stops and you lose the desire to keep eating. Now that I eat grassfed meat, I eat half the amount of meat I used to. I did not make a decision to eat less meat, it just happened because grassfed meat is so satisfying. When I am satisfied, my desire to eat ends, and I stop eating.
Grassfed Meat Is Tender and Easy to Cook
I ruined the first grassfed meat I cooked, because I tried to cook it like conventional meat. After much research, I learned how to adapt the knowledge of our ancestors and developed several methods of making grassfed meat tender and delicious. I have found that cooking grassfed meat with these methods is easy. These methods are described in Tender Grassfed Meat, and they have worked for many people who knew nothing about cooking grassfed meat.
This post is part of Fight Back Friday, March 19th at Food Renegade.
Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with a Holiday Feast!
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat
Fresh green parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
People in the United States think of corned beef and cabbage as being the traditional fare for St. Patrick’s Day. In Ireland itself, however, people are far more likely to eat the best grassfed beef they can get, green cabbage, and the well beloved potatoes. The recipes in the following link were developed as a Christmas menu, but are just as appropriate for St. Patrick’s Day. They include fine grassfed beef in the form of a magnificent prime rib roast, crispy roast potatoes, and a particularly fine cabbage dish. There is much green in this menu from the fresh parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme—to the cabbage. Enjoy this wonderful meal, and here’s the link to the recipes, at Kimberly Hartke’s fine blog:
Cooking for the Holidays with Stanley Fishman
A Plea for Naturally Fed Pork
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat
This became a delicious pork roast.
Why didn’t you include pork in your book? That is the most frequent question I get about Tender Grassfed Meat. The answer is simple. It is very hard to find pork that has enough fat. And it is even harder to find pork that is not fed a substantial amount of soy. Lean pork needs a lot of help or it invariably turns out dry and tasteless. Even with a lot of help, it is hard to do better than mediocre, which is not good enough. Soy fed meat is something I try to avoid. The problems are interrelated, because feeding soy to pigs makes their meat leaner. That said, naturally fed, fat pork is one of the most delicious meats you will ever eat.
The Popularity of Pork
Pork has historically been one of the most popular and widely eaten meats. The ancient Greeks, Romans, and Chinese had one thing in common. They all loved pork, which was their favorite meat. Pork was also the favorite and most widely available meat in Europe, and Polynesia. The Georgians of the Caucasus, a people famed for their longevity, love to eat pork, the fatter the better. Pork was without doubt the favorite meat in America, until the 20th century.
The Natural Diet of Pigs
Pigs are omnivores, who will eat anything. Pigs are forest animals, and their natural diet was based largely on nuts, fruits, and seeds that fell to the forest floor, as well as insects. Pigs used to be raised around forests, which allowed them to feed on the nuts of various trees, such as acorns and beechnuts, (also known as mast). When the forest wasn’t available, pigs were often fed surplus crops, table scraps, and nut crops such as peanuts. Both of these diets made it easy for the pigs to get fat, which gave their meat succulence and kept it from drying out. Pigs fed on mast had a particularly fine flavor, often varying depending on the predominant tree in the area. For example, acorn fed pork had a different flavor from beechnut fed pork. However, pigs fed crops, such as peanuts and apples, also had plenty of fat, and a wonderful flavor based on the crops they were eating. Smithfield hams, which were made from peanut fed pork, were renowned for their fine flavor all over the world. The taste of the pork was heavily influenced by the diet of the pigs.
Soy Rears Its Ugly Head
The wonderful quality of American pork was destroyed by an event and a new kind of feed. The event was the advent of the so-called lipid hypothesis, which claimed that heart disease was caused by eating saturated animal fat. This hypothesis was never proven, but was accepted as fact, first by the manufacturers of vegetable oils and artificial fats, then by the marketing influenced medical profession, then by the government, then by the media, and then by almost everybody else. Since the pork of the time had a good amount of fat, (which is one of the main reasons it tasted so good), pork sales plummeted. The pork industry decided to greatly reduce the fat in pork. They learned that feeding soy to pigs would make the meat much leaner. Soy feed was very cheap. They also bred pigs for leanness. The pork industry succeeded in developing much leaner pork—pork that was so lean that they compared it to chicken breasts. This “success†is the reason that most American pork is lean, dry, tough, and tasteless. It takes a great deal of work to make this pork even mildly tender and tasty.
The Difference
On a very few occasions, I have been lucky enough to eat pork that had the traditional amount of fat, and was not fed soy. This meat was so tender and delicious that it is hard to believe it is even remotely related to soy fed lean pork. I truly believe that soy feeding ruins the taste of pork.
A Request to Farmers
I ask you to make good, fat, naturally fed, soy-free pork available again. I think you will find that there is a great market for this product. There are so many of us that want to get soy out of our diet. If you will make quality pork available, I will recreate recipes for this pork that will do it justice. That’s a promise.
This post is part of Real Food Wednesday Blog Carnival at Kelly the Kitchen Kop.
A Sample of Tender Grassfed Meat
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat
Herb Crusted Strip Loin Roast
Tender Grassfed Meat is a different kind of cookbook. I designed the book to provide a lot of information about grassfed meat, why it is healthier, why it is best when cooked differently, and how to cook it. I also filled the book with delicious recipes. The following blog post is a sample of the book, containing information about grassfed meat, why it should be cooked differently, and a delicious recipe that demonstrates how to cook it.
Here is a link to the post, at Hartke is Online, one of my favorite blogs:
At Last, The Secret to Tender Grassfed Meat, Revealed!
Bringing Back the Fat Cap – Restoring the Fat of the Land
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat
Grassfed strip loin roast from U.S. Wellness Meats, cut from strip loin primal
Do you know what a fat cap is? Most people today do not. A fat cap was once considered absolutely necessary for roasting meat. Fat caps will greatly improve the nutritional qualities and taste of any grassfed meat.
Here is a link to my guest blog about fat caps on Kim Hartke’s great site, Hartke Is Online: