Photos of recipes from the new book Tender Grassfed Barbecue
Photos of recipes from the cookbook Tender Grassfed Meat
The Healing Qualities of Organ Meats
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue
This delicious meatloaf contains grassfed beef, heart, kidney, and liver. (Recipe on page 181 Tender Grassfed Meat.)
Our ancestors used food to prevent and heal disease, and to maintain their natural functions. They did not have the benefits of scientific studies, but they did have the benefits of experience, knowledge that was passed down from father to son, mother to daughter, master to apprentice.
Organs As Medicine
Cultures as diverse as the ancient Chinese, ancient Greeks, many African tribes, and Native Americans connected the eating of a certain animal, and body part of a certain animal, to heal and benefit various organs and parts of the body and mind. This practice continued into the twentieth century, with some medical doctors using some of these traditions to help their patients.
There is a logic to this practice, as the nutrients the animals needed to maintain and nourish their organs were likely to be found in that particular organ. Scientific research has confirmed that organ meats are very rich in vital nutrients. I do not know of research that has supported the idea that eating the particular organ of an animal would prevent or heal disease in the same organ of the person who ate it. Of course, modern medicine does not use these methods, relying mainly on drugs, surgery, and radiation.
Some examples are as follows:
- Eating the heart of a strong, healthy animal was believed to help maintain the health and strength of the human heart. The Native Americans placed special value on the heart of a young stag, for this purpose. In the early twentieth century, some doctors in the U.S., used to advise patients with heart problems to eat beef heart as a way to strengthen their own heart.
- Many peoples believed it was beneficial to eat the brains of an animal, and that this would make them more intelligent and sharpen their minds.
- The liver was particularly prized, all over the world. Hunters would often eat the raw liver of their kill on the spot, as it was felt to be the most beneficial at that time. The hunters would divide the raw liver among themselves, so all could get the benefits. It has even been documented that the first part of the prey eaten by a predator, such as a lion, is the liver. Eating the liver was believed to make the liver of the eater stronger, and to purify and cleanse the body. Science has confirmed that cleansing and detoxifying the body is the function of the liver. In fact, the custom of eating liver regularly, at least once a week, was common in Europe and the United States up to the middle of the twentieth century.
- Many peoples believed that eating the eyes of an animal, particularly an animal known to have keen vision, would help their own eyesight.
There are many other examples, but the general idea was that eating a particular organ of a healthy animal would help the same organ in the human who ate it. Every traditional society who did this was careful to only eat healthy organs, from healthy animals. If the organ appeared diseased, or even discolored, no one would eat it.
My Experience
I make it a point to regularly eat liver, kidney, and heart from grassfed cows. I should mention that all of these organs seem to be functioning perfectly, and give me no discomfort or trouble. You can do this without much work, if you get the magnificent liverwurst from US Wellness Meats, which contains high-quality liver, heart, and kidney from grassfed cattle, in the form of a sausage that is very easy to eat.
This post is part of Fat Tuesday and Real Food Wednesday blog carnivals.
Disclaimer: Information found on the Tender Grassfed Meat site, including this article, is meant for educational and informational purposes only. Any statements or claims about the possible health benefits conferred by any foods or anything else have not been evaluated by the Food & Drug Administration and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. None of the content on the Tender Grassfed Meat site should be relied upon for any purpose, and nothing here is a substitute for a medical diagnosis or medical treatment.
Enjoy the Thanksgiving Feast Without Fear
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue
Classic roast turkey with its delicious skin. Credit
When a holiday approached, our ancestors, all over the world, anticipated the feast with great joy, happiness, and anticipation. The feast would be prepared by skilled cooks, from the best traditional foods available, and would provide a happy time where everyone would enjoy the fun, happiness, satisfaction and joy of sharing a special great meal.
Yet in modern America, the approach of the holiday feasts is cluttered with a blizzard of cautionary articles, posts, and warnings that could ruin the joy of any meal. Avoid fat, avoid eating too much, avoid gaining weight, avoid eggs in the stuffing, avoid the skin on the turkey, avoid cooking the stuffing in the bird, avoid calories, avoid, avoid AVOID!
In other words, avoid the traditional joy of the feast and worry about what you eat, even on the holidays.
Most of the people who have lived on this earth would be puzzled by this kill-joy attitude.
I advocate enjoying the holiday feasts, and the traditional dishes that have been used to celebrate them.
The Claim that Animal Fat Is Bad for Us Has Been Debunked
Most of the fear of the feast is based on fear of fat. This fear is based on the debunked belief that animal fat is always bad for us. This is just not true, as documented in the book The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter & Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet, and many other credible sources, including articles in the New York Times and Time magazine.
My Thanksgiving Plans
I have seen ads for Thanksgiving which featured mounds of different kinds of steamed vegetables. I have seen vegetarian “roasts” made mostly of soy, in the shape of a turkey. I have read articles advocating roasting a turkey breast instead of a turkey, with the skin to be trimmed off and discarded before serving. None of these things are traditional, and none of them are for me.
Instead, we will have a traditional Thanksgiving feast, including:
- Roast whole pastured turkey, brined in my secret apple brine, and basted repeatedly with pastured butter while roasting
- Stuffing made from homemade cornbread; roasted chestnuts; onion and celery which have been cooked golden in plenty of pastured butter; as many whole eggs as it takes to moisten the stuffing; various herbs; and the minced heart and liver of the turkey; roasted inside the turkey in the traditional way
- Sweet potatoes, roasted whole until meltingly soft, and served with plenty of pastured butter
- Fresh cranberry sauce
- Sliced onions, cabbage, and apple, sautéed in plenty of melted bacon fat, with the bacon
- Gravy, made from lots of fatty turkey drippings, and homemade turkey broth, and the flavor-rich scrapings from the pan the turkey is roasted in
- And finally, a homemade pumpkin pie
And we will most definitely eat every last bit of the crisp, buttery, wonderful turkey skin.
Now, that is a feast to look forward to!
Disclaimer: Information found on the Tender Grassfed Meat site, including this article, is meant for educational and informational purposes only. Any statements or claims about the possible health benefits conferred by any foods or anything else have not been evaluated by the Food & Drug Administration and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. None of the content on the Tender Grassfed Meat site should be relied upon for any purpose, and nothing here is a substitute for a medical diagnosis or medical treatment.
This post is part o Fat Tuesday and Real Food Wednesday blog carnivals.
What Is Good to Eat? I Trust Traditional Cooking
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue
One of the oldest traditional Chinese food combinations: ginger, garlic, and green onion.
If you read enough of the conclusions of studies reported in the news, you might decide that every single food you can eat is unhealthy in some way. It does not matter if the food is meat, poultry, seafood, fish, nuts, vegetables, or fruits, somewhere there is a study claiming it is unhealthy.
Obviously, if all the foods humanity has eaten, or can eat are unhealthy, we would not have survived as a species.
But how do we know what is good to eat? I found my answer through the research of Dr. Weston A. Price, who found that traditional peoples who ate their traditional diets were free from modern diseases, birth defects, and mental illness, even though many of the foods they ate were condemned by modern beliefs about food.
I base my diet on traditional food combinations, and the results have been fantastic.
It is better to look at all the foods eaten together, rather than just one food in isolation.
As a lawyer who specialized in legal research and analysis, I know a thing or two about researching an issue. What has always bothered me about most current food research is that they almost always seem to focus on a single food ingredient, or class of ingredients, and ignore the rest. An example would be studies that claim that red meat is unhealthy, yet ignore the other foods eaten, and many other factors.
But we do not eat foods in isolation. Usually, we eat many different kinds of food in a single day, and the substances in these foods interact with each other and our bodies. People do not normally eat just one food, or one class of food. To really know how food affects our health, I believe it is necessary to consider everything that is eaten, as it is the combination that effects our bodies.
Some studies have shown that the substances in one food will counteract the negative effects of the substances in another food, if the foods are eaten together. For example, studies have shown that the harmful glycemic effects of potatoes are greatly reduced or avoided if fat is eaten at the same time.
There is little current research on this, but Dr. Price looked at everything eaten by the peoples he studied, and the effect it had.
So I use as my guide the food traditions of many healthy peoples, making sure to use many of the same ingredients together that they did. For example:
- Nearly all cultures that ate potatoes never ate them without plenty of animal fat.
- The Chinese combined ginger, green onions, and garlic together in a huge number of dishes.
- Our ancestors never ate red meat without fat, usually animal fat, and usually plenty of it.
There are countless other examples, preserved in the traditional cooking and food traditions of nearly every nation, and I believe I have received great benefit by combining food according to these traditions.
Disclaimer: Information found on the Tender Grassfed Meat site, including this article, is meant for educational and informational purposes only. Any statements or claims about the possible health benefits conferred by any foods or anything else have not been evaluated by the Food & Drug Administration and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. None of the content on the Tender Grassfed Meat site should be relied upon for any purpose, and nothing here is a substitute for a medical diagnosis or medical treatment.
This post is part of Fat Tuesday and Real Food Wednesday blog carnivals.
In Defense of the Mighty Onion
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue
Onions—Earth’s favorite vegetable.
Usually I write about meat. But today I am going to rise up in defense of one of our most important vegetables, the mighty onion.
A recent article on the Internet claimed that onions should not be eaten, claiming that onions have little nutritional value.
The overwhelming majority of our ancestors valued onions as one of their most important foods, using them for all kinds of culinary and healing purposes. I side with our ancestors on this one.
Onions Are Nutritious
The claim that onions are not nutritious is apparently based on the content of detectable vitamins and minerals. There are two problems with this claim.
The first problem is that researchers are constantly discovering new nutrients and substances in plants. Many of the nutrients we recognize today were unknown twenty years ago, or even five years ago. The discovery process continues.
Second, onions contain unique substances whose effect has not been fully researched. Some research has shown that onions have anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory properties. These substances may have additional beneficial effects. Our ancestors certainly thought so.
Onions Are Traditional Food
If you research the world’s cuisines, as I have done for many years, you will find that onions may be the most used and most popular vegetable in history.
Onions were a vital part of the cooking of the ancient Egyptians, ancient Romans, ancient Greeks, ancient Chinese, ancient Celts, and just about every other significant ancient people we know of. Most of these peoples believed that onions were vital for their health and well being. Onions were used in marinades, stews, stir-fries, roasts, braises, and soups, and most meat dishes contained their share of onions.
Onions were also used for the following purposes:
- Issued as rations to soldiers, to make them strong, and keep them healthy
- As a medicine against a whole variety of ailments, especially colds and the flu
- To improve the taste of organ meats
- To tenderize meat, often being juiced for his purpose
- To purify and preserve food
Onions Are Widely Used By Traditional Cooks
Every modern cuisine I have studied, from Europe to Asia, to Africa, to South America, the Caribbean, and just about everywhere else, makes extensive use of onions in their traditional cuisines. Onions are widely used in meat dishes, vegetable dishes, soups, broths, curries—wherever you have traditional cooking, onions appear.
Onions Make Grassfed Meat Taste Better
I have found onions, whether yellow, red, or green, to be invaluable for tenderizing and flavoring grassfed meat. Nearly all of my stews, pot roasts, meatloaves, stir-fries, and most of my roasts contain onions in one form or another. My favorite vegetable to eat with grassfed meat is onions fried in plenty of butter, which I love.
I could go on and on about onions, but this will do for now.
I love onions!
This post is part of Fat Tuesday and Real Food Wednesday blog carnivals.
No Hockey Pucks, Just Good, Fatty, Grassfed Beef
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue
Here is a picture of a grassfed steak with good fat.
I thought that I would be overjoyed when grassfed meat finally made it to mainstream supermarkets. It has happened, yet I feel no joy. Because most of the grassfed beef is in the form of “Hockey Puck” steaks, completely without the wonderful grassfed fat that is so good for us.
The falsity of the claim that animal fat is bad for us has finally been recognized in the mainstream media, as shown by recent articles in Time Magazine and the New York Times. The falsity of this modern claim, which goes against all food traditions, was superbly documented in the book “The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat, & Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet,” by Nina Teicholz.
Yet most of our nation blindly continues along in the false belief that animal fat is bad for us.
This mistake has resulted in the emergence of the “Hockey Puck” steak, something which was never seen by our ancestors. These steaks are made from some of the leanest and toughest cuts of meat, and trimmed of every scrap of fat. This combination just about guarantees a tough, fatless, relatively tasteless piece of beef.
This is a tragedy, and contrary to the wisdom of our ancestors. Our ancestors knew that meat should always be eaten with fat, as it comes in nature, and that is how they ate it. If the meat they had was from a relatively lean cut, they would cook it with fat from other parts of the animal.
Grassfed meat is at its very best, in terms of nutrition, taste, tenderness, and satisfaction, when it contains some marbling of fat in the meat, and is cooked with a fat cap of its own glorious fat. Most of the nutritional benefits of grassfed meat are in the fat, as is most of the flavor. Our ancestors knew that the fattier cuts were best, and prized them.
I have cooked all kinds of grassfed beef, as detailed in my cookbooks Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue. I have had great success in producing tender, satisfying, utterly delicious grassfed beef, bison, and lamb, in literally hundreds of ways.
Yet I cannot even bring myself to buy a “Hockey Puck” steak, let alone try to cook it.
It is time for markets that carry grassfed beef to carry traditional cuts, with some marbling, and a nice fat cap, just like butchers used to do, before the huge fat mistake ruined the way meat is cut and butchered. I call upon suppliers, meat producers, and markets to bring back the traditional cuts, which are so much better and healthier than the “Hockey Puck.”
Related Post
Finding Grassfed Fat, and How to Add Good Fat to Lean Meat
This post is part of Fat Tuesday and Real Food Wednesday blog carnivals.
The Way of Broth
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue
Beef bone broth made from nutrient-rich grass fed beef.
Once a week, I awake early in the morning. I will need the extra time. I am going to perform a task that will nourish my body with an almost magical concoction full of natural minerals, gelatin, marrow, and other nutrients, using what may be one of the oldest cooking methods. I have been doing this for over ten years, and my technique has evolved over time, becoming simpler and easier. Today I make bone broth.
The Tradition
Bone broth is one of the oldest human foods, and one of the simplest. Basically, bones and meat scraps are placed in a large pot with plenty of water, and simmered slowly until the bones and meat have released their priceless nutrients into the broth. Vegetables are usually added, as is salt. As the water comes to a boil, the scum that rises to the top is skimmed off and discarded. The broth is served hot, and slowly sipped, or used as the base for all kinds of traditional soups.
Why I Make It
Traditional bone broth, simmered slowly for at least twelve hours, is much richer in minerals, gelatin, and other nutrients than any broth you can buy at a market. It is now possible to purchase traditionally made broth, usually by Internet order, but this broth is so expensive that it makes much more sense to make my own.
The Ingredients
I have found that all kinds of meat, poultry, and bones will make great broth. At this point, I usually use leftovers, often with some raw scraps and bones left over from trimming various cuts of meat, and find that the broth is every bit as good as when I used only fresh ingredients.
I use only the bones and meat of grassfed/pastured animals or poultry. Our ancestors did not use feedlot animals, or meat containing artificial growth hormones, antibiotics, steroids, and other chemicals, and neither do I.
I use only organic or the equivalent vegetables. I do not want pesticide residue to be released into my broth.
I use only filtered water. My filter uses the reverse osmosis process, which is the only way I know to get rid of the fluoride. Fluoride, chlorine, and aluminum are usually added to tap water, along with other chemicals. I do not want them in my broth. Our ancestors did not have these chemicals in their broth.
Using reverse osmosis water is controversial, because the conventional belief is that you could suffer a mineral deficiency, because minerals are also removed by the filtering process. Since the mineral content of water differs greatly from location to location, I do not find this to be a good enough reason to have human-made chemicals in my broth. What I do know is that a great deal of minerals are released into the broth during the long simmering process, far more than any tap water would contain. I also add a fair amount of unrefined sea salt. This salt comes with all the natural minerals that are stripped out of factory salt, and these minerals also become part of the broth.
My bones and teeth are very strong, dense, and hard, so I know I have no mineral deficiency. On the contrary, I credit my daily mug of broth with helping to maintain my strong bones and teeth.
Many people add vinegar to bone broth, the idea being that the acid will cause more of the minerals to dissolve. I used to use vinegar for this purpose, but I have not used it for years. I like the taste much better without the vinegar.
The Cooking
This is so simple. You place a large amount of bones, sinew, meat scraps, etc. in a large stockpot (which is not aluminum). You bring it to a simmer, skim the scum off the top, add the vegetables of your choice, cover, and let simmer for at least twelve hours. Why twelve hours? An old French cookbook explained that scientists had tested the mineral content of broth, and found that twelve hours of simmering was needed to release a significant amount of minerals and nutrients from the bones into the broth. I usually simmer my broth for a bit more than 12 hours, but there are people who simmer it much longer. Their broth is probably more nutrient-dense, but I am happy with mine. After the broth is ready, it is strained and placed in containers. There are several ways to store and preserve it.
The Benefits
We each drink a big mug of hot broth every day, sipping it slowly, usually just before dinner. It is so refreshing and renewing, and helps prepare our bodies for digestion. The high gelatin content soothes the stomach, and aids digestion. We are also taking what I consider the best mineral supplement on earth, as natural as it could possibly be, in the way of our ancestors. The proof of these benefits is in our strong, dense teeth and bones, and the complete absence of any problems with our joints and bones. Many people have used such broths to fight off sickness and help the body recover from illness. In fact, there are too many benefits to list them all. These benefits may be why I get a happy feeling as I make broth.
And it makes the absolute best gravies and sauces.
Any way you look at it, traditional homemade broth is the best!
Disclaimer: Information found on the Tender Grassfed Meat site, including this article, is meant for educational and informational purposes only. Any statements or claims about the possible health benefits conferred by any foods or anything else have not been evaluated by the Food & Drug Administration and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. None of the content on the Tender Grassfed Meat site should be relied upon for any purpose, and nothing here is a substitute for a medical diagnosis or medical treatment.
This post is part of Fat Tuesday, Real Food Wednesday and Fight Back Friday blog carnivals.
Kind Treatment Results in Better Meat
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue
Happy cows grazing.
Nearly all people have a strong, instinctive desire to eat meat. Despite all the attempts to demonize all meat during the last fifty years, world meat consumption is steadily rising.
After reviewing the unbiased scientific evidence, and studying the food traditions of most of the world, and knowing what my body needs to eat, I am convinced that the grassfed meat of our ancestors is a vital and necessary food.
Many people are disturbed by the fact that we cannot have meat without killing animals. Yet, the traditional way of raising meat animals gives them a happy life, and a quick, merciful death.
This is done not necessarily to be kind, but because meat raised in the traditional manner will not be good unless the animals are happy, well fed, and content in their lives, and killed so quickly that they have no time to suffer. This is one time where kindness is actually good business.
The Problem
We need meat to thrive and be healthy. We instinctively want to eat it. Yet we cannot get real meat without killing an animal. And modern agriculture treats many meat animals with cruelty, feeding them unnatural foods, drugging them, confining them in unnatural conditions, such as CAFOs and feedlots.
Many people, including me, are revolted by cruelty to animals, which is despicable. Yet, I need meat to thrive and be healthy.
The Grassfed Solution
I was looking at a beautiful grassfed roast. A beautiful color, with nice marbling. It made me hungry just to look at it. The butcher came over and said, “Happy cow.” He told me that the happiest cows gave the best meat.
The butcher had grown up on a cattle ranch in Mexico, and knew cattle. The cattle on his ranch only ate pasture, and the ranchers did everything they could to give their cattle a calm, peaceful life, plenty of water, lots of company from the herd, and the best possible pasture. A cow would not put on weight if it was stressed or unhappy, so it was necessary to give them a good life to get a good yield of meat. When it came time to kill a steer for meat, it was done by surprise, quickly, so quickly that the animal had no time to even get scared, let alone suffer.
The ranchers knew that if a cow, or any meat animal, gets scared or stressed, chemicals are released which ruin the taste and composition of the meat. Every grassfed rancher I have talked to also knows this, and all of them try to give their herds peaceful, happy lives, and to avoid stressing the animals.
CAFOs and feedlots are another story, and a disgusting one. The emphasis there is to raise the animals to slaughter weight as quickly and cheaply as possible, using drugs, hormones, chemicals, antibiotics, and processed feed. These methods enable even a miserable cow to put on weight, and kindness is obviously not a priority, or even a concern. Even these factory cows are killed quickly, to prevent the stress hormones from ruining the meat.
A review of the unbiased evidence, and my own personal experience, has convinced me that the grassfed meat of our ancestors is much better, in taste and nutrition, than factory meat.
So, to me, the solution is simple. Stop using hormones, antibiotics, chemicals, and feedlots to fatten meat animals. Make all meat from grazing animals grassfed, raised on the pasture in the traditional way. Our food will be much better. Ranchers will treat the animals well because it will increase their profits. And the lives of these animals will be much better.
This post is part of Fat Tuesday and Real Food Wednesday blog carnival.
Dr. Weston A. Price Did Not Advocate Plant-Based Diets
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue
One of the healthiest traditional fats, pastured butter.
Dr. Weston A. Price was, in my opinion, the greatest nutritional researcher of all time. He spent ten years actually visiting healthy traditional peoples, studying and recording what they ate first hand, and comparing the health of people eating their traditional diet with their relatives who ate modern foods. He discovered that people eating the traditional diet of their ancestors were much healthier than their relatives who ate modern foods.
Dr. Price recorded his findings in a book entitled Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, published in 1939. The book is difficult for many people to read and understand, as are many academic works.
Somehow, the rumor is spreading on the Internet that Dr. Price was an advocate of eating only plant foods. This is simply not true, as Dr. Price addressed the issue directly in his book.
The Physical Degeneration
Dr. Price was a dentist, in Cleveland Ohio. He noticed that each generation of his patients was less healthy than their parents, with decayed teeth, badly formed and crowded mouths, and deformed arches in the mouth. Clearly, something was very wrong. Dr. Price noticed how the American diet was changing, with more and more processed factory foods being eaten. Dr. Price believed that this change in diet might be responsible for the physical degeneration he was observing. But, what should people eat to be healthy? One day, Dr. Price saw a photo of a “primitive” man, who was grinning. The man had superb, perfectly formed teeth, with no signs of decay. Dr. Price decided that the diets of the so called primitive peoples might have the answer.
The Plant Food Desire
It is true that Dr. Price, before he set out on his ten year journey, believed that he would find that the traditional healthy peoples would eat plant foods only. Dr. Price, a gentle and very spiritual man, disliked the killing of animals for food, and thought he would find that people could thrive on plants alone.
Dr. Price, however, was a true scientist, more interested in learning the truth than proving his theory.
The Animal Truth
Dr. Price found, contrary to his expectations, that animal foods were crucial to a good diet. He stated that he had never found a group which was building and maintaining excellent bodies by eating only plant foods. Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, page 279.
There it is. All the peoples he found with excellent health from a traditional diet ate animal foods, especially the fats demonized in modern nutrition. This is described in detail in his book, where every healthy people he found ate plenty of animal foods, and animal fat.
And Dr. Price also commented on the plant food only groups of his day, noting that they all had signs of dental degeneration, if they had been on the diet for an extended time. He also noted that their children had deformed dental arches. Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, page 279.
As we can see, there is nothing new about the belief that people should eat only plant foods, as Dr. Price did most of his research in the 1930’s.
Dr. Price found that we need animal foods to be healthy, good real foods, not the foods of industry.
This post is part of Fat Tuesday, Real Food Wednesday and Fight Back Friday blog carnivals.
The Power of a Good Grassfed Steak, Pastured Butter, and Pastured Sour Cream
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue
Grassfed Butter Steak, Tender Grassfed Barbecue, page 76
Sometimes life presents us with difficult challenges. Not that we want them, but sometimes they are there, and must be dealt with. I am in the middle of dealing with a very difficult challenge right now. Not to worry, it is not a matter of life and death. And I am doing well with it, considering. And a good end is in sight, more likely than not.
Yet it takes a huge amount of energy and time to deal with, and often leaves me feeling worn out and discouraged. And I admit, I really hate to deal with it. But there it is.
However, I have found help in the wisdom of our ancestors. Their solution for so many problems was to eat the right food. For me, yesterday, it was a thick grassfed beefsteak, cooked rare, juicy, tender and delicious, served with pastured butter and sour cream.
Modern Solutions
The modern way to deal with mental stress is to take a drug, often a prescription drug, hoping it will somehow relieve or fix the problem. But, my body has fought every drug I have ever taken, over the counter or by prescription, and it always felt bad. While I have never taken anti depressants or any kind of psychiatric medication, I know they are not for me. I have not taken any kind of drug for over ten years, and I am much the better for it. Obviously, our ancestors never had these kinds of medications.
Some people will eat a lot of sweets and factory desserts, which may give them temporary relief but creates a craving for the product, and other problems. Not a solution for me either, as I have felt much better since I gave up eating that kind of thing.
Traditional Solutions
Our ancestors had two major solutions for relieving mental stress, one good, and one bad, in my opinion.
The bad option was to get drunk. I got drunk exactly once in my life, and I hated the experience so much that it never happened again, and never will.
The good option was to eat the right food, which was always real. So many cultures would serve food at times of stress, such as wakes. And the food would usually have a good amount of pastured animal fat, of one kind or another. The belief was that the food would help the stressed person feel better. Research has shown that butter and other animal fats provide important nutrients to the brain, which is probably why our ancestors served such foods at stressful times. My belief is that the food provided nutrients that helped the brain cope with the stress, which resulted in feeling better. I also believe that we require more nutrients at times of stress, so I decided to eat more of what would help nourish my brain.
My Solution
I made a really thick, grassfed steak, served with plenty of butter and sour cream. I was almost too tired to cook it, but I made it with one of the easy recipes in my cookbook, Tender Grassfed Meat.
After a couple of bites of the delicious tender meat, combined with pastured butter and sour cream, I started to feel better. My exhaustion began to fade, and I just felt better. At the end of the meal, I felt fine. I had energy! I felt confident that the resolution of the challenge would go well, and I felt ready for it. So I will continue to follow the way of our ancestors and nourish my brain with plenty of pastured animal fat and grassfed meat.
A truly delicious solution!
Disclaimer: Information found on the Tender Grassfed Meat site, including this article, is meant for educational and informational purposes only. Any statements or claims about the possible health benefits conferred by any foods or anything else have not been evaluated by the Food & Drug Administration and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. None of the content on the Tender Grassfed Meat site should be relied upon for any purpose, and nothing here is a substitute for a medical diagnosis or medical treatment.
This post is part of Fat Tuesday, Real Food Wednesday and Fight Back Friday blog carnivals.
Traditional Food Combinations, and What They Mean
One of the oldest traditional Chinese food combinations: ginger, garlic, and green onion.
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat and Tender Grassfed Barbecue
Our culture looks at the nutritional value of each type of food separately. For example, we are told the amount of calories, and the nutrients contained in a potato. Or we are told to eat a certain group of foods daily, with little attention paid to what they are actually eaten with, or how they are prepared, as long as certain “bad” foods are avoided.
Yet our ancestors paid enormous attention to combining different foods, herbs, and spices, and to how they were prepared. Thousands of combinations and preparation methods were developed, and food was always eaten and prepared in harmony with these traditions.
Why did they go to so much trouble and effort, and follow these very distinct rules and traditions?
When they wrote about it, or passed down the tradition verbally, our ancestors were clear that these traditions were developed to enhance nutrition and health, with taste being a secondary though important consideration.
In my opinion, this is precious knowledge, often reflecting thousands of years of human experience and testing, and well worth preserving, and using.
How Food Combinations Work
When you eat several kinds of foods at one meal, your body does not process each food item separately, but processes the combination of what is eaten. We know that combining different substances often changes their effect, and can create a combined effect.
For example, let us look at the potato. Potatoes are classed as carbohydrates, and believed to cause hyperglycemic effects. But few people eat potatoes in isolation. In traditional Europe, potatoes were usually eaten with a large amount of animal fat. Some studies have indicated that eating potatoes with fat can counter the glycemic effect. No doubt eating potatoes with other foods also changes the effects of the potatoes, in ways that have not been scientifically studied.
Different cultures would eat many different things with potatoes as well as fat. For example, it became a widespread tradition in Europe and the U.S. to often combine meat and potatoes. In fact, the combination became so widespread and common that the phrase “meat and potatoes” Â meant the foods that were essential for a complete meal.
Later research has established that meat is essentially an acidic food, and that potatoes are essentially an alkaline food. We know that it is important for our health to maintain the right acid/alkaline balance in our bodies. I suspect the tradition of eating meat and potatoes (or meat with alkaline foods), stems from old knowledge of how to combine foods. Knowledge learned without the benefits of chemistry or studies, learned instead through long experience.
One of the oldest and most common Chinese food combinations is to use, ginger, garlic, and green onions together, in a multitude of dishes. We know that each of these foods has beneficial effects individually, but no one appears to have studied them in combination. Yet the Chinese tradition of combining them reflects a belief that they are far more effective in combination than alone, which may very well be true.
How to Learn and Use Traditional Food Combinations
Fortunately, many of these combinations have been preserved as recipes and traditions. We can get the benefits just by using these recipes, with real food ingredients. We do not even need to know what they do, to get the benefits.
There are so many of them that I will not even attempt to list them, but I do use them in cooking. Not only does this usually result in a delicious meal, but I believe the nutritional and beneficial effects of the food is enhanced by using these traditional combinations. I am working on a new cookbook that is based on using some of these traditional combinations in easy recipes, using only real food ingredients. Testing the recipes for this book has been absolutely delicious!
This post is part of Fat Tuesday, Real Food Wednesday and Fight Back Friday blog carnivals.
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