Goin' raw

(Stickin' with mammoth) #1

Have any carnivores out there taken the plunge? I’m craving this, suddenly.

Think I’ll start off with a carpaccio with shaved Parmigiano Reggiano…

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(Full Metal KETO AF) #2

I have a nephew who was living on raw grass fed beef and milk a few months back. I don’t know how that turned out. :grin:

I also saw a YouTube video of a guy eating raw bacon on this forum. :cowboy_hat_face:

(Ken) #3

Beef Tartare with a raw egg mixed in. I also sometimes add a little sesame oil in.

(Robert C) #4

Unless you know the entire history of a particular piece of meat (any accidental room temperature exposure etc.) then, well, …

#5

I’ve been cooking my steak and lamb blue rare, and have been loving it, but haven’t gone full raw yet. But the desire is there, like my monkey brain really wants to tear into this red meat like it was straight from the carcass or something.

(Stickin' with mammoth) #6

If I did that, I’d have to buy dental floss by the case.

(Stickin' with mammoth) #7

Alrighty, then. Here’s what happened with raw meat, milk, and eggs. Strap in.

I tried raw meat. It was meh. Not good, not bad, just meh. Didn’t feel any sudden instinctual drive to inhale it like other raw carnivores have claimed so I’m sticking to rare steak. Which is pretty damned tasty.

I also toured a local farm that advertised cage-free eggs and raw milk, both grass fed. Fuck, where to begin…

First of all, the place was a dump. I don’t mean dirty, I’m from Iowa, I know from dirt and farms. Mud is an excellent source of fiber, I apply it topically whenever I can. This place was a dump, literally. Rusting and broken equipment scattered everywhere, animal pens erected randomly with no plan, most of them insufficient to the job (a lone electric wire strung a foot off the ground between wobbly plastic tent stakes is NOT an adequate barrier to full-sized hogs), chemicals in assorted containers shoved onto shelves in the open air, the barn (I use that term loosely) in disrepair, unkempt, and unstable, milled wood for projects stacked on the bare ground without tarping, disintegrating brush and leaves piled in an open-top trailer and stinking of slime and mushrooms (that was their fire pit wood supply), and tools, new and old, just laying around in the weather.

They had almost 90 acres and no tractor. You read that right.

And the animals, those poor animals. They appeared healthy and unharmed but it was clear she played favorites in her care regimen. She mooned over her two Guernseys and announced in jest–I hope it was jest–that she loved them more than her husband and it was apparent they were content. The rest of the menagerie, well…

Those “cage-free, grass fed” chickens were all in mesh pens without a single blade of grass available. A little channel of low-cropped weeds encircled each pen where the poor things had strained their necks through the wire, trying to get at fresh food. She claimed she moved the pens periodically to give them access to new pasture but I raised chickens, I know when a coop has been there forever. She had the usual cheap feed in bowls.

The pigs, as mentioned, were contained in a very last-minute-looking pen completely inadequate to their needs in both safety and size. She said she released them to roam about in the summer when the ground was drier, so the pen didn’t matter much. “Summer” is about four months long in Oregon if you measure it by moisture levels, so those poor guys probably don’t even remember it.

The goats had the same deal as the chickens: no fresh anything, pounded down enclosure, very little to climb on or play with and they were testy and anxious from a lack of stimulation. The usual Goat Curiosity was absent, nobody came up to check my hand for food or get their head scratched.

The geese, the most delectable and savory coyote food on the premises were, strangely, allowed to wander completely free without shelter. According to her, the farm dogs, Anatolian Shepherds, I believe, were all she needed to keep them safe.

We’ll call them Cujo 1 and Cujo 2. Perfectly friendly when she was around but they went into full defense/attack mode on the nearest farm animal when she left their field of vision. She didn’t seem bothered by this and shouted at them in intervals, presumably to “educate” them. It was pretty apparent they hadn’t seen a lick of training, and she admitted as much, informing me that the breed was born knowing what was expected of them. Just…wow.

Full disclosure: I love animals, period, but I’m a cat person, born and raised. Every animal on that property was named and cooed over except the two barn cats which were referred to in passing as Boy Cat and Girl Cat. They were brother and sister and more or less dumped there. They were not provided beds or food, had to hope she remembered to fill their water dish on a regular basis (thank god there was a creek nearby, hopefully not intermittent), and were quite skittish. I soon learned why: When she discovered they were killing songbirds as well as barn nice, she kicked them. She said this quite matter-of-factly, as if it was no big deal to abuse the animals of her choice.

She warned me these cats didn’t like people and from the tone of her voice, it was evident this was her opinion of the species as a whole. I fantasized about one of her cows delivering a spleen-bruising blow to her ample midsection to see how this would affect her opinion of animal sociability. I immediately walked away from her up to the cats, sat down in the sun, and talked to them for about 30 seconds. Both came right over to receive some loving pets. She was amazed.

At this point, I had been there for some time and asked politely if I could avail her of a bathroom. She handed me a roll of paper towels from the barn and pointed to the forest on the farthest edge of her property. She explained that her bathroom was filthy, so filthy that she would be embarrassed for company to see it. She had mentioned she only bathed once a week (and she looked it), so I was flummoxed how a room scarcely used could acquire such contamination.

Of course, I was petrified to ask about the kitchen where the raw milk was bottled. I had already taken a sip from a jar she handed me earlier (not as tasty as HWC) and was now calculating how many minutes away the screaming intestinal eruption would commence. Nothing happened; I think my keto-bolstered immune system saved me.

That was all a month ago. Needless to say, I did not buy raw milk from her. Or eggs. I left that property like Vasilisa fleeing Baba Yaga and I never looked back. If the cats are smart, they’ll follow my example.