Animal Fat (not from dairy)

[PaleoDeano]

hello fellow paleo people,

was just wondering what other's thoughts are on getting animal fat. i happen to think it is a very important nutrient to take in. and, knowing i don't get near enough, i have had to resort to dairy to get it (or at least i feel i must). i would much rather find a way to get it the paleo way (no dairy). one thing i am wondering is many paleo people got lots of fat from internal organs and intestines and bone marrow and brain and fat slabs, etc. we eat very little of that sort of thing. meat processors tend to get rid of all that almost immediately. except perhaps they use it for hot dogs or sausage??? i wonder if all these "guts and grease" aren't an extremely healthy thing to consume, since it was such a highly prized part of the animal back in paleo times. what thoughts do others have on this? i would really like to know where you all are getting your animal fat? besides the dairy, i eat a heck of a lot of eggs (primarily for the fat - but they have such good protein as well). so... what animal fat do you all eat? and have any of you tried to get a meat processor to process the internal parts of the animal some way? and did they think you were insane for asking? :) i am very interested in checking out this woe.

[nela]

Hi there Dean! :wiggle:

Funny you should ask this, I was going to post a very similar question myself.
The way I get my animal fat is very simple. Here in Spain, where I live, we have something called Jamón Serrano, which is the best cured whole leg of ham you could possibly imagine. You buy it at a special shop and then lay it on a ham rack (or whatever it's called).

Check it out for yourself. Go here:
http://www.consorcioserrano.com/inicio.swf

As you'll see, this webpage can be read in English too, just click on the British flag at the bottom. There is a wealth of info on Spain's famous Serrano ham.

This way, you can spend the day cutting strips from the leg. This ham is made in cold, dry areas in Spain, normally in the Sierra (mountains) where the climate is very cold and dry. This aids the curing process. They cure the legs in salt, and the final product is a whole leg which has a hard skin cover, which you cut away as you eat the ham.

The pigs are very well taken care of and are only fed acorns, which gives the meat a distinctive flavor. Delicious and needs nothing else, (although the rest of the carb eating population makes "sandwiches" with it! They use baguette style bread, a long loaf with a crusty top) (don't get me started on bread! LOL).

Now the fat on the ham is very visible, so you can cut it away or eat it, as you wish. It's considered part of the Mediterranean diet, one of the healthiest in the world.
This way I get a lot of fat, and I really enjoy eating it, it's so good. I also eat an egg each morning. I was wondering if that's ok, or if I should worry about cholesterol?
I'd love to hear about the rest of you. :yay:

[PaleoDeano]

hi nela,

that ham sounds to die for! i often eat pork ribs, and boy do they have a lot of fat on them. and of course bacon has a lot of fat. i take it you don't do dairy? i don't know why i started using butter about 6 months ago (after a year without dairy), and it was just for the fat. then about a month ago i started eating small amounts of cheese and cream cheese. i use to love cheese, but never really missed it when i gave up dairy. i don't have strong cravings for it... i really am just wanting to make sure i get enough fat in my diet. i really think it should be high. i take a tblsp of flax oil every day (for the omega 3 balance), and i use olive oil and canola oil sometime... but, i think there is something very special about animal fat... and i also have a hunch there is really something special about the fat that comes from the inside of animals and from the inside of their bones and skulls... i'm talking intestines and organs, and marrow and brains. have you ever tried any of these? they were just so highly prized by the native north americans. there were times (when game was plentiful) when those things were used and the rest of the animal was thrown away! that is the exact opposite of what occurs today. i wonder how difficult it would be to get a meat processor to get those parts for you... and then, how to use it... in sausage? or what? i just have this feeling that there is hidden treasures inside this food, and our health could really be lifted if we consumed it. i too would be interested in what everyone else thought about this.

btw... don't worry about eating any food that has high cholesterol... your body produces 80% of the cholesterol in your blood... if you have high insulin levels (from eating too many carbs), then you will produce more cholesterol than you need, and then you will have high blood cholesterol. you cannot get high blood cholesterol from eating foods that contain cholesterol... that is part of the misinformation from the low fat folks! i (and several of my friends) even proved this. i for one ate about 6 eggs per day (usually fried in butter) for about two months straight! i was doing low carb at the time and not cheating at all... the result was my cholesterol went down... from 260 (when i was eating lots of carbs: sugar) to 167! when they gave me the results they told me to "keep eating what ever you have been eating"... when i told them i had been eating lots of animal fat, eggs, butter, bacon, chicken skins, etc. they looked at me like i was joking... and i said "i'm not joking... that is exactly what i have been eating... oh, and very low carbs"... they then just had this dumbfounded look on their face... i don't know if they got it or not. :)

but, don't sweat the eggs... they are a very good source of protein and fat...

have you ever read "Life Without Bread"? it is a great book about fat. it totally tears to shreds the low fat theories...

[PaleoDeano]

http://www.ravnskov.nu/cholesterol.htm

[nela]

Dean, thanks for posting that very interesting cholesterol link! I read it through and was astounded by the fact that even medical people do not agree on this. I truly believe that if we eat the same kind of diet that our ancestors did, we will have optimal health. Nature can't be wrong, after all. I know that it's the sugars and the flours that are most harmful to our health.

I woke up this morning feeling very happy, I've lost another kilo! :yay:
I do eat dairy, but only cheese. I don't have any milk except a tiny bit in a coffee once a week or so.. I don't miss it though.

I have grated cheese in my omelette, on my fried eggs, on tomato salad, etc. I just looked at the packet and realized that it's made of butter, cheese, and milk protein. I didn't know that, I thought it was plain grated cheese. But it's delicious anyway, and doesn't seem to be stalling me. :)
I also love olive oil, and it's what everyone uses here. I put in in my salad, cook everything with it. I don't like the taste of butter for frying. Nothing beats the smoothness of fine virgin olive oil.

Concerning the innards of animals, I occasionally have something called "Callos", a typical dish from traditional Spain. They are chopped pig's intestines which are slow cooked in a spicy pimento sauce. Truly delicious! It's so easy to do low carb here, as long as you avoid the bread and rice. I have no problem with "squeamish" foods, like brains, which you can also get here, but very few people seem to buy them. The traditional way of eating is slowly fading away, as more and more fast food places spring up.

I haven't read "Life without Bread" yet, but I'll order it from Amazon next time I place an order. Sounds fascinating. Thanks for the recommendation.

BTW, do you eat any fruit? I find that large amounts stall me, so now I have 1 apple every day, the tart variety.
BTW, what on earth is a meat processor? Is it something to make ground meat?


Have a great day! :thup:

[huntress]

Hi Nela
A meat processor is a person or company that takes live whole animals and turns them into pieces ready for market. I am a meat cutter for a pork plant.
It is great because I get my pork at half price and very fresh. When deer hunting season happens I process other peoples game for them, skinning, cutting and wrapping for freezer.
Hey bill I would love to kill myself trying to get a sheep ;) After 1 week no legs left.

Diane

[PaleoDeano]

nela,
congrats on losing another kilo! :Party: way to go http://forum.lowcarber.org/images/smilies/yelclap.gif (http://forum.lowcarber.org/misc.php?do=getsmilies#)

my philosophy is the same when it comes to eating what our ancestors ate. that is the basis for all my dietary considerations.

i have been eating a little cheese for the last couple months (had gone a year with no dairy before that). i really would rather eat other forms of animal fat (don't want the foreign proteins - it is definitely not something our ancestors ate).

you mention cooking with olive oil. others on this forum have warned against cooking with olive oil. what is the reason for that? i trust you most, since you live in a place that has used olive oil to cook for the longest. i use to use it to cook (even fry eggs), but was worried about doing so. so for that reason, and to get more animal fat, i switched to butter a few months ago. i still baste chicken and turkey with it (and canola oil) before baking.

that "Callos" sounds interesting... and i bet it is very good! "a traditional dish in Spain"... see that is what i mean... our ancestors in europe and here in north america ate innards of animals (and this food was highly prized). now it is becoming very hard to even find this food. i too have no problem with "squeamish" foods, as you say. i tried some sheep brains once and thought they were the best thing i had ever eaten (no lie)... they tasted absolutely heavenly! but, i have heard people say there is some risk of mad-cow type diseases with eating brains. have you ever heard that? it's probably a myth.

i decided to stop eating fruit (and nuts and seeds) after going almost a month without them and finally getting down very close to my goals on weight and body fat. as soon as i started to eat them again, i started gaining.

a meat processor is, as Diane said, a place where they butcher animals and cut them into pieces (or make sausage or jerky, or cut up stew meat, etc) out of the meat. yes, and they also grind up meat into burger.

btw... Diane, in your dealings with the meat processing business, what do they do with the innards of animals? do they use these to make sausage or hotdogs or what? or do they just throw them away? our ancestors use to use every single bit of the animals... and the parts they prized most were the fat, the innards, the blood, the bone marrow, the brains, the organs... mostly saturated fat! wild animals consume these same parts first. they are the highest prized parts of the animal with all hunters (humans, cats, etc).

http://www.westonaprice.org/traditional_diets/native_americans.html

is it possible for someone to request from their meat processor to get the innards of animals?... and what would you have them do with these parts?... or the brains or the bone marrow?

i am very interested in this type of nutrition... would love to hear what you have to say, since you work in this business.

later, Nela and Diane
have a good one....

:)

[alaskaman]

Re animal fat, i kind of thought as long as I was eating well marbled, well fatted steaks and chops, and not trimming them, that I would get enough fat??? When my dad and i make sausage, we do not try for lean, we have maybe 20 % fat in the mix, we like it that way. Today, was at a local butcher shop, getting some pork for our sausage, a guy came in and asked for 10 pounds beef suet and 10 pounds pork suet. Some people around here use it for bird feed mix, some for custom blend food for their sled dogs, we could use it for pemmican, maybe? Best wishes, Bill P.S, am thinking of the Bible verse about the oil flowing down Aaron's beard. Ha. Bill

[nela]

Dean, this is an interesting article I found for you regarding olive oil:

http://www.mediterraneandiet.gr/health.html

As you can see, olive oil has been used for thousands of years and is very healthy. It is stable during cooking and can be reused several times, thus making it more economical than other oils. You should never add new oil to used oil though. It is cholesterol free too. It has been linked to the low incidence of skin cancer here in the Mediterranean. People here are always in the sun and don't use a lot of protection either.
Besides, it's great as a natural laxative. LOL.
You also get beauty benefits from using it, more supple skin, stronger nails, lustrous hair...Spanish women have the most beautiful hair and skin, and they hardly have any wrinkles!

So I'd recommend everybody should start using it (oh, and nothing beats the flavour of cold pressed extra virgin olive oil, preferably Spanish, Greek or Italian).

Take care :wiggle:

[sunkist]

Hi Nela
I use olive oil alot along with coconut oil - those are my two favorites. I think they are both supposed to be pretty heat-stable when used in cooking.

I also use coconut oil in my fruit & egg yolk smoothies

I use olive oil & lemon juice for salad dressing :sunny:

[PaleoDeano]

thanks Nela!

perhaps i will go back to using olive oil to fry eggs in, and to top cooked veggies, and for salad dressing... that is what i always use to use until i started using butter and salad dressing with cheese... but, i would like to get away from dairy... so, i think i will go back to using olive oil... thanks for the info!

[nela]

you're welcome, Dean! :roll: Enjoy!

[PaleoDeano]

hello all!

here are some urls that i found to be very informative!

http://www.thebear.org/essays1.html (http://www.thebear.org/essays1.html)
(scroll down to "Diet and Exercise")

http://www.westonaprice.org/traditional_diets/native_americans.html (http://www.westonaprice.org/traditional_diets/native_americans.html)

http://health.centreforce.com/health/dietarywisdom.html (http://health.centreforce.com/health/dietarywisdom.html)

http://www.westonaprice.org/traditional_diets/nasty_brutish_short.html (http://www.westonaprice.org/traditional_diets/nasty_brutish_short.html)

http://www.flackfamilyfarm.com/wholefood.htm (http://www.flackfamilyfarm.com/wholefood.htm)

i am probably heading toward an all meat and fat diet!
:)

[nela]

Loved reading them all. Thanks Dean! :)

[sunkist]

Hi Guys
Just posted a new thread about needing to GAIN weight - and my husband told me to eat more animal fat to help with protein digestion!!! See my whole diet on the other thread :roll:

[MichaelG]

Hi Paleodeano

There's a pork war on at the moment with the Canadians flooding various markets, the Australians flooding Asian markets etc. Here in Aus we can get forequarter roasting pieces for A$2.95 a kilo, which would be about the same for Canada, and working out at about US$ 1.30 a pound and English one Pound per pound. Cheap, hey, and unbelievably fatty. I cut the pieces up, slice and dice the lean meat for stir frys and kebabs and freeze them, then render down the rest to get bowls of lard.

When i was a kid in England we used lard for everything, because cooking oil was rare.

Eggs fried in lard, oven baked veggies with lard, stir fry with lard. Apparently until the second world war, most cooking in China used lard and you can't get the authentic flavour using veg oil.

Yum

Michael Gardner

[toopoles]

Hi

Does anyone else struggle with just a particular kind of meat or fat that they have to eat to not get cravings? It seems that I eat and eat and still have cravings unless I have beef. Marty

[batgirl]

Hey,
I used to eat chicken all the time. Now, I hate eating chicken, especially the breast. If I have to eat chicken, I'm a leg & thigh gurl. I prefer the red meat, beef and buffalo. Sometimes, when I am grocery shopping, I get an overwhelming urge for a big, bloody, fatty steak. I just have to buy a couple, regardless of the cost. Nothing is as satisfying as a rare steak.

[nela]

posted by Batgirl:Nothing is as satisfying as a rare steak.


I agree, but most places want to cook it until all the juices are lost. It's frustrating seeing how some of my friends can ruin a lovely steak!

[paula7]

Dean, now you guys have me all confused! I too, was under the impression that heating olive oil was not the way to go. I think it's the temperature that's most important; always use low or medium heat.
Here's a site to check out. I hope it's not a repeat for you--

http://www.oliveoilsource.com/cooking_olive_oil.htm

[MichaelG]

I love olive oil, but now only use it as a salad dressing, occasionally. As I've said on various threads, most veg oils inluding olive are extracted from seeds. Seeds are meant to be indigestible if not poisonous because they are usually surrounded by some sort of a reward such as a fruit or berry.

An animal eats the fruit or berry, but the seed passes through the body and is deposited, undigested, along with a nice little pile of s***t which gets the new plant growing.

I would regard olive oil in the same category as butter and other products of the agricultural "revolution", that is to say it is not what we would have eaten thirty thousand years ago but is probably the pick of a bad bunch compared to canola oil or Flora Margarine. Nowadays I stick to beef and pork fat for cooking at higher temperatures.

Having said that, I don't think that olive oil has proven toxic in its raw form, as the often superior health of Italian and Spanish People has shown.

Cheers

Michael
Australia

[AlaskaRoy]

The best animal fat for human consumption is wild salmon (not farmed salmon). Next best probably would be mackeral.

[Quinadal]

Nothing is as satisfying as a rare steak.
Oh YEAH! I love getting rare prime rib from OutBack.
Nice and bloody..mmmmmm

[tiva]

Extra virgin olive oil is made from the flesh of olives, not the seeds, and it is unfiltered and unheated during processing. Archeological evidence strongly suggests that olives were being gathered for food well before cultivation (see Dennell R.W. (1992) The origins of agriculture in Europe. Pp 71-100. In The Origins of Agriculture. An International Perspective. C. Wesley Cowan and P.J. Watson, eds. Smithsonian Institution Press. Washington, D.C.)

Unheated, unfiltered extra virgin olive oil has some benefits that olive oil used in cooking doesn't have (but it's still fine to cook with extra virgin olive oil; you just don't get all the benefits). As long as you keep it below 117 degrees, extra virgin olive oil has still-intact forms of triterpenic acids (oleanolic and maslinic) , which stimulate pancreatic enzymes, and 2-phenylethanol, which stimulates production of fat-digesting enzymes in the pancreas.

On the other hand, all extra virgin olive oil has:
1) Palmitic acid, which can raise cholesterol levels, but olive oil seems to protect rather than damage.
2) Stearic acid, which neither raises or lowers cholesterol.
3) Small amounts of lecithin.
4) Beta carotene and Vitamin E, known antioxidants.
5) Chlorophyll, known to be a good source of magnesium.
6) Squalene, a precursor of phytosterols, which protects against cholesterol absorption from foods.
7) Modified sterols known as triterpenic substances, which seem to benefit the cardiovascular system and have healing and anti-inflammatory properties. Triterpenic acids (oleanolic and maslinic) found only in olive oil, stimulate pancreatic enzymes.
8) Polyphenols, with one such being oleoeuropein, known to lower blood pressure.
9) Plus more than 100 other compounds that give flavor and aroma that have been identified but not studied.

Some minor components of olive oil that can have major effects:
1) Beta-sitosterol lowers high cholesterol levels.
2) Caffeic and gallic acids stimulate bile flow. Gallic acid also inhibits lactic dehydrogenase activity, which is a sign of liver malfunction.
3) Phenolic compounds protect against peroxidation of fatty acids and cholesterol.
4) 2-phenylethanol, present in many unrefined oils, stimulates production of fat-digesting enzymes in the pancreas.
5) Cycloartenol, which is stored in the liver, lowers the amount of circulating cholesterol and increases bile excretion.
6) A combination of Triterpenic acids and 2-phenylethanol slows down cholesterol digestion and its absorption from foods.

The difference is that heating denatures some of the enzyme functions.

Canola oil, however, has zero redeeming qualities and was only invented a few years ago, so why in heaven's name are paleo types using it? Rapeseed oil (the precursor to canola oil) has been around since WWII, but it was used as an industrial oil, not a food oil.

Grass-fed meat is advertised as lean, but plenty of cuts, such as chuck roasts, have big hunks of fat on them.

[batgirl]

Speaking of fat, does anyone know about duck fat?
I just roasted a duck, and got nearly 2 cups of fat. I was wondering what the fatty acid profile on it was. Is it good, or is it just as bad as every other grain fattened animal.

I have no idea how they feed ducks.

batgirl

*duck season* *wabbit season* *duck season* BLAM!

[Dodger]

I don't know the fat makeup of duck fat, but it is one of the best tasting cooking fats there is. It also sounds better to call it 'Graisse de Canard'.

[Quinadal]

Is duck hard to cook? I've never tried cooking one, since they seem so expensive in the supermarket.

[TBoneMitch]

I don't have the book on hand, but Mary Enig in «Know Your Fats» gives the whole breakdown of duck fat. It is mainly monounsaturated (around 45-50%), saturated (around 35-40%), with the rest being polyunsaturated. It is a good source of a few antimicrobial fatty acids, but the names escape me!

All in all, it is a good fat to use, especially since ducks are usually raised in less «industrial» conditions, the flocks being much smaller. The animals usually more room to walk around. But they usually are grain fed (corn).

[Wyvrn]

You can get the complete nutrient profile here:

http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/index.html

Wyv

[batgirl]

I got the duck for $1.99 lb, which was the same price as pork shoulder steaks, and much cheaper than the beef.

It isn't hard to cook. You have to prick the skin all over with a knife to let the fat cook out. Other than that, it is basically like roasting a chicken. I cooked it at 350 for 1 hour, then at 300 for 2 hrs, on a raised wrack. The skin was crispy, it is all dark meat, and it still had plenty of fat left on it. Plus I poured nearly 2 cups of fat out of the pan.
Some recipes have you boil or steam it first, but that seems a big hassle to me.

batgirl

[PaleoDeano]

Grass-fed meat is advertised as lean, but plenty of cuts, such as chuck roasts, have big hunks of fat on them.
Hi, Tiva,

I eat a lot of bison, and when I come across any fat, I gobble it up. I truly believe that it is a very valuable part of the animal. On the other hand, if I were eating grain-fed cow meat, I would not feel the same at all about that fat. If you check the stats on the meat (and, of course fat) of bison (or any wild animal... moose, deer, etc), the ratios of saturated, mono, poly, and omega-3, 6, etc. are completely different than the stats for grain-fed animals. And, I am sure that there are a ton of other good qualities to this fat (and meat) that modern scientists will be "discovering" as time goes on. I guess evolution just might have something to do with that, now, whaddaya all think?