Organ meats
Almost all traditional cultures prize organ meats for their ability to build reserves of strength and vitality. Organ meats are extremely rich in fat-soluble vitamins A and D, as well as essential fatty acids, important very-long-chain superunsaturated fatty acids and the whole gamut of macro and trace minerals. Wild animals eat the organs of their kill first, thus showing a wisdom superior to our own. The first solid food that native African mothers give to their babies is raw liver, which they thoughfully chew for them. Folk wisdom throughout the world, including Europe, values brains as a food for babies and growing children.
American cookbooks of a century ago contained plenty of recipes for organ meats, and any authentic cookbook for ethnic cuisine – French, Italian, Greek, Middle Eastern or English – will feature several recipes for liver, kidney, heart, sweetbreads (the thymus and the pancreas) and brains.
Not only does liver provide copper, zinc, iron and vitamins A and D in abundance, but it is also a rich source of antioxidants – substances that help your own liver remove toxic substances from the body.
Game, Beef & Lamb
The meat of game animals like deer, caribou, buffalo and elk, and of game birds like duck, goose, pheasant and quail is particularly rich in minerals and many other valuable nutrients. Most game meat is not marbled like beef and lamb and may, therefore, be very tough. This difficulty can be overcome with proper preparation and cooking. Game should “hang” or be aged for as long as possible in a cool, dry place to allow cathepsin, an enzyme naturally present in meat, to begin breaking down muscle fibers; and in most cases, game meat should be marinated for at least several hours, and as long as 48 hours, before it is cooked. If you take care of the preliminaries, your final dish will be flavorful and tender.
Surveys of ethnic diets show that red meat in the form of beef, sheep and goat is the second most preferred source of animal protein and fat in nonindustrialized societies, second only to chicken (flesh and eggs) and more popular, or at least more available, than foods from the sea. Red meat is an excellent source of both macro and trace minerals, particularly zinc and magnesium. In meat, these minerals exists in a form that is much easier for the body to break down and utilize than the minerals in grains and pulses. Red meat is rich in vitamin B12 and carnitine. Beef and lamb fat contain fat-soluble vitamins and small amounts of essential fatty acids, especially if these animals have been allowed to graze on green grass. These fatty acids are what your body need to utilize the minerals in all foods.
Recipes for tender portions of beef and lamb – filet and rib cuts of beef, leg of lamb and lamb chops – call for these cuts to be eaten rare, with most of their enzyme content still intact. Tougher cuts can be braised in stock to make flavorful stews. In braising, the temperature does not exceed 212 degrees so denaturing of proteins is minimized. The enzyme content is destroyed, but any minerals and amino acids that come out of the meat will be contained in the sauce. Deep frying of red meats or any cooking methods that raise the internal temperature above 212 degees Fahrenheit (100 degrees Celsius) are not recommended. Many ethnic recipes call for marinating tougher cuts for 24 to 48 hours in wine, youghurt or buttermilk.
On a cautionary note, meat and meat fat that come in contact with open flames syntesize certain carcinogenic hydrocarbons. Meat that has been cooked in a pan or liquid contains very few hydrocarbons in comparison with meat that has been grilled.
Poultry & Eggs
Although chicken is a perfectly good source of animal protein, frequent chicken consumption requires a cautionary note. Battery-raised chickens are subjected to crowded living conditions and often substandard feed; they require frequent doses of antobiotics and growth hormones to reach adulthood. Many develop cancers and these cancerous chickens are not necessarily discarded. Also, any food eaten to the exclusion of others can lead to allergies, food addictions amd adverse reactions. This is true of meats as well as vegetables, dairy products and grains. It is best to eat a variety of fowl – chicken, turkey, Cornish game hens and domesticated duck – and to vary your source of animal protein between puoltry, fish, game and red meat.
When you eat poultry, don’t neglect to eat the skin and the dark meat as well as the white. The skin provides valuable fat-soluble vitamins and antimicrobial fatty acids, while the dark meat contains more minerals than the white. The carcass makes a rich stock for sauces and soups.
Eggs have provided mankind with high-quality protein and fat-soluble vitamins for millennia. Properly produced eggs are rich in just about every nutrient we have yet discovered, especially fat-souble vitamins A and D. Eggs also provide sulphur-containing proteins, necessary for the integrity of cell membranes. They are an excellent a source of special long-chain fatty acids called EPA and DHA. Egg yolk is the most concentrated source known of choline.
It pays to buy the best quality eggs you can find – eggs from chicken fed flax or fish meal or, better yet, pasture fed so they can eat bugs and worms. Their nutritional qualities are far superior to those of battery-raised eggs and even many so-called “free range” eggs. In particular, they contain a better fatty acid profile, on in which the omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids exists in almost one-to-one ratio.
Never eat powdered eggs, a source of harmful oxidized cholesterol.
Source: Nourishing Traditions, Sally Fallon
