JL:
>By the way, I found some commercial beef bone marrow... and it was not
>bad! But I wonder if eating that is healthy. Are some parts of commercial
>meat worse than others? I suppose that the liver should be avoided.
>I read somewhere that toxins accumulate in the fat. Is it true? Does
>that apply to the bone marrow (which is fatty) as well?
>Is bone marrow "safe" regarding the issue of the "mad cow disease"?
>And finally: does anyone know about the nutrition contents of the
>bone marrow? Is it a more valuable part than the flesh?

Everything I have ever read about toxin accumulation has said that it is
found (in commonly eaten portions) foremostly in the liver, then in fats
(marrow is considered a fat), and leastly in flesh. As I remember it, very
significant accumulations occur in the bones (and breast milk) too. I
wonder myself about other organs like thymus, pancreas, and brains. I tried
them years ago from clean animals (surprisingly delicate) and would love to
get some these days. Liver has been a frustration for me: it can smell very
attractive (like chocolate) but usually doesn't--and when it has smelled
good, it tasted horrible. Toxins?

If you are worried about toxin accumulations it would probably take a long
time of high consumption to make a real difference. If you are worried
about some sort of pathogen, who knows? Bone marrow should theoretically be
safe regarding mad cow, but the spinal cord (which is a lot like marrow)
probably isn't. Bone marrow has a very "nutritional" reputation but I don't
have an analysis for it handy. In general fat is probably more
nutritionally valuable than flesh/protien. (Eskimos reportedly throw the
tenderloins to the dogs and eat the organs and fat--the organs are high in
fat, esp brains. But then again, the dogs were probably in pretty good
health too ;))

We have at times put some marrow on raw dried jerky when it was too
lean--quite delightful. Beef marrow is pretty surprising. Sometimes it is
very soft (even runny) and yellow and sometimes like white plastic. Most of
my marrow experience was in Peru (and from animals I never knew the feeds
of--I only knew they weren't getting grains in such a poor country). There
would be heaping bowls of cut marrow bones (10 cm or so) of which the
various marrows ranged from white/hard to yellow/soft, though sometimes it
was white/soft. Anyway, I could tell that the softer (and much preferable)
marrow was near the joint end but never as sure whether it was the upper
joint or lower joint--heck, maybe it was both or neither and there was no
rule. Anyway, soft bone marrow puts butter to _shame_ (when you have the
taste for it, etc etc). I remember buying a whole steak when the marrow
bone it exposed caught my eye. It was worth it. The marrow running down
into the hoof in pigs is also great (yellow and very soft, almost like
melting butter) but try finding a decently-raised pig anywhere. :/

Have you found anyone selling Coleman beef and lamb in the Philly area?
Coleman is based in CO but ships across the country to specialty meat
places like ritzy supermarkets and health food stores, but not everywhere,
of course. It's hard to get good pastured beef in this country--no
hormones/no antibiotics seems to pass for healthy meat. On the other hand,
I have been eating some heavily marbled meat lately with no ill-effect.
I'll be posting a summary in a few weeks...maybe I'll have tried some
"sweatbreads" by then to report on also.

Cheers,
Kirt