Mary:
>Is pemmican, which is a dried food, considered to be a raw food? My son
>seems to tolerate it well.

Pemmican, as made according to Neanderthin by Ray Audette, is not a raw
food. The fat is obviously cooked during the double-rendering process of
the suet. The meat "powder" which is ground from dried strips of meat,
however, may be raw depending on what temp was used during the drying
process. In any case, pemmican may be the "most raw" animal food your son
ever ate. It is great to hear you have found a convenient food which he
appears to thrive on!

If it is the rawness of the meat in the pemmican that he is responding to,
you might experiment with an even more raw food: The next time you make
some pemmican--after you have dried the strips of meat (at room temp if
possible), set some of them aside to be eaten as is instead of powdering
them all. They are entirely edible as jerky in this form (BTW, bacteria is
very limited without moisture). The trouble is that they are so lean.
Perhaps you could spread some raw bone marrow on the jerky and see if that
appeals to him. You would then have an _entirely_ raw animal food.

>In addition, we are on a kind of "paleo" diet of meat, fish, veggies, some
>fruit, no disaccharides. Before, he was feeling starved on this paleo diet,
>The pemmican provides a kind of nourishment and satiety that other allowed
>foods do not.

It may be the high fat content (80%) of pemmican which is so satisfying to
him (in addition to the meat powder in pemmican). If so, bone marrow may be
an important addition to his diet as well. Have a butcher saw in half beef
marrow bones the long way and the marrow is easily extracted with a spoon.
If you have a source of "organic" no-antibiotics/steriods/etc beef or
marrow, that would be preferable to normal beef marrow--since bad stuff is
known to accumulate in organs and bone marrow. Nevertheless, one might
assume that the marrow may provide such important lipids that the
"detriment" of any associated accumulations may accumulations is
overshadowed.

(FWIW, I believe Jean-Louis mentioned that he eats bone marrow from
"regular" cattle with no ill effect.)

Cheers,
Kirt

Secola  /\  Nieft
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