ginny:          (and Christy and her raw guts ;))

> The sushi chef judges freshness and thereby cleanliness. No sushi fish
> would ever be even close to spoiled; it's a case of fresh and fresher, to
> the point of being alive when prepared in some instances.

Fresh may not always be the best, or at least the tastiest. Experienced raw
folks often find aged (or "high") fish and meat preferable. Indeed, such
items more closely resemble cooked foods in flavor. I think of it as the
difference between Japanese (fresh) and Eskimo (high) prep methods of raw
food. I'd rather be an Eskimo. ;)

Organs are often preferred fresh but individuals vary on this.

One easy way to experiment with this is to dry them on a wire mesh (1/4 inch
mesh from a hardware store) in front of a fan for a day or two or three or
more. Fresh raw fish fillets (especially fatty fish like wild salmon,
Atlantic mackerel, sardines) can be laid out in front of the fan. (Or if you
can turn a dehydrator down to room temp...) There is much less smell than
you would imagine, especially after the outside dries and gets crusted over
leaving the inside to turn soft, buttery, and delicious. The same holds true
for strips of meat (some fat makes these jerky strips even more attractive,
or you can slather the jerky with fresh bone marrow to get an almost sinful
effect, but not much of a taste-change)). Even egg yolks can be dried. Just
discard the white and leave the yolk in a half shell until it dries out.

Similarly, you can do this in a self-defrosting fridge, but the aging takes
longer, but works better with larger chunk of meat. I figure a week in the
fridge is equal to a day or two at room temp.

This jives with the idea that humans originally ate carrion (already aged).

Truly fresh raw fish and meat is pretty boring actually (to me), but some
raw folks prefer it. Everyone is different.

Keep in mind the instincto bit about the taste of raw foods varying over
time (they certainly do, though exactly why is controversial)--perhaps as
regards whether your body actually requires the nutrients in the food? But
who knows? And many folks find the "taste-change" phenomena very pronounced
with aged animal foods, especially wild ones, as compared to fruits and
veggies. The taste may suddenly go bad, or be unpleasant from the outset.
Try it another day and see the variation. It is pretty hard to overeat raw
animal foods which are unseasoned/unmixed with other foods. OTOH, sometimes
one finds a particular raw food so attractive that one may eat several meals
in a row without much of a taste change at all.

One problem for paleo folks trying to go raw may be that they are pretty
much full up with meat (cooked) and need a break before raw meat is
attractive. Or so I theorize. I have eaten both raw and cooked animal foods
for many years (all-raw for some 8 years, and mixed for about the same time)
and find that raw, even aged, will be less attractive than cooked unless
cooked is limited or completely avoided. Indeed, when trying to do a paleo
diet raw I was frustrated that I couldn't eat raw animal foods (RAF) every
day. Which meant I would end up reverting to too much fruit/avocados.
Whether this means cooking is better, I still haven't a clue...

Frozen animal foods do not dry quite as well and have off-flavors compared
to fresh -aged. Not evil, but not quite right either.

FWIW, our daughter (5 this Jan) still demands one of her staple foods since
year two, raw hamburger, regularly (Hawaiian burger is almost always
grassfed) but she won't touch raw egg yolks now that she has had cooked.
Somehow she still enjoys raw peanuts after exposure to health-food-store
peanut butter. And she still eats her fill of raw honey as a staple. Loves
Brown Cow yogurt as well. And any and all bread/grain is a total treat for
her since she gets none at home (and very little at her school). Forbidden
fruit and all. ;) So she flunks as a paleo eater but it quite robust anyway.

Bla bla bla...

Cheers,
Kirt