I dry ground beef all the time into jerky. No, you do not cook it first.
Yes, you want to use lean beef. If you do not, the fat collects on the
surface where it can rapidly become rancid, which ruins the point of having
dried the meat (to preserve it).

Steve
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lauri Light" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, November 04, 2000 3:28 PM
Subject: [P-F] dehydrating meat


> Dear Paleofood members;
>
> I just got a food dehydrator and I'm eager to dehydrate meat. I would like
> to use ground meat, because it's cheap and it has some fat which I need
for
> the calories. In all the recipes/instructions I find, there's no mention
of
> ground meat, in fact everything I read says to use ONLY lean meat.
>
> My questions for this list are:
>
> 1. Is it possilbe to dehydrate ground meat? Any suggestions how?
> 2. Is it SAFE (in terms of bacteria/parasites) to dry ground meat or ANY
> meat without cooking first? I'm very particular about this because I am
> recovering from an auto-immune disease. My immune system is weak and I've
> had problems with intestinal infections. I always wash raw foods
carefully.
>
> Thanks for your help!
>
> La
>