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Special Diets/Eating beef bone marrow

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Expert: RawPalaeoGuy - 4/16/2008


Question
Have we really looked into Asian meat dishes that are very common throughout the Far East for the past hundreds of years?

After some searching early this year, I was invited in the Philippines to a big feast and was very lucky to taste the soupy stew of beef "bulalo" where the cattle thigh bone is already cut-up into 2-inch portions. We chewed on the tender beef attached to the bone and we had fun sucking the soft, buttery marrow. The meat and marrow are debbed in squeezed "kalamansi" (a lemon-like sour fruit) and soy sauce. We had a grand time gorging this tasty wonder with hot, steamed white rice.

My doctor earlier told me that the beef marrow is very rich in "choline" and "inositol", two of the most important nutrients that can repair and maintain the circulatory system plumbing, thus preventing/minimizing heart disease. Many websites confirmed my doctor's findings.

Can this food be the answer why the incidence of heart disease is very low in these places?

Marco Polo once wrote about witnessing numerous feasts for as many as two thousand guests where they were served sumptous food of up to 16 courses that included the soupy beef marrow.

Are we now just beginning to understand that there is a lot more to discover out there than we have previously imagined?


Answer
Many cultures in history would incorporate organ-meats into their diets.In Mediaeval England, for example, the royal court would reserve choice organs like the heart for the king etc.

However, the usual modern diet in Asia, consisting of rice/monosodium glutamate etc. isn't really very healthy, in and of itself. The main difference re heart-disease rates, judging from accounts, is due to the fact that many Asian populations generally eat much less than their Western counterparts(ie "caloric restriction/Intermittent Fasting"), eat less highly-processed foods, and do more exercise.

All that said, I, along with many other RAFers, found raw bone-marrow to be highly effective re health-improvement. It contains so many useful trace-elements, and, IMO, the quality of the fat is much higher than muscle-meat-fat, by comparison.

Geoff

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RawPalaeoGuy

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I can answer most questions on Raw Animal and Vegetable Food Diets such as the Primal Diet, an organic, raw-meat-based diet and a number of similiar all-raw or partially raw Paleolithic diets, such as the Instincto, Weston-Price, Neanderthin, Paleo and Stefansson Diets. Can also offer advice on how to resist social pressure to eat cooked foods etc. For further info on Raw-Animal-Food diets, it's a good idea to browse through GoodSamaritan's website, http://www.rawpaleodiet.com/ , and also to join the following two forums and read their message-archives :- rawpaleoforum.com and http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/rawpaleodiet/

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I have been 8 years on a 99%+ raw version of the Palaeolithic Diet and experienced numerous health benefits as a result, being fully recovered from my previous symptoms from my cooked-food days. My own individualised raw, paleolithic diet routine is mostly based on Aajonus Vonderplanitz's Primal Diet(ie 99% raw, usage of "high-meat",no processed supplements, using primarily naturally-reared, organic or wild sources of raw foods) but, for personal reasons, I have also been, to some extent, influenced by ideas from:- Instincto(ie:- taste/instinct,no raw dairy/no raw veggie juice), Weston-Price(eg: preferring grassfed meat to grainfed meat, incorporating a wide variety of raw organ-meats into my diet along with the usual muscle-meats, and Vilhjalmur Stefansson(high-fat diet, pretty high proportion of (raw) animal food), but also eating some raw carbohydrates such as raw organic/wild fruit/veg/honeycomb etc.). I'm also a firm believer in the feast-and-famine idea (ie Intermittent Fasting) as regards boosting one's energy levels, and giving my body a rest from constant digestion.

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No nutritional qualification(I don't believe in standard(misguided) nutritionist doctrine, so I don't feel the need). I simply rely on mine and many others' long-term experiences of raw, palaeolithic diets and I've read most of the books that are vaguely relevant to a raw-meat diet.

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