photo credit: VirtualErn

A few years ago there was an episode of Wife Swap that involved a family who ate raw meat. Yes, all of their meat was eaten raw. Uncooked. Straight from the animal.

Go ahead and cringe at that thought for a moment.

Last week I joined in a conversation on Twitter about real food, and in the talks managed to have won a copy of Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats, a cookbook that I’m really enjoying. Until I got to the chapter on eating raw meat. Apparently it’s not a totally outlandish food fad.

OK, so maybe eating raw meat isn’t really that bizarre. Plenty of people around the world enjoy Steak Tartare and Sushi, both of which involve raw meat. So maybe it’s just my suburban North American worldview that burgers should be grilled and fish should be baked that’s preventing me from what could be an enjoyable meal.

According to the book:

Pyridoxide or B6 deficiencies are widespread in America, partly because our traditional source of this heat-sensitive vitamin – raw milk – is no longer sold commercially. It requires some courage to consume the best source of B6 – raw liver. This leaves raw cheese, meat and fish as the only sure sources of B6 available to most Americans. When B6 is lacking, the pathways for use of vitamins B1 and B2 may be less effective, leading to widespread symptoms of B vitamin deficiencies. Deficiencies of B6 have been linked with diabetes, heart disease, nervous disorders, carpel tunnel syndrome, PMS, morning sickness, toxemia of pregnancy, kidney failure, alcoholism, asthma, sickle cell anemia, and cancer. B6 supplements have been shown to be highly effective in preventing blindness in diabetics. Americans would be wise to include raw meat or fish on a frequent basis to avoid these debilitating conditions.

When I read a huge laundry list of “symptoms” that include almost everything that everyone has suffered or known someone who has I get skeptical. Especially when a couple of those things include alcoholism and sickle cell anemia.

Sickle cell anemia is an inherited, lifelong disease. People who have the disease are born with it. They inherit two copies of the sickle cell gene—one from each parent.

There are quite a few recipes in the raw meat chapter of Nourishing Traditions that don’t sound half bad, except for the whole raw meat part. The book claims that you only need to freeze the meat for 14 days to kill any potential parasites. Then your raw meat experience is ready to begin. If you can get past the mental block of eating raw meat. Something that I simply can’t. Despite the health claims, I actually feel a little nauseous thinking about it.

Of course, I’m not ruling out the entire book. There are plenty of other recipes that involve actually cooking your food first. The day I received it we tried the Stir-Fry Chicken Stew and it was delicious. And involved actually cooking the chicken first.Yay fire!