Nutritional Content of Some Specialty/Organ Meats
I have long been troubled by the "they ate nose to tail", and all of the fatty organs. By FAR, the most common organ mentioned is the liver. Ahem. The liver is not supposed to be fatty, and I don't think these people are really so hypocritical as to eat foie gras and claim that's what they mean. Well ....
As the fauxtrage over the not-yet-released 2015 Dietary Guidelines rages on over on Marion Nestle's blog, George carries the fatty offal flag in to blame American health issues on our Orwellian fear of the fat in organ meats ... at the hands of the DGAC. Yeah, if by that he means we've been avoiding tongue, tripe and brains (classic American fare!), I guess he has a point. Actually, as you'll see, many of these meet the DGAC's definition of "lean" (< 10 grams per 100 grams weight), but are not "low fat" by percentage.
So just a little sampling of some specialty/organ meats. You can click, resize in browser, and the URLs for nutritiondata.com are included.
The concern for most of these seems to have been the cholesterol levels, which has been dropped. Still, how much liver did we used to eat? Mathematically it just can't be that much! Near as I can find from combining sources, the liver is perhaps 1% of the "meat" on a steer (~570 lbs total, 5-6 lb liver) and according to my first link, the specialty stuff totals around 5%.
I await the chiterlings craze in paleo!!!
Some math:
[150 lbs/yr] x [16 oz/lb] ÷ [365 days/yr] ≈ 6.5 ounces per day
[200 lbs/yr] x [16 oz/lb] ÷ [365 days/yr] ≈ 8.75 ounces per day
Comments
Yup. Even if 30% fat was called "low fat" at the time, it was nowhere close to being such. Jimmy Moore's "saturated fat deficiency" is a ludicrous absurdity.
This is exactly why the veg*n docs have been complaining about the guidelines for decades. It's partly why those who've followed the USAG/AHA/ADA guidelines have seen their chronic diseases continue to progress even when followed to a T. My own dad is an example. Only alive due to medical interventions, otherwise he would have joined my grandfathers decades ago.
It's also why the nutrient-focused language in the guidelines (versus a real emphasis on naturally low fat whole plant foods) enabled the food industry to capitalize on the "low fat craze" with its myriad of concoctions.
BTW Nina is now on a tear about how an increase in fruit and veggie intake is not curing obesity. Somewhere in the guidelines it needs to emphasize REPLACING junk with fruits and veggies, not just adding them to an already calorically overloaded SAD. And Nina shouldn't be so ideologically blind to such a concept.
I find old cookbooks fascinating BTW. My favorite is a bit newer, from the Culinary Institute, and contains plans for how to build a root cellar!
He was more of a metabolism guy than a food analysis one. I like nutritiondata.com because they have the most extensive listing of fatty acids, amino acids, etc. I am curious about the relatively low fat content of the brains.
I will, however, eat pate. Heck, if I don't "know" what I'm eating, it's OK :-) It's not the organ I'm averse to as much as seeing the whole thing like that.
I know quite a few people who freeze little bits and just shoot them without chewing or anything.
I get what you mean about not "knowing" what it is, but it doesn't always help for me. My parents used to have this noxious tube of goose liver paste (which I guess is a kind of pate) in the house, and they eat slabs of it on white bread with ketchup. There's bile rising in my mouth even as I type those words. Deeply scarred as I am by that, I avoid most pates as well.
He switched to fish and egg whites later on after a stint as s vegetarian, I believe.
Adventures in Macro-Nutrient Land
Posted on April 2, 2003 by Sally Fallon and Mary G. Enig, PhD
"The Italian custom of starting the meal with a big plate of pasta - spaghetti and the like - has the virtue of filling up the diner to the point where he is content to take only a small amount of meat to follow. A bowl of soup as the first course has much the same effect and contains fewer calories, but salad does not do the job so well. We think the place for salad is after the meat course, when it provides a desirable freshening of the mouth and has the advantage that the diner, knowing that salad is to follow, is more content to stop without gorging on meat. When a man can only count on good meat and the prospect of nothing more than a cloying sweet to follow, he will fill up on meat if he can. Make the accompanying items of food as tasty as possible, offer them in generous amount, and the meat consumption will decrease.
"We do not advise removal of meats from the diet but we insist that complete eating satisfaction, including the hunger for 'animal protein', can be obtained with only moderate amounts of meat by intelligent menu planning and more attention to the art of cookery. A diet developed in this way will not only be better in regard to fat and calories; it will also be more interesting in the long run." - Ancel Benjamin Keys and Margaret Benjamin Keys, Eat Well and Stay Well (1959), pp 138-139.
LOL ... I kinda like the Keyses ... but I don't think I would have gone to their home for dinner after reading that!
Thank you for these quotes. Gold!!
Mediterranean Eating Style. Past, Present, Future - and CHD/Stroke Prevention
Jeremiah Stamler, MD
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3684452/
The Mediterranean Diet: A History of Health
http://www.dialogues-cvm.com/document/dcvm49.pdf
The French Paradox: Fact or Fiction?
Fegato Veneziana - Liver and Onions
Veal Scaloppine
Lingua Piccante - Beef Tongue Piquant, Italian
Rabbit A La Minnesota
Rabbit Negaunee (recipe calls for the whole rabbit, including liver and kidneys)
Meat and Vegetable Curry (lamb,beef or pork)
Chinese Style Beef with Green Beans
Potted Calves' Heart
Shish Kebab (lamb)
Sukiyaki (beef)
Veal Chops Pacific
Roast Leg of Lamb
Roll Em Ups (beef)
Veal Shanks in Casserole
Jugged Veal and Tuna
Stuffed Breast of Veal
Veal Kidneys Klepetar
Rock Cornish Game Hen
Sweet and Pungent Chicken Livers
Rolled Fillets of Pike
Fish Fillets in Consomme
Shrimp Jambalaya
Codfish Cakes (cod,potatoes,oil are the only ingredients)
Stuffed Lobster Tails
Norfolk Oysters
Scalloped Oysters
Langoustines Medoc
Bacalo A La Lionesa - Spanish Codfish
Sole
Stuffed Trout Braised in Port Wine
The Keys were also huge fans of whole eggs, for their nutritional value. If you had high cholesterol, they recommended moderating your intake, but if not, they wanted you to enjoy as many eggs as you would like. Recipes include:
Curried Eggs
Finnan Haddie with Eggs
Asparagus and Egg on Toast
Cheese Souffle
Spinach Souffle
Mushroom Souffle
Unfortunately, I don't have access to the 1970's version called "Eat Well and Stay Well the Mediterranean Way". This was the inspiration for the "Mediterranean Diet" and costs a few hundred dollars if you can find a copy. So I don't know how they might have altered their viewpoint. But I would suspect that the book is filled with plenty of traditional recipes using nutritionally dense whole foods.
It's often noted that Ancel Keys lived to 100 years old, which some Paleo types blow off either because A) it's some sort of random accident or B) he didn't photograph very well a few months before his death. But it should also be noted that Margaret Keys, who ate the same food and lived the same lifestyle, "randomly" lived to age 95.
Poor people ate just the pasta.
I bought a tortilla press and make my own tortillas because I can't easily find fresh ones around here.
Maybe best to find a good taqueria and see if you like them before going to the trouble of making them at home. We buy half a steer every year and have friends who give us their unwanted offal, so we're motivated.
I've never had the courage for tacos de sesos ... and I had the chance.
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