People on the caveman diet eat their meat uncooked. Some think they're 'a little off.'
Mario Fiorucci, proprietor of the Healthy Butcher in Toronto, is talking about some of his regular customers: "They come in several times a week and everything they buy they eat raw." That includes organic chicken, game meats like elk and bison, and organs. Liver, he adds, is a favourite -- at the Healthy Butcher they've blended it raw to create a "liver shake." One of Fiorucci's customers will even "grab some ground meat, open the bag and start popping it like potato chips on the way to the cash."
There may be a new diet born every day, but it's not every day that a diet fad takes its cues from the paleolithic era. Alternatively known as the Stone Age diet, the caveman diet, the primal diet or the hunter-gatherer diet, the paleolithic diet looks back -- waaay back -- for its eating cues.
What's on the menu? The rules are simple: eat only what was available to early hunter-gatherers, meaning foods that are edible raw. So on the "yes" side: meats (including organs), fowl, fish, vegetables (excluding potatoes and sweet potatoes), berries, and nuts (but not peanuts -- a legume). On the "no" side: grains in all forms, beans, sugar, salt and dairy products (unless raw). Basically, if the food can be sourced with bare hands (or rudimentary tools) and ingested without cooking or processing -- then bon appétit! "Surprisingly," says Fiorucci, "the raw meat eaters actually look quite robust."
Rasha (who asked that her last name be withheld) is a 32-year-old private fitness coach in Toronto who started on her paleolithic path following a trip to India after university. "Within two weeks I started getting this intestinal thing, then was on antibiotics for months. That cleared out all of my bad bacteria, but also took the good with it." For the next 10 years she suffered from debilitating intestinal problems, eating only easily digestible foods, all of which, she says, would nonetheless putrefy in her system. And then she discovered the teachings of Aajonus Vonderplanitz, the creator of the primal diet. Within a couple of days of being on it, "I had my first real bowel movement in a decade."
She's been eating raw for five years now. "A good day is a pound of stewing meat, the toughest cut from the shoulder. Tougher meat grows tougher muscle." Normally she'll eat a pound of meat a day, uncooked and unadorned, but sometimes throws together a recipe, like dressing her organic beef with raw cream and scallions, or raw honey and cream. Reaction from family and friends has been vocal: "One day I was eating raw chicken livers out of a jar, and a couple of my friends just got up from the table and left."
Hoven Farms in Alberta raises and processes certified organic Alberta beef, which they sell fresh and frozen at the Calgary Farmers' Market, as well as area organic food stores. "Many of the people who are on this raw meat diet," says Tim Hoven, "try not to promote it that much because people think they're a little off." One of Hoven's customers "buys a pound or two, then portions it out and freezes it, and thaws as needed. Personally, I'm not comfortable with it. A rare steak is about as raw as I like to go."
The first thing Toronto dietician and nutritionist Fran Berkoff can see wrong with the diet "is the chance that you could get really sick. We shouldn't drink unpasteurized milk in terms of bacteria, and we shouldn't be eating raw chicken or raw eggs because of salmonella. Cooking gets rid of that. Historically maybe we didn't have to, but now there's a real safety issue." Berkoff does concede that there is something about following a very restrictive pattern of eating that can be good for some people, no matter what it is. "They're focused and motivated and careful about what they eat," she says. "The thought of raw liver just strikes me as incredibly gross. But if you're eating it, at least you're getting lots of iron and tons of protein." Still, "it's one thing to be focused and eating fruits and vegetables and nuts, but another to be eating raw meat, which is why I would totally be against this diet. Sure, people will say, well, show me a chicken that has salmonella. But all you need is one to make you really sick."
Rasha, who routinely eats raw chicken breast, slicing it sashimi style, says she's never felt better. She has a message for naysayers: "I don't say anything to you about eating pasta with béchamel sauce, and then having a cigarette afterwards on the sidewalk. I think that's gross, but I don't say anything."
By Amy Rosen, Maclean's
Mario Fiorucci, proprietor of the Healthy Butcher in Toronto, is talking about some of his regular customers: "They come in several times a week and everything they buy they eat raw." That includes organic chicken, game meats like elk and bison, and organs. Liver, he adds, is a favourite -- at the Healthy Butcher they've blended it raw to create a "liver shake." One of Fiorucci's customers will even "grab some ground meat, open the bag and start popping it like potato chips on the way to the cash."
There may be a new diet born every day, but it's not every day that a diet fad takes its cues from the paleolithic era. Alternatively known as the Stone Age diet, the caveman diet, the primal diet or the hunter-gatherer diet, the paleolithic diet looks back -- waaay back -- for its eating cues.
What's on the menu? The rules are simple: eat only what was available to early hunter-gatherers, meaning foods that are edible raw. So on the "yes" side: meats (including organs), fowl, fish, vegetables (excluding potatoes and sweet potatoes), berries, and nuts (but not peanuts -- a legume). On the "no" side: grains in all forms, beans, sugar, salt and dairy products (unless raw). Basically, if the food can be sourced with bare hands (or rudimentary tools) and ingested without cooking or processing -- then bon appétit! "Surprisingly," says Fiorucci, "the raw meat eaters actually look quite robust."
Rasha (who asked that her last name be withheld) is a 32-year-old private fitness coach in Toronto who started on her paleolithic path following a trip to India after university. "Within two weeks I started getting this intestinal thing, then was on antibiotics for months. That cleared out all of my bad bacteria, but also took the good with it." For the next 10 years she suffered from debilitating intestinal problems, eating only easily digestible foods, all of which, she says, would nonetheless putrefy in her system. And then she discovered the teachings of Aajonus Vonderplanitz, the creator of the primal diet. Within a couple of days of being on it, "I had my first real bowel movement in a decade."
She's been eating raw for five years now. "A good day is a pound of stewing meat, the toughest cut from the shoulder. Tougher meat grows tougher muscle." Normally she'll eat a pound of meat a day, uncooked and unadorned, but sometimes throws together a recipe, like dressing her organic beef with raw cream and scallions, or raw honey and cream. Reaction from family and friends has been vocal: "One day I was eating raw chicken livers out of a jar, and a couple of my friends just got up from the table and left."
Hoven Farms in Alberta raises and processes certified organic Alberta beef, which they sell fresh and frozen at the Calgary Farmers' Market, as well as area organic food stores. "Many of the people who are on this raw meat diet," says Tim Hoven, "try not to promote it that much because people think they're a little off." One of Hoven's customers "buys a pound or two, then portions it out and freezes it, and thaws as needed. Personally, I'm not comfortable with it. A rare steak is about as raw as I like to go."
The first thing Toronto dietician and nutritionist Fran Berkoff can see wrong with the diet "is the chance that you could get really sick. We shouldn't drink unpasteurized milk in terms of bacteria, and we shouldn't be eating raw chicken or raw eggs because of salmonella. Cooking gets rid of that. Historically maybe we didn't have to, but now there's a real safety issue." Berkoff does concede that there is something about following a very restrictive pattern of eating that can be good for some people, no matter what it is. "They're focused and motivated and careful about what they eat," she says. "The thought of raw liver just strikes me as incredibly gross. But if you're eating it, at least you're getting lots of iron and tons of protein." Still, "it's one thing to be focused and eating fruits and vegetables and nuts, but another to be eating raw meat, which is why I would totally be against this diet. Sure, people will say, well, show me a chicken that has salmonella. But all you need is one to make you really sick."
Rasha, who routinely eats raw chicken breast, slicing it sashimi style, says she's never felt better. She has a message for naysayers: "I don't say anything to you about eating pasta with béchamel sauce, and then having a cigarette afterwards on the sidewalk. I think that's gross, but I don't say anything."
By Amy Rosen, Maclean's
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