Food from nose to tail: everything you need to know

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This article originally appeared in Paleo magazine.

The Paleo diet is often incorrectly characterized as primarily a diet high in meat, not only in the media, but also by some paleo lovers who carefully prepare food around the meat, looking for only the most meager cuts.

Meat is an important part of a paleo-style meal, but the most common mistake that paleo visitors make is take food brute force meatThat is muscle meat.

Always choosing muscular meat, such as steak or chicken breast, paleo followers tend to ignore other pieces of the animal:

  • leather
  • cartilage
  • bone
  • Bone marrow
  • Organ meat
  • Tendons
  • Fatty Meat Cuts
  • Animal fats such as lard and fat

If you don’t eat nose to tail, you can miss important nutrients. This is why nose-to-tail eating is an important part of ancestral health.

Can you eat too much meat on a paleo diet? Yes, when it comes to muscle meat. For a balanced diet rich in nutrients, you need to eat nose to tail, as our ancestors did. Learn how to get other pieces of meat on a plate. #paleo #nutrition #chriskresser

If you want to eat like your ancestors, eat nose to tail

Based on what we know about our ancestors of hunter-gatherers, the initial “Paleo diet” was significantly different from tribe to tribe. Hunter-gatherers received an average of 45 to 65 percent of their energy from animal products (although the estimated ranges stretch from 26 to 99 percent). (1, 2) In this context, however, “animal products” means all parts of the animal, not just lean muscle meat that fills the meat boxes of the grocery store.

Weston A. Price devoted his career to the study of the cuisines of the modern society of hunters and gatherers to find out how their eating habits maintain good health. He found that most tribes do not waste any parts of the animal and that dishes containing bone broths, organ meat and other strange pieces were ubiquitous. His work gave excellent clues about how our ancestors ate. Some examples of their economical methods that persist in the 21st century:

  • Costa Ricans serve pork knuckles cooked with liver, kidneys, ears, cheeks, brain and heart, in addition to fried slices of pork belly called chicharron (3)
  • In Romania, a piftie consisting of pork tails, paws and ears is seasoned with garlic and served in bone gelatin (4)
  • Beef short ribs, one of the fattest pieces of meat, is a common dish in Korea (5)

Eating the nose in the tail provides more complete nutrition than just muscle meat. Cartilage, skin and meat are synergistic when used together. For example, methionine, rich in lean meat, requires B vitamins, choline and glycine from organ meat, connective tissue and bone broth. In the preparation and consumption of bone broth contains collagen, gelatin, glycine and minerals. Converting animal fat into cooking helps the body absorb fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K.

To be clear, I do not suggest that we begin to do everything our ancestors did simply because they did it (I'm not going to heat my house with a fire pit alone) but when it comes to nose-to-tail food, traditional cultures get it right in terms of nutrition,

Tailing your nose helps balance amino acids

Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins, and most have names ending in -ine, such as glycine, methionine, cysteine, or proline. Muscular meat loaded with methionineone of the nine essential amino acids is irreplaceable in this case, which means that our body cannot produce it, and therefore we must get it from the diet. Glycine and proline, on the other hand, are abundant in connective tissue and bone broth. Although glycine and proline are technically not essential amino acids, our body can only produce them to a certain extent. (6, 7) We also need dietary sources. And you will not get much glycine or proline in lean muscle meat.

When methionine intake is not balanced with glycine, this can increase homocysteine ​​levels, which are a serious risk factor for serious health problems, including heart disease. (8) High homocysteine ​​also increases the need for vitamin B6, vitamin B12, folate, betaine, and choline, which recycle homocysteine ​​and are found in greater abundance in organ meat than in muscle meat.

In addition to balancing methionine levels, glycine also has health benefits, including improvements in:

  • Sleep
  • detoxification
  • digestion
  • Bowel health
  • Wound treatment
  • Blood sugar
  • And more

Why you should start with bone broth

If you eat mostly lean and organ meats, skin and tendons sound too adventurous, start your journey from nose to tail with a bone broth that is rich in both nutrients and history.

Soup consumption dates from at least 20,000 years. (9) I bet your grandmother or great-grandmother saved the chicken carcass (probably from pasture, organic chicken) for making the broth. This type of bone broth is very far from the packaged chicken broth product that you will find in most grocery stores.

Bone Broth – A Nourishing Gold Minecontaining 17 amino acids (including glycine on top) and more than a dozen vitamins and minerals. Bone broth is also a rich source of collagen, which makes up 30 percent of the protein in your body. Collagen is the building material for connective tissues such as cartilage, ligaments, tendons, bones, and skin. When boiled, it breaks down into gelatin and contains glutamine, proline, hydroxyproline and glycine.

The idea of ​​sipping chicken soup to soothe a cold probably arose from the enormous healing potential of the compounds found in bone broth. The benefits of bone broth are from healthy skin, bones, and joints to the brain, intestines, and cardiovascular diseases. (10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)

The best? You can do it yourself

It takes quite a bit of culinary skill to make bone broth. Here is the basic recipe: Place the carcass of the chicken — preferably organic and grazing — or cartilage, such as the ankle, shoulder, and other joints from the cow with grass, ready grass, in a large pot. Add roughly chopped vegetables, such as carrots, celery and onions, enough water to cover it for a few inches, a splash of vinegar to help extract minerals, as well as herbs and spices (try marjoram, thyme and rosemary), as well as salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a boil and cook most of the day. Strain well, season to taste and enjoy half to one cup every day.

If you don’t have access to good quality bones or you don’t have enough time, you can buy several high quality bone broths. My current preferred brand is Kettle & Fire.

Next Up: Organ Meat

After mastering the bone broth, it's time to try the “extra pieces”. Some organ meats have a nutritious profile similar to muscle meat, such as the heart and tongue, while others are nutritious goldfields such as the liver. Aim for at least three ounces of organ meat per week.

When saturated fats and cholesterol were demonized, the liver lost popularity, which is extremely unfortunate because it is one of the most nutritious foods of all. There is a reason that is sometimes called "multivitamins of nature."

Beef liver has about 17 times more vitamin B12 per serving than ground beef and older 500 times more retinolor preformed vitamin A. (21) A common misconception is that carrots and other vegetables contain a lot of vitamin A, but in fact they contain beta-carotene, a precursor of vitamin A, from which very little is converted to vitamin A. in the body. The liver is also rich in vitamin B6, folate, choline, iron, zinc and more.

I admit, the liver is an "acquired taste." This is not my favorite food, but I have found ways to incorporate it into my diet. Try to grind and mix it with ground beef for savory tacos in a salad or add it to meatballs. And the liver is not “full of toxins,” as some may tell you by mistake. The liver filters toxins; he does not store them.

The heart and tongue are closest to muscle meat, and it takes a long, slow cooking time to become soft. The heart is especially rich in CoQ10, a nutrient often found in people with chronic illnesses.

Talk with sellers at the local farmers' market about kidneys, fish heads, ham, scar, and more. Many sustainable farms offer stocks for animals where several people can share cuts from a whole cow, making grassy, ​​grass-prepared beef more affordable. When you order a quarter or half of a cow, find out about all the weird bits – sometimes they add bones, language, and much more for free!

Don't forget about fish

Eating nose to tail should not exclude fish. Aim for 12 ounces of oily cold water fish per week to get a lot of DHA and EPA that have been linked to the heart, joints, and brain. Include fish stock in Thai food. Soft edible fish canned foods are a terrific source of calcium, which many Paleo followers are trying to get enough.

Be adventurous!

If nose-to-tail food is not in your comfort zone, it's time to change that! Be adventurous. Nose to tail is the wise way that our ancestors of hunter-gatherers ate, and it provides more complete nutrition than just eating meat musk. In the same way that eating a variety of colorful vegetables helps balance vitamins and other trace elements, eating nose to tail balances amino acids while providing abundant vitamins and minerals,