Ages ago, before civilization as we know it, humans lived off the bounty of the land.  This is a poetic way of saying that we were predominately scavengers.  Polite society has renamed this lifestyle as hunter-gatherers, but truth be told very little hunting was actually going on.  In this process of eating anything you could find, the very earliest form of food preservation was discovered - drying.

Fruits that did not fall to the ground and rot would sit on the tree or bush and simply dry up.  Today we can relate to that in the form of things like raisins.  Last fall I would go out to the grape vines in my backyard and pick bunches of sweet raisins off the vines because I had not eaten the grapes earlier in the season.

Sometimes if the gatherers were lucky they would come across a half eaten kill left by some larger predator days or weeks before.  Since the highest nutrition is in the organs, these would be eaten first, leaving the muscle portions for last.  If the animal did not come back for the rest of its kill, the remaining meat would end up drying on the bones and skin forming the earliest jerky.  A gatherers motto is "waste not want not" so of course they ate whatever they found.  But they discovered that this dried meat would keep and not spoil rapidly.  This was critical, as saving food for lean times was often the difference between survival and death.
   
Sweet and starchy foods would be eaten immediately as the body has the ability to convert these foods to fat and store it on the body - the safest of most portable method of saving food for a lean time.  But protein foods do not work that way.  The body has no way of storing excess protein we consume for later use in repairing muscles and organs.  We need to eat protein on a fairly regular basis.  If we gorge on protein, we just turn what we can't use today into more fat.  Unfortunately we can make protein from stored fat.  We have to get it from our diet.  So having a way to store protein foods until a later time was a huge survival advantage.

As our scavengers developed better weapons and learned to work together in groups, their hunting skills increased and they were able to bring down more large game.  Like the large predators, they would eat the soft organs first and cut up the muscle meat for later consumption.  They learned to drape it on sticks and let it dry making the first stored food intentionally.  This was thousands of years before any agriculture or the cultivation of grains.  Once grains hit the scene they became the storage food of choice.  By this time pottery was commonly made and grain stored nicely in pots for years.

But before the age of grains, dried meat was the storage food of choice along with any nuts they could find.  To this day jerky is a popular snack food, but unfortunately food laws have essentially required that all commercial jerky be adulterated with massive amounts of salt and preservatives like sodium nitrate and nitrite.  I joke when I say I sometimes wonder how the human race survived for the last 100,000 years without the FDA.

There is actually concern for food safety today that was not a concern in past centuries.  Modern animal raising practices use so many antibiotics as growth enhancers that pathogenic food born bacteria are everywhere.  Just as with us humans, the bacteria are becoming immune to the antibiotics.  The raising of animals in high-density industrial feed lots guarantees rampant bacterial spread between animals.  In a natural environment, like a heard of animals, those that get sick are left to the end of the herd where they are picked off by predators.  This keeps the herd bacteria free.

Plus our lifestyle of excessive grain consumption and insufficient exercise has reduced our hydrochloric acid production in our stomachs.  We need this to sterilize our food as well as digest proteins.  This leaves us more susceptible to food born pathogens.  Simply put, our digestions' are not as strong as our ancestors' and we are more sensitive to bacteria in food than they were.

So although raw meat is much more nutritious than cooked meat, I would be very hesitant to eat any raw meat that I had not raised myself or knew just how the animal was raised to be sure it is healthy.  Killing bacteria in meat requires that the meat be heated above 150 degrees for at least 10 minutes.  Some sources I have read say that 130 degrees is also enough to kill bacteria if the meat is kept at that temperature for several hours.  This becomes relevant when doing slow cooking.

When I make jerky I use a combination of methods to keep the meat sterile while at the same time not using the commercial processes of huge amounts of salt, nitrates, and nitrites.  Although salt is very good at killing bacteria, sugar does just as well.  That is why honey never goes bad and white sugar never gets moldy.  Certain sugar alcohols like xylitol and erythritol are even better at killing bacteria.  Anything that makes the meat more acidic, such as vinegar or ascorbic acid (vitamin C), will also kill bacteria.  I use erythritol and ascorbic acid mixed into the meat when I make jerky.

Last weekend I made three batches of jerky: One batch that was low sodium teriyaki flavored, one that was mixed with fresh blueberries, and one that was mixed with dried mango, blueberries, and fish sauce.  For meat, my first two batches were made from ground bison and the last batch was made from organic grass fed beef.  The meat needs to be very lean, as the heat of the dehydrator will melt the fat which will end up in a big puddle at the bottom of the dehydrator.

Years ago I would make jerky the old fashioned way by slicing lean meat and then marinating it.  Now I find it much easier to use ground meat mixed with flavors and put into a jerky "gun". 
Jerky Gun available here

With my trays, each jerky strip has about 7 grams of protein, so it does not take many strips to meet my days need for protein.  I store the strips in Ziplock bags in the refrigerator to further retard any spoilage; although I have left it for months on the pantry shelf with no problem.

Jerky makes a great on-the-go snack for both kids and adults.  Even with the added fruit, it has almost no carbs.  Flavors are as varied as your imagination can dream up.  I suggest you use good grass fed meats so you don't get a bunch of inflammatory omega 6 oils in your jerky.  If you don't own a dehydrator I highly recommend getting one.
Dehydrator available here
This is the one that I have.  It is not very expensive or fancy, but it does a nice job.  I use it to make not only jerky, but mostly to dry slices of Dr Dave bread into crackers.  I also like to make salsa leather which is great added to scrambled eggs.

My recipe for the mango-blueberry-fish sauce jerky:
2 1/2 pounds grass fed ground beef 93%lean
½ cup fresh blueberries
1 /2 cup dried mango
11/2 Tbs Fish sauce
11/2 tsp powdered vitamin C
¼ tsp black pepper
½ cup Dr Dave Double Sugar
a pinch of ground cloves and mace

All the ingredients, except the meat, are blended in a blender until smooth and then poured over the meat in a large bowl.  Using gloved hands I hand mix everything together evenly then "load" the jerky gun and squirt out the meat in strips onto the dryer trays.  Load the trays into the dryer and turn it on at the meat setting.
That's it.  Harvest the jerky about 12 hours later.  The length of time needed will depend on how humid the air is that day.  The strips should still be somewhat soft but hold together well.  They will get stiffer once they cool.  Finally, store in Ziplock bags in the refrigerator.


Take care,

David

Tuesdays and Fridays

Can fish oil help preserve brain cells?

 

In comparing the brains on MRI of women over the course of 8 years it was found that those who ate more Omega 3 fish oils either in oily fish or supplements had larger brain volumes equivalent to a couple years more youth.  Especially increased was the portion of the brain responsible for memory.

 

Fish Oils

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Pee eating bamboo - in public

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Our address is  9725 Fair Oaks Blvd.

Finding the new location is very easy.  Coming from highway 50 up Sunrise Blvd, you turn left and go up a block.  We are on the right hand side - the building just past the Subway Sandwich shop.  If you are coming down Sunrise from the Mall area then just turn right on Fair Oaks Blvd and up a block on the right.

 

If you are coming from the Roseville area you could come down Sunrise Blvd, but that is a long trek.  It is probably shorter time wise to come down Auburn Blvd - San Juan Ave like you have been for the Sunset office, but instead of turning left at Sunset, keep going straight 3 more lights to Fair Oaks Blvd and turn left.  Go down 2 lights to New York Ave, go through the intersection, and immediately turn into the turn lane once the center divider ends.  We are on the left.

 

About Dr. DeLapp

Dr. DeLapp has been a philosopher, non-force Chiropractor, medical intuitive, and health innovator for over 30 years.  He began experimenting with  medical intuition in 1972 while studying physics at UC Davis.  In addition to physics he designed and completed an individual major in the philosophy and psychology of education.  Shortly after he choose to pursue a career in the only truly health oriented profession available at that time, Chiropractic.  He graduated with honors in 1981 with his doctorate and opened a private practice. 
Since that time he has continued his research into the effects of consciousness and learning on health. 
He developed the Biomagnetic Retraining system for correcting movement abnormalities. 
Since 1991 he has focused on developing a powerful system for uncovering and assisting the mind-body connection in health and personal growth.  The in-depth coaching, guided by the subconscious direction from the body, is called Heartflow and the simpler mind-body retraining for health and unfoldment he has named Gracework.  Both are available at Fair Oaks Health.

Dr David DeLapp DC
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