Kids and raw meat?

[craft_media_hero]

Those with a primal bent, what do you think about this?

My 2yo ds likes to help me cook and always wants to taste raw beef--he doesn't really do this with any other meat. He sometimes wants to full on EAT it raw. It is pastured, lical meat from a clean, inspected facility, flash frozen and thawed in the fridge.

He really got crazy over eating some rawvliver when I was making pate'. He wanted to eat it by the spoonful.

My thoughts are that humans have probably been eating raw meat for ages and ages and I know the meat we get is pretty much as "clean" as it comes, so I haven't stopped him from it because who needs an unecessary power meltdown with a tot especially while making dinner?

It has only happened a few times, but I was curious if other parents had seen this or had feedback. He doesn't have pica or anything, this is the only "unusual" eating habit I've noticed with him.

My 9yo dd eats raw sushi, too.

Thoughts?

[spughy]

My kid loves raw beef too.  When I was her age, I did as well.  It's just yummy, is all.  Nothing wrong with it. 
 

[savithny]

Originally Posted by craft_media_hero 

Those with a primal bent, what do you think about this?
My 2yo ds likes to help me cook and always wants to taste raw beef--he doesn't really do this with any other meat. He sometimes wants to full on EAT it raw. It is pastured, lical meat from a clean, inspected facility, flash frozen and thawed in the fridge.
He really got crazy over eating some rawvliver when I was making pate'. He wanted to eat it by the spoonful.
My thoughts are that humans have probably been eating raw meat for ages and ages and I know the meat we get is pretty much as "clean" as it comes, so I haven't stopped him from it because who needs an unecessary power meltdown with a tot especially while making dinner?
It has only happened a few times, but I was curious if other parents had seen this or had feedback. He doesn't have pica or anything, this is the only "unusual" eating habit I've noticed with him.
My 9yo dd eats raw sushi, too.
Thoughts?

As far as raw meat theory, read "Catching Fire" by Richard Wrangham, on how long we've been cooking (so long that we have evolved along with the concept of cooking) and the benefits of cooking to the human diet (essentially, he argues convincingly that cooking was a major factor that allowed us to become fully human).  

[spughy]

Originally Posted by savithny 

As far as raw meat theory, read "Catching Fire" by Richard Wrangham, on how long we've been cooking (so long that we have evolved along with the concept of cooking) and the benefits of cooking to the human diet (essentially, he argues convincingly that cooking was a major factor that allowed us to become fully human).  

Oh, sure - but that doesn't mean that raw meat is HARMFUL.  Or not tasty.

[welsleyjames]

Does Will it be get digested for the kids.

[HouseofPeace]

beef and liver (from a local biodynamic farm) are the safest raw meats.  I am not uptight about the raw beef if the kids want some, and encourage the raw liver (the babies love it, and i take it raw and frozen for pregnancy and iron and trace minerals, since i don't love liver).  beef tartar (raw egg and beef), carpaccio (frozen, then thinly sliced raw beef), and raw liver are all things that are traditionally eaten in various cultures, and the first 2 i've seen served in restaurants, so that gives me peace with those.

i think that curiosity in foods and flavors and textures should be encouraged.  i try and discourage my kids from eating every green plant outside, but that said, also encourage and teach them which ones they can eat.  later they will make stronger decisions based on these early experiences, but i see no reason to discourage them from eating healthy raw foods that may not be culturally normal in our world (but fruit-loops, chocolate milk, and who-knows-what-those-things-really-are-in-the-kiddie-package are!)

[1love4ever]

I've wondered the same thing- the only thing that stops me from feeding my kids raw meat is  because I read about how when the meat is processed in a facility that processes other meat (CAFO animals), that the extreme amount of bacteria, lots of it antibiotic resistant strains, are still there and transfer onto the "clean" meat.  The article said there was little difference in bacteria found on the meat between the CAFO and grass finished.  Now if I could only find that article.... I'm thinking it was a Mercola article, I'm not positive tho....

[HouseofPeace]

that does make sense in the slaughtering.  that said, ground beef would be the most dangerous, while a whole liver, or large pieces of beef would have less area exposed to bacteria making it safer.  you could even sear or marinate the meat to kill off bacteria w/ an acid medium.  

[craft_media_hero]

So glad to see responses to this thread! He's done it once more since I posted.

Come to think of it, it's pretty much whenever I'm prepping it from a marinade which always has some acid in it.

I've enjoyed carpaccio myself but couldn't handle the texture to do tartar! My dd icks out when ds eats raw beef, but I remind her to simmer down because I don't think it's necessarily something we need to discourage, and after all, she's the sushi lover

[provocativa]

My eldest has always loved it.  She has even snuck factory-farmed raw meat, during those times when we were too poor for grass-fed.  I have explained the difference to her in eating the grass-fed, safely processed meat we get, and a factory-farmed source, and she understands.

[MyLilPwny]

I personally don't see a problem with feeding a kid fresh raw beef from healthy cows, but CPS doesn't like it, i can tell you that i've had people who don't really know me & who aren't around me call CPS on me (with false accusations of course) and the first time CPS did question me if I fed my child raw meat. They view it as dangerous, obviously and might take your kid away for it. Its a good thing I never fed my kid raw meat, I can say that much.

[mambera]

I'd put this in the 'small chance of something bad happening but not worth the risk' category.  Why does he need to eat raw meat?  I understand he *likes* it, but is it worth it if he ends up with a tapeworm or E.coli O157:H7?

[craft_media_hero]

Whoa, MyLilPwny! That's crazy!


Why? Coz he helps me cook and shoves it into his mouth, and I was wondering what other moms' feedback was. Weighing out to myself is it worth the power struggle/meltdown to make him stop when he's enjoying eating it and helping me cook and won't understand why I'm prohibiting it. Also wondering what the tf crowd's take might be on that versus the more mainstream perspective.

I don't actually sit him down and feed him a plate of raw meat he just will slip little bits in while we're cooking and it's not a frequent occurence. He doesnt HAVE to eat raw meat, obviously, just was curious as to where that would rate on a tf/primal parents scale of normalcy/safety

[mambera]

Just saying that personally I would distract or, if necessary, suffer the power struggle for that particular issue.  Certainly CAFO meat is more likely to be contaminated than non-CAFO meat but that doesn't mean non-CAFO meat is risk-free.  Pretty much any slaughtered meat is going to have some degree of contamination from the normal flora of the animal.

As far as the 'traditional cultures eat it!' argument, well, human brains are a traditional food in Papua New Guinea but they still give you kuru yanno? 

[spughy]

There's no such thing as truly risk-free - or if a food IS risk-free, it's probably also goodness-free, too. Like rice crackers.  Completely inoffensive, yes, but hardly going to give you anything your body really needs.  All the good stuff - fresh vegetables, meat, eggs, fish, fruit, nuts - all of it carries a risk unless you cook every bit of yum and nutrients out of it. 

But really, you run way bigger risks sticking your kids in a car or letting them go swimming than you do letting them snitch raw meat off the cutting board.  Besides, small exposures to harmful pathogens are probably useful.