sausages and traditional German foods

[EarthyMamaofDaisy]

So I've been reading NT a little more thoroughly and discovered that pork isn't exactly TF. The problem is that the only meats I like are the bad ones - like ham, salami, deli meats and sausages. I mean I really really love sausages. I figured a compromise would be for me to the the ones from the health food store that are humanely produced. Right not I'm aiming to be at least 50% TF during my time of transition. Anyway, I've also given though to food combining and I figured if I stuck with the food of just one traditional culture and ate authentic meals then I would be sure to have complete meals with all of the vitamins, minerals, etc. that I need. Like I had read in NT that if you do eat a sausage you should have a pickle with it to offset the uric acid. So I thought I would try to eat traditional German meals and they do eat a lot of sausages. I'm not really sure what's in the sausages, whether pork or beef or what. I'm wondering if anyone knows more info about that. Like maybe if there is a mail order place I could get TF German sausages. Or is sausage just a product of the modern German diet? Also I just ate sauerkraut for the first time and the only way I could get it down was to genty heat it on the stove in a frying pan with the sausage I ate for lunch. Did I kill off all the good enzymes when I did that? Also, does anyone know of a good TF German cookbook?
Sorry if this is rambly but I'm soo tired and having trouble articulating!

[RachelSerena]

My husband is from austria, and I've found that most german foods are not TF as a rule.

I don't know much about the uric acid you talking about, but I think eating fermented foods with your meat will help the digestion of them.

I like to eat raw yogurt when I eat a food that is hard to digest, it helps.

As for sauerkraut, I'd say yes, that heating it will kill off valuable enzymes. It would be less if you use a double boiler method to heat the kraut, that way you have better control of the heat source and can just warm the kraut instead of it getting hot from the pan.

[JElaineB]

Pork can be a traditional food. It was not covered much in NT because Sally Fallon felt she should leave it out because Mary Enig is Jewish. There are more references to pork in Eat Fat, Lose Fat, which they also co-authored. I eat a good amount pork, still looking for a source of pastured, but I do buy Niman Ranch or Applegate Farms products which seem to be decent widely avaialble brands. I also buy Beeler which I think is more local to where I live. The key I think is to look for nitrate/nitrite-free. I am sure not every product you like can be made that way, but it is easy enough to find nitrate-free ham, for example. And fresh sausages (rather than cured) generally do not contain any nitrates. Some types of cured pork (such as prosciutto) do not contain any preservatives except salt -though that is obviously an Italian product rather than German. You can also learn to make your own sausages that only contain what you want and not what you don't, though some types of cured sausages cannot be made without the bad stuff of course.

[Leilalu]

I think nitrate free sausages, and sausages from good sources are fine, actually.

And just about every sulture had a food dish where they mixed a meat with something fermented. And I know the german side of me has been really craving sausages, and sauerkraut lately.

[tabitha]

there is nothing wrong with pork!

even real salami is healthy food. it is just incredibly hard to find. when we lived in california we could get very healthy cured meats, not so much here. but making one's own sausage is pretty easy unless you want cured sausage- it is doable, but not easy or so i have read.

i doubt that german food is just 'not tf'. i am sure that modern foods prepared all over the industrialized world are prepared more cheaply and less healthfully than they could be. i havent looked into german culinary tradition, but in my mind the principles that we refer to as "TF' on this board spring from culinary tradition, not the other way around. no one invented traditional food preparation, and i cringe at the idea of rules a la sally fallon or anyone else.

[Leilalu]

Originally Posted by tabitha

there is nothing wrong with pork!

even real salami is healthy food. it is just incredibly hard to find. when we lived in california we could get very healthy cured meats, not so much here. but making one's own sausage is pretty easy unless you want cured sausage- it is doable, but not easy or so i have read.

i doubt that german food is just 'not tf'. i am sure that modern foods prepared all over the industrialized world are prepared more cheaply and less healthfully than they could be. i havent looked into german culinary tradition, but in my mind the principles that we refer to as "TF' on this board spring from culinary tradition, not the other way around. no one invented traditional food preparation, and i cringe at the idea of rules a la sally fallon or anyone else.

I agree.

As for the sausage bit, I buy as healthy as I can. I simply cannot *make* everything myself!

As for traditional German food- I am sure Germans were eating something healthy at one time. I mean, processed foods just weren't around back in the day.

What comes to my mind would be home brewed ales, meats, and fermented veggies, breads- among other things.

[tanyalynn]

Consider liverwurst. Can it get more TF than liver (presuming you don't add weird preservatives and such)? Not sure where to get good quality liverwurst though--I could probably find it here, since Central TX was settled by a lot of immigrants from Germany, but it seems like it may be hit-or-miss regionally.

I think shooting for 50% is great. At the moment (in the middle of a move) I can only wish we'd hit 50%. Good luck!