Pemmican

Pemmican

Pemmican may be one of the world’s perfect foods. It is only pure protein, fat, and carbohydrate . . .in perfect ratio. It gives the body the densest nutritional value in a simple, hand-feeding manner. Its high energy ingredients keeps one from being hungry yet feeds the body everything it needs. It is very simple, easy to carry, easy to eat, and tastes awesome.

We are all looking for the perfect food to eat, which is delicious, nutritious, satisfying, easy, and quick on the go. Let’s face it, the reason why “fast food” is so popular is because we can eat it at any time, and it allows us to get on with our busy schedules. But what if there was a healthy alternative which takes no longer to prepare than an average dinner, is actually rather fun, last without  refrigeration, and can take up to 2 weeks to eat, staying fresh the whole while?

Pemmican is a mixture of dried meat and suet which is eaten unheated, and which keeps for years under reasonable conditions.  The first recorded use of pemmican was by North American tribes (particularly the Assiniboin of Dakota and the sub-arctic peoples), by whom it had been used for generations.  It became more widely known in the 19th and early 20th centuries as a staple for polar explorers.  Although it is unlikely that pemmican has been made for long enough to have impacted on nutritional aspects of human evolution, it happens that pemmican recreates what was probably a dietary staple for one, two or three million years.As a fan of history, I’ve always known about pemmican. Native American peoples carried it for traveling on their hunts, I’ve always known that these Native Americans are quite healthy, active, and relatively disease-free cultures, when not eating processed foods of today.I was re-introduced to pemmican by Ray Audette, author of Neanderthin, and Jon Benson, nutritionist and fan of paleolithic (“cave-man”) eating. The theories of Paleolithic diet are simple: our bodies work better on foods we were meant to have: which is anything hunted, picked, or gathered. For a very basic overview of paleolithic nutrition, visit All Your Strength  or also click this Paleolithic explanation.
Pemmican article and recipe from Evfit, “Evolutionary Fitness” When meeting Ray personally, he gave me some of his own home-made pemmican to try. He and thousands of people, hundreds of thousands, throughout time, swear by its energy and even its taste. I am giving you Ray’s recipe as well as my own details.Note: do not be afraid that you are eating fat. Fat is needed by your body, period, and the ‘whole fat versus non-fat’ argument is becoming very heated. Trust me, you will stay slim longer on eating sensibly with ‘natural’ healthy fats, than by eating processed foods which say “non-fat” but give you additional chemicals, fake fats, and harmful trans-fats.

Ingredients:
Meat, 2-6 lbs
Suet (animal fat) – human-consumption-grade. Make sure to ask, or they will give you bird-feed grade. Get a real good hank.
Dried cherries, about 1 cup (also cranberries and blueberries)

Locate meat from a butcher, meat shop, or even grocery store. Ray Audette suggests eye of round of beef. I have used rump, but this quality varies. Another recipe I saw was obviously from Australia – it suggested kangaroo. This batch which is pictured actually has two different cuts of meet – rump, and angus steak. Use about 2-3 lbs for your first batch, so you get the feel of how to do everything.

Cut into very thin slices, because you are going to want it flat and thin for drying.

Place meat pieces on a cookie rack, over tinfoil, on a lipped-cookie tray. This way, the fat will drip away from the meat.

Place in a low-temperature oven (200 degrees F) for 6-12 hrs, depending on the meat. Crack the oven door open to allow air to circulate.

The meat will dehydrate and cook. Keep watching the meat as much as possible – do not allow to become too charcoaled, as I have have done in the past. Let it cook but not ‘charcoal’. Each piece will reduce in size.

After the meat cooks, remove it from the oven and place several pieces in a blender. Add a small handful of dried cherries . . and I have also added dried cranberries and dried blueberries.
The whole thing will pulverize into a stringy powder. . . you now have pulverized jerky with bits of dried fruit in it.
Get your fat ready. You may want to purchase solid suet (animal fat) from a butcher . . . I have also used bacon fat.
Cook the fat over VERY low heat . . if you have a gas stove, consider using a flame diffuser to further reduce the flame. make sure it is melted but do not burn the liquid fat!
Pour the liquid fat over the dry meat mixture. This will soak into the meat, but you want a very slightly moist material, not wet or runny, or too dry. Stir the drier meat into the wetter meat, so everything is fully coated and the fat has soaked into to everything.
Put everything into the fridge, covered, to allow the fat to congeal into the meat . . . and you are ready to eat!
This pemmican can be easily transported in small containers. I have kept it outside the refrigerator for many days without problems. The fat or meat cannot go bad, but you may just eat it all up so fast! I eat this ALL the time, when I cannot make a full [kitchen-cooked] meal or I am a bit hungry for snacking. A good sized pinch is about 200-300 calories, which is the perfect snacking caloric amount . . . the sugar in the fruit cannot spike your blood sugar because the fat and protein are balancing the blood sugar and providing the fully-rounded nutrition your body needs.