Peat 'n Meat

narouz

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I've been wondering about this, rather vaguely, lately,
so I thought I'd start a thread to try to explore it.

What does Peat say about the place of meat in a healthy diet?

For starters, and very basically:
does Peat consider healthy, quality, ruminant muscle meat to be high-quality protein?
I wouldn't have said so,
but it seems to me that I came across something of his recently where he said it was.
Seems like he then went on to qualify, perhaps,
that while it was high quality protein
that it posed other problems for humans--like phosphate to calcium imbalance.

I may be wrong about him saying ruminant meat is high-quality protein.
Maybe I dreamed it. :lol: :oops:

Peat thinks of muscle meats as a "refined food."
That is, humans used to eat the entire animal, which was much more healthy.
Selecting out muscle meats to eat amounts to an unhealthy kind of "refining."

I've thought that Peat would likely say that muscle meat eating is not necessary for health.
I believe he would say that it would be hard to construct a healthy diet without animal foods
like milk and liver.
But it seems to me he would not say the eating of muscle meats is necessary.
One does wonder why Peat, then, would seem to eat muscle meat somewhat regularly.
That may be explained easily by thinking that he eats meats simply because he enjoys or craves them--
not strictly for health reasons.
On the other hand, I've wondered whether muscle meats--despite the drawbacks Peat notes,
like phosphate:calcium imbalance and poor amino profile--
I've wondered whether Peat would say there are off-setting benefits:
certain healthy nutrients...?

As I mentioned above, Peat does say that the stressful effects of muscle-meat consumption
can be mitigated (some? entirely?) by consuming large amounts of gelatin at the same time.
If gelatin does thoroughly ameliorate the bad impacts of muscle-meats,
maybe Peat would say that--taken together--muscle meat + gelatin = high quality protein.

There is the iron content to be considered, especially with beef.
I wonder if Peat thinks it can be safely consumed on a regular basis
as a prominent part of the diet
and still be safe if eaten with coffee (to at least lessen the absorption of the iron).
You would think so, given that he himself seems to eat muscle meat regularly.

I may also be wrong about that assumption.
I think I've heard Peat say that he eats some meat almost every day.
And I've heard him say when asked what he had to eat that day: a "rib steak."
But I've also heard him refer to oxtails and oxtail soup--
which could, if consumed as a soup with gelatin present, be considered something other than a muscle meat.
So maybe the assumption that Peat eats some muscle meats everyday is a wrong one.

I realize these are somewhat rambling thoughts,
but...maybe they will serve as at least a starting point for discussion.
 
J

j.

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Meats are I think a good source of B12. Are there other good sources?
 
J

j.

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I wonder if taking a calcium carbonate pill with steak to keep a good calcium phosphate ratio is a good idea.
 

jaa

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Eating tail to snout would include a large portion of muscle meat and if muscle meat is a refined food than gelatin must be as well.

My interpretation is that the amino acids in muscle meat and gelatin balance each other out. But gelatin is better because it lacks iron and tryptophan (?)

Those are the dots I've loosely connected in my head. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
 
OP
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narouz

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jaa said:
Eating tail to snout would include a large portion of muscle meat and if muscle meat is a refined food than gelatin must be as well.

My interpretation is that the amino acids in muscle meat and gelatin balance each other out. But gelatin is better because it lacks iron and tryptophan (?)

Those are the dots I've loosely connected in my head. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

On the "refined food" thing:
I was just trying to relate, from memory, one way I've heard Peat describe muscle meats.

It can be confusing, because sometimes Peat prefers refined foods: sugar, coconut oil, come to mind.

In the context of muscle meats is was a negative comment.
 

Mittir

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Narouz, Your assumptions are mostly accurate. I think i heard Ray Peat talking about his daily food intake in a recent audio interview. He mentioned that he eats fish or meat everyday in addition to milk, cheese, gelatin, OJ etc. I eat steak everyday with coffee and calcium acetate ( egg shell in vinegar = calcium acetate). Calcium acetate is better at binding phosphorus than carbonate. RP also suggested that we eat most of our protein during day time as digestion is weaker during night and tryptophan from protein can easily be converted to serotonin during sleep. Chris Masterjohn also came to same conclusion that gelatin is better suited for dinner than other tryptophan rich protein.I eat my T-bone for lunch, t- bone has some gelatin on it. I have my bone broth at night . Here is a quote from RP "if a half-pound of steak is eaten, it would probably be reasonable to have about 20 grams of gelatin at approximately the same time." Cartilage and collagen has about 33 percent protein. 100 grams of muscle meat needs about 4 grams of gelatin, that is about 10 grams of cartilage or collagen. You can ask your butcher to cut your steak that way.
 
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narouz

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Mittir said:
Narouz, Your assumptions are mostly accurate. I think i heard Ray Peat talking about his daily food intake in a recent audio interview. He mentioned that he eats fish or meat everyday in addition to milk, cheese, gelatin, OJ etc. I eat steak everyday with coffee and calcium acetate ( egg shell in vinegar = calcium acetate). Calcium acetate is better at binding phosphorus than carbonate. RP also suggested that we eat most of our protein during day time as digestion is weaker during night and tryptophan from protein can easily be converted to serotonin during sleep. Chris Masterjohn also came to same conclusion that gelatin is better suited for dinner than other tryptophan rich protein.I eat my T-bone for lunch, t- bone has some gelatin on it. I have my bone broth at night . Here is a quote from RP "if a half-pound of steak is eaten, it would probably be reasonable to have about 20 grams of gelatin at approximately the same time." Cartilage and collagen has about 33 percent protein. 100 grams of muscle meat needs about 4 grams of gelatin, that is about 10 grams of cartilage or collagen. You can ask your butcher to cut your steak that way.

Calcium Acetate, huh.
Add some vinegar to the eggshells?
I've never heard that from Peat before.
Are you saying that is a Peat thing?
Interesting.

I confess I'm a little dubious about the steak being cut in such a way as to include the necessary collagen.
This has always been a confusing area in PeatDom, for me.
When one cooks a "steak" one usually cooks, like, under 10 minutes at the outside.
So...one would have to eat a very gristly steak to get enough collagen, it would seem to me.
And 10 minutes is nowhere near enough time to break that collagen down into gelatin--
if one were making some kind of stew.

I can see that approach maybe working with oxtail or shank cuts.
Personally, I can't say I've seen good gelatin broth being made in under 3 hours.
But it would seem that Peat believes it is possible.
I'll play along.
But even then, if you were cooking shank or oxtail,
personally I would feel that you overcooking the muscle-meaty portions
if you went more than an hour and a half at the outside....

It could be done. I'm just saying that
if you cook some oxtails or shank
in a stew for about an hour and a half...I really wonder how much gelatin you're getting.
 

Mittir

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Calcium acetate is not a RP recommendation, i found that in Pubmed. Ray Peat is against aging meat, he likes fresh meat in mexico. I get raw meat from butcher. I marinade for 2-3 days and it softens the collagen part. You can separate the collagen and cook it longer till it is tender. It does not take more than 10-15 min. It is bit tough and chewy but not that bad. My point is that if you can eat 60 grams of collagen/cartilage you can enjoy 250 grams of steak . I eat the collagen part first and and then enjoy my steak.
 

jaa

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Mittir said:
Narouz, Your assumptions are mostly accurate. I think i heard Ray Peat talking about his daily food intake in a recent audio interview. He mentioned that he eats fish or meat everyday in addition to milk, cheese, gelatin, OJ etc. I eat steak everyday with coffee and calcium acetate ( egg shell in vinegar = calcium acetate). Calcium acetate is better at binding phosphorus than carbonate. RP also suggested that we eat most of our protein during day time as digestion is weaker during night and tryptophan from protein can easily be converted to serotonin during sleep. Chris Masterjohn also came to same conclusion that gelatin is better suited for dinner than other tryptophan rich protein.I eat my T-bone for lunch, t- bone has some gelatin on it. I have my bone broth at night . Here is a quote from RP "if a half-pound of steak is eaten, it would probably be reasonable to have about 20 grams of gelatin at approximately the same time." Cartilage and collagen has about 33 percent protein. 100 grams of muscle meat needs about 4 grams of gelatin, that is about 10 grams of cartilage or collagen. You can ask your butcher to cut your steak that way.

very informative thanks mittir!
 

Mittir

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Correction ,a calculation mistake,
Ray peat quote "if a half-pound of steak is eaten, it would probably be reasonable to have about 20 grams of gelatin at approximately the same time."
Cartilage and collagen has about 33 percent protein.
100 grams of muscle meat needs about 8 grams of gelatin, that is about 25 grams of cartilage or collagen.
 

gretchen

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j. said:
I wonder if taking a calcium carbonate pill with steak to keep a good calcium phosphate ratio is a good idea.

I think definitely you need to consider all of Peat's views about meat pretty seriously. Ime he's right about it.

I didn't eat meat much from mid 80s through the mid 2000s. Then, around 2006, I added it back in a few servings a week. The late 2000s were some of the worst years of my life health wise: a lot of fatigue and general listlessness that was partly related to my eating disorder (it was mild up until I took the job at the airport) but seemed to be beyond just not eating enough. I have some dental damage (a chipped tooth) that could be because of the ED but also because I didn't eat enough dairy foods all those years (I was mostly dairy free for about 20 years) and when I added the meat in the calcium/phosphate ratio got thrown off even more.
 

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