Smoked Meat

In these modern times, the food we put in our bodies is inspected, certified, economized and evaluated, then pre-chewed by experts under the bright spotlight of governmental scrutiny, evaluated for residual levels of pesticides, herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, insides and outsides. It seems odd to me how it doesn't seem to matter if the food is good for you or bad for you. The actual nutritional value is just a side show compared to the predominant societal belief that if the food wasn't grown in a hermetically sealed biosphere, safely isolated from the influence of the Monsanto company, it must be bad and will cause your immediate demise. The literature proves it. Eat more fermented, processed soy and kale. Lots of kale.

We all benefit from the collective knowledge of the vegetarian zealots and the various vegan evangelists of all denominations. In the end, the common message is that we eat too much meat and not enough veg. Got it. I agree, I need to eat more brussel sprouts. Sprouts will save me and my offspring from all manner of sin and debauchery. Google says so. But maybe, if the stars align just right, I will find that there is some some anti-salad food club I can join, maybe there is a non-cabbage-centric path I can follow. A culinary revolution must occur.

I offer for your consideration an alternate theory. I offer gastronomic salvation, via the butcher counter. My theory is thus; What we don't have enough of is smoked meats. I don't discriminate, I like all kinds of smoked meats; smoked pork ribs, smoked beef brisket, smoked rattlesnake, its all good. The benefits of smoked meats are indisputable. Read your history. Humans have been cooking meat on a fire for three million years, give or take, and we are doing pretty well so far.

About two and a half million years ago, and this is a true story, two and a half million years ago, there were two families living on the edge of a vast, sun-beaten prairie. Both families lived off of the land, eating mostly sagebrush and coconuts or whatever grew in the neighborhood. Sometimes they ate grubs and grasshoppers and maybe a rabbit or a squirrel when they could catch one. It was a hard life.

One family lived in a nice snug waterproof cave while the other family lived in a rundown leaky cave with a bad draft and no cable. The nice cave family had Bob for a leader. Bob was tall and good looking with a cleft chin. When Good Looking Bob spoke, everybody listened. Women stared at him and hung on his every word. He was the image of human perfection. Good Looking Bob was a vegetarian and he loved his family very much.

The leaky cave family had Larry for a leader. Larry was short and not good looking and had no chin. Nobody listened to Larry. Women ignored him. Larry was the antithesis of human perfection. Larry ate meat and he loved his family very much.

Both families consisted of about twenty members. Like most families in their time, there was a nucleus of hard working adults in each family who provided the food. These adult folks brought the food home and fought off the wild animals, keeping the rest of the family alive. They spent most of their time hunting and gathering, gathering and hunting. The adults were a hard working group.

Then there were a few folks that were too old to hunt, so they made the clothes, gathered wood for the fire and took the garbage out. These older adults were semi-retired and invented golf.

Last, there was the kids. The kids served no purpose at all and were a drain on society. To make matters worse, these families had lots and lots of kids. Maybe the adults didn't practice good birth control.

Truckloads of food was required to feed the family, but times were really hard. The summer had been too hot and the plants died and the animals abandoned the savanna. The hunter/gatherers were striking out in the food acquisition department lately and everybody was hungry. In fact, both Good Looking Bob's family and Larry's family were on the edge of starvation.  The sagebrush dried up, the squirrels disappeared and the grubs must have migrated north for the summer. This was before food banks were invented I guess.

As a last resort, Good Looking Bob and Larry set out to find food for their families. Nobody actually put into words the impact of this act because they didn't have to. Everybody knew the score.  Good Looking Bob and Larry weren't coming back without food. They would keep hunting until they caught something, or they died trying. Times were desperate.  Good Looking Bob and Larry just wandered into the savanna, sniffing around for something to eat, digging for potatoes or lizards or whatever they could find.

On the first day, these desperate men didn't find anything. On the second day, same result. But on the third day, Good Looking Bob, tall and handsome and well educated, found a handful of dandylions and six brussel sprouts and some kale. He took those home and fed his wife and twelve emaciated children. They ate the entire harvest raw, because that is healthier and that is how you are suppose to eat vegetables. Good Looking Bob knew then, as we know now, that if you let your veg get too close to your camp fire all the health benefits are leached out. The science bears this out. Eat your veg raw if you want to maximize your B complex absorption rates.

Larry scored some food and took it home too. He had a wife and twelve skinny kids to feed, just like Good Looking Bob. Larry found a buffalo with a broken leg and killed it and took that home to his family and threw it on the fire, ignoring the commonly accepted idea that meat is bad for you. To make matters worse, he ignored the literature that clearly stated that smoked meat is especially bad for you.

That's the end of the story, but it begs the question: Which family survived and which died off? My first thought, when I heard that story, was that Larry's family and his smoked meat eating family would die off because we know too much meat in your diet is bad for you. High cholesterol levels and all that, right? Get some nice fresh anise and maybe a small portion of zucchini in your diet and live for an extra twenty years.

But, that isn't what happened. Good Looking Bob and his veg eating pack starved and died while Larry the smoked buffalo eater and his family prospered, going on to accomplish great things. I heard one of the grandkids invented the Webber grill, which sort of makes sense if you think about it.

If that doesn't convince you about the health benefits of smoked meats, I don't know what to say. As far as I know, that proves that we need to eat more smoked meats.

Since Whistler, I have swam three times, been to spin class once, ridden my bike three times and run two to three times a week. Whistler was exactly two months ago and I am working out three hours a week. As our good friend Samuel said, “How the mighty have fallen! The weapons of war have perished!” I don't know what to make of the second sentence, but the first one is spot on. I have fallen pretty far and I don't feel very good about it.

Maybe I will feel better if I eat some smoked buffalo.