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Lauren Muney at age 40:
Wellness coach and featured in
"Fit Over 40: Role Models for Excellence"

PEMMICAN - natural 'energy bar'
[meatless] or [meat]

Pemmican is a Native American word roughly translated as "travel food made for long trips." A compact source of concentrated energy needing no preparation on the trail, Native American pemmican often included bear fat, berries and anything else that was nutritious and available. The energy bar traces its roots back to the Middle Ages.  Crusaders tucked an energy bar, called the panforte (a mix of flour, honey, shortening, nuts and dried fruit), into their tunics to give them a lift during long marches. 

Pemmican may be one of the world's perfect foods. It is only pure protein, fat, and carbohydrate . . . n 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 incredible.

This page offers recipes for both meatless and meat  pemmican.

Why speak about this meat-and-fat food on a fitness website?

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?

I myself am reducing my meat-foods. I highly respect my vegetarian friends, so I have found a meatless pemmican bar which suffices to curb hunger and give nutritional support.

Meat 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, click this Paleolithic explanation.

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. 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.

Healthy foods fuel a healthy body

Pemmican may be one of the world's most perfect foods.

MEAT PEMMICAN
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.

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 from refrigeration 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. If you like it, write to Ray Audette or myself!

MEATLESS PEMMICAN
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup dried pumpkin or squash
1/2 cup peanuts
1/2 cup acorn or cornmeal
1/2 cup hickory nuts
1/3 cup honey or maple syrup
1/2 cup dried apples

In order to make sure that the acorn or cornmeal is bone-dry, spread it in a thin layer on a cookie sheet and place it in a warm oven for 15 to 30 minutes, checking frequently. The oven should be at the lowest possible setting. Then combine the dry ingredients and either chop them with a knife or grind them coarsely through a food grinder. Add the honey or maple syrup and blend thoroughly. Divide the mixture into 1/4-cup portions, press into cakes, and store in the refrigerator.

Watch out! Such fiber will have a 'bathroom' effect, and it will be very high energy from the sugars in the honey and fruit. However, the excellent fats and proteins from the nuts will help counter the over-abundance of energy.

Commercial meatless pemmican, various flavors:

Bear Valley
http://www.mealpack.com/products.html

Available at most health-food grocery stores and backpacking outdoor stores

Another great pemmican resource at Cornell University