Marrow

I wanted to talk a little about marrow, as I think many people don't know a lot about it. Many people following a ketogenic diet rely on other fats, such as coconut oil, olive oil, MCT oil, avocados, etc. Unfortunately, these fats do not agree with my digestion. But when I did my research on what foods existed in the Ice Age, I found that none of those fats would have been available to most of our ancestors. The one fat that would have been widely available, and was used extensively, was marrow from the bones of the animals grazing in the steppe tundra, such as woolly mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, and the ancient forebears to the bison, reindeer, and horse.

Our ancestors used stone tools to break open the bones to extract the marrow inside. Here's an interesting demonstration:

I had tried working with other animal fats originally, when following my zero carb ketogenic diet. I tried pork fat inherent in certain cuts of pork, such as pork belly, jowl, and tail. But my triglycerides still ran pretty high. (Whether or not that is really important in the long run, I will talk about later!). So then I tried grassfed beef, bison, and elk tallow. But grassfed tallows are extremely waxy fats and not very palatable on their own. (Apparently beef tallow is great for frying french fries, though! That's what fast food places originally used.)

I was about to give up on keto altogether, when I did more research and discovered that marrow is something that was highly valued by our ancestors. It is extremely nutrient dense, and when roasted, is a fantastically palatable fat - better than butter! And without the casein or insulin issues that butter gives some of us!

Roasted marrow in the bone

When roasting marrow bones, it is important to get long bones such as femur, not soup bones such as knuckle. Inside long bones will be the wonderful, rich pieces of solid marrow. When roasted, there will also be some liquid marrow, which can be saved and used like butter, for pouring on top of meats, for dipping, or just eating cold on the side! It is mildly sweet and creamy when eaten cold.

Lobster tails (right), with roasted beef marrow and sea salt flakes. The liquid marrow is in the bowl for dipping, and the solid marrow is to the left.