Eating beef bone marrow

Question
Have we really looked into Asian meat dishes that are very common throughout the Far East for the past hundreds of years?

After some searching early this year, I was invited in the Philippines to a big feast and was very lucky to taste the soupy stew of beef "bulalo" where the cattle thigh bone is already cut-up into 2-inch portions. We chewed on the tender beef attached to the bone and we had fun sucking the soft, buttery marrow. The meat and marrow are debbed in squeezed "kalamansi" (a lemon-like sour fruit) and soy sauce. We had a grand time gorging this tasty wonder with hot, steamed white rice.

My doctor earlier told me that the beef marrow is very rich in "choline" and "inositol", two of the most important nutrients that can repair and maintain the circulatory system plumbing, thus preventing/minimizing heart disease. Many websites confirmed my doctor's findings.

Can this food be the answer why the incidence of heart disease is very low in these places?

Marco Polo once wrote about witnessing numerous feasts for as many as two thousand guests where they were served sumptous food of up to 16 courses that included the soupy beef marrow.

Are we now just beginning to understand that there is a lot more to discover out there than we have previously imagined?


Answer
Many cultures in history would incorporate organ-meats into their diets.In Mediaeval England, for example, the royal court would reserve choice organs like the heart for the king etc.

However, the usual modern diet in Asia, consisting of rice/monosodium glutamate etc. isn't really very healthy, in and of itself. The main difference re heart-disease rates, judging from accounts, is due to the fact that many Asian populations generally eat much less than their Western counterparts(ie "caloric restriction/Intermittent Fasting"), eat less highly-processed foods, and do more exercise.

All that said, I, along with many other RAFers, found raw bone-marrow to be highly effective re health-improvement. It contains so many useful trace-elements, and, IMO, the quality of the fat is much higher than muscle-meat-fat, by comparison.

Geoff

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