Chew the meat and spit out the bones by Luke from Barbell Foods

Chew the meat and spit out the bones.

I’m not here to seduce you into reading a fluff piece about cutting edge research or to share my secrets to success, all the while subtly marketing my product to your distracted minds.   

Instead, I’ll do that first and get it out the way. 

Plain and simple, we make the healthiest meat snack on the market. We source sustainably farmed, organic grass-fed beef and with some spice and vinegar, we make some pretty dope biltong. No preservatives or rubbish, it’s as simple as it gets. Now that that’s done and you’ve added several bags to your cart, we can sink our teeth into the main course. 

While writing this blog I came across the expression, “chew the meat and spit out the bones”. I had never heard it before, but it’s meaning is to, “To take in a great deal of information and selectively disregard some of it as invalid or inapplicable.” It struck me as pure gold. Both because it’s a great way to view food and dieting and also because I sell meat, so it sounded cool. To spit out the bones is to keep simplifying, to take what works from several different approaches and to develop your own personalised take.

My journey down this road started when I became a die-hard, no legumes, no dairy, no grains paleo preacher. I then moved on to intermittent fasting and managed to take that to the extreme too, once doing a seven day fast (it backfired and put me off fasting for a while). I’ve also experimented with carnivore, keto and low carb.  Although I am no longer in any one camp, each of these experiences taught me something invaluable. My philosophy these days is to strive to be adaptable, to fast when not hungry, to eat seasonally (usually I’m high carb in summer and low carb in winter), to not sweat the little things and to be in tune with my body. My ‘diet’ is mainly good quality meat and vegetables. 

Eating intuitively may mean several meals without meat, followed by a carnivore feast or perhaps it’s a fasted workout and then a carb binge. Whether it’s a new morning routine, training program or change in season, your eating patterns will (or perhaps should) adapt. Amongst most mammals, humans seem to be unique in our ability to consume a wide variety of foods, but as a farmer once told me, even cows will eat a variety of different grasses and herbs depending on their needs. Chewing the meat is finding what works for you, whether that’s keto, paleo, vegan cat, carnivore or any combination.

So I encourage you to experiment with different diets, find what works and what doesn’t and then buy a bag of Barbell Biltong for good measure. 

Gotch ya,

Luke Rathbone

Meat Mogul and Titan of Industry

Barbell Foods