Foods included in raw animal food diets include any food that can be eaten raw, so including raw, unprocessed meats/organ-meats/raw eggs, raw dairy, and aged, raw animal foods such as century eggs, fermenting meat/fish/shellfish/dairy(such as kefir), as well as, to a lesser extent, nuts/sprouts/plants/fruits, but generally not raw grains, raw beans, raw soy etc., because of digestibility and toxicity issues and also because paleolists tend to reject neolithic or domesticated foods. Raw foods on such diets have not been heated at temperatures above 104 °F (40 °C). “Raw Animal Foodists” believe that foods cooked above this temperature have lost much of their nutritional value and are harmful to the body. Smoked meats are frowned upon by many Raw-Omnivores. Some make a distinction between hot-smoked and cold-smoked.
Those who eat a raw omnivorous diet usually choose to obtain their meats from free-range and grass-fed sources, to avoid harmful bacteria. A study by Cornell University has determined that grass-fed animals have far fewer E. coli (about 1/300th) than their grain fed counterparts. Also in the same study, the amount of E. coli they do have is much less likely to survive our first line defense against infection, gastric acid. Grass-fed meat also has more nutrients, such as vitamins, minerals, and omega-3 fatty acids, than grain-finished meat Other studies show that E. coli O157:H7, Campylobacter, Salmonella, and other dangerous pathogens have been repeatedly isolated from both grass-fed and grain-fed livestock and there are conflicting results regarding whether the levels of pathogens are higher, lower, or the same when animals are fed grass- or grain-based diets.
Examples of raw animal food diets include the Primal Diet and the Raw, Palaeolithic diet and the Tiger Diet.
The Primal Diet, is a diet consisting of fatty meats, organ meats, dairy, honey, minimal fruit and vegetable juices and coconut cream, all raw. The founder of the Primal Diet is Aajonus Vonderplanitz, a resident of Malibu, California. It has been estimated by Aajonus Vonderplanitz that there are 20,000 followers of his raw-meat-heavy Primal Diet in North America, alone.
The Nenet tribe of Siberia eat a traditional diet consisting of mostly raw meats/organ-meats and raw berries.
Those Inuit people that still follow their traditional diet eat a partially raw diet, including large amounts of raw meats/organ-meats and aged raw foods in the form of caribou and fish, among other foods.
Pemmican is the traditional North American travel food, prepared from dried meat, fat, and berries.
Gravlax (not smoked salmon) is the traditional (without sugar) Scandinavian way of preserving salmon.