Preparing pork.

One thing I wished I'd seen more of when considering the switch to raw was information about preparing the food.  Specifically, I wanted pictures.  Perhaps the reason there aren't many photos of raw food prep is because it's pretty self-explantatory.  You take some meat, you cut it up, you bag it, you stick it in the freezer.  Simple.  But I still wanted pictures.  I think mostly I wanted to see what kind of a mess I was getting myself into.  I imagined a kitchen covered in raw meat.  Raw meat juices all over the place.  I pictured a salmonella breeding ground.  I was wrong.

Preparing and portioning meals isn't nearly the mess I expected.  For example, today my mom found some great pork on sale for $0.99 per pound.  This is how simple it is to turn it into dog food:

I wipe down the counters.  I like something with bleach in it.  Nothing smells clean like bleach!  I get everything ready.  Quick tip: Get all your zip top bags out and OPEN THEM before you begin.  Otherwise, you're fumbling with greasy, slimy meat fingers and can't get them open.  And ignore the wimpy knife.  I don't know what I was thinking.  I ended up using a much bigger knife.  Which reminds me... I should learn what my knives are.  All I know are "big knives" and little knives".

Anyway, the label calls these "pork shoulder blade country style ribs".  I have no clue what part of a pig that is, but it looks good.  I expect Mona will love it.  Then again, I also expected Mona would like liver...

The package had 6 cuts of meat, each weighing 12 - 16 ounces.  I cut the ends off to make 6 hearty portions, roughly 8 or 9 ounces.  Are you looking at this, though?  No giant mess.  No blood all over the counters.  No meat on the walls.  Just some juice on the cutting board.  Totally doable, right?

Ta da!  This go round, I wrote the weight on each bag.  I find that with the leg quarters I'm currently feeding, I'm weighing them all before I serve them, just to be sure they weigh what I think they weigh.  So for this go round, I wrote the weight on each bag.  I stuck them in the freezer, put the knives and cutting board in the sink, and wiped down the counter again with cleaner.  That's it!

Honestly, I think my kitchen is cleaner since switching to raw.  :)