WISDOM

Read a neat excerpt from Nina Planck’s new book, where she tells about the heart-wrenching, yet beautiful story of Deidre Currie…

In the early nursing weeks, I often thought of my cesarean.  I was haunted by mothers who come home from the hospital with milk but no baby to drink it, and by babies who come home with no mother.  It still happens.  With plenty of milk on my shirt and time on my hands, I considered finding a local baby who needed milk and offering to share, but never did anything about it.

More than a year later, I learned about Deidre Currie, a New Zealander and champion of real food.  After a quick and sure romance over real food, she married the American Archie Welch, settled in Michigan, started earning her nutrition degree, and with characteristic zeal planned a real food conference.  Within months of the honeymoon, Deidre, thirty-eight, was pregnant and eating better than ever.  The happy couple was planning a home birth, but instead Deidre ended up in the emergency room with a pulmonary embolism and the baby in distress.  Though failing fast, she willed herself to hold on long enough to give birth to Jack, who weighed more than six pounds despite being six weeks early.  Archie told me what happened next.

“The word went out to mothers and they started pumping for him.  His first meal in the hospital was breast milk from a mother who drove an hour and a half.  She dropped off the milk, gave us all hugs, and left.  She wouldn’t accept any money for gas or anything.  She said she was honored to help.  All the mothers have been screened for diet, supplements, and drugs.  About nine mothers consistently donate.  I’m sure he’s getting the advantage of a lot of different antibodies.  As his appetite increases and some mums drop out, I’ve been adding raw cow milk.  For a preemie, he is big.  At four months, he is seventeen pounds and over two feet long.  And happy.  Jack is not a fussy child.  Very calm, smiles a lot – but lets me know when he’s hungry.”

Deidre never saw or held her son.  But she left him a legacy to last his entire life.  In Jack’s short life, many mothers have already cared for him.  By way of thanks, Archie shares food with the nursing mothers.  “I figure if the mothers are getting good fats and nutrients from healthy raw cow’s milk, they will pass on those good things to Jack and to their own child.  I also give them cod liver oil, coconut oil, meat, books, and my undying gratitude,” he said.  “What I do for them pales in comparison for what they do for Jack.”

Nina’s book went on sale yesterday, and you can buy it here:

Real Food for Mother and Baby: The Fertility Diet, Eating for Two, and Baby’s First Foods.

I was blessed to have met Archie, baby Jack, and a few members of Deidre’s family at the Deidre Currie Festival last fall.  (Ann Marie & I also met Sally Fallon that weekend!)  Read more about that amazing day and find the links to my notes on the talks:  the Deidre Currie Festival.

• Kristen at Food Renegade just posted a great interview with Nina Planck.
• For those of you who didn’t win the recent Nina Planck book giveaways here at my blog, there’s another contest over at Nourishing Days!
• Check out Nina’s website

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Do you ever wonder about the history of heart disease, and when it was first diagnosed? Read an excerpt from Nina Planck in her new book, due out in April: “Real Food for Mother and Baby: The Fertility Diet, Eating for Two, and Baby’s First Foods“.

Some real foods, such as red meat and butter, have been blamed for modern diseases, especially heart disease. More precisely, experts said that too much fat, and saturated fat in particular, was killing us. On closer inspection, this theory, known as the lipid hypothesis, has some notable weaknesses. One problem is timing. We’ve been eating pork and butter for millennia, but heart disease is a modern problem. The first heart attack was diagnosed in 1912. Epidemiological evidence also contradicts the assertion that traditional foods cause chronic metabolic conditions. People who (still) eat traditional diets, diets rich in real food – saturated coconut oil, whole milk, and red meat – don’t get fat. They don’t get diabetes and heart disease, either – that is, not until they switch to industrial foods, like white flour and corn oil.

MORE WHERE THAT CAME FROM

That was just from the first chapter, there’s more great stuff further in – if you know someone who is pregnant, you may want to get them this book. (Or even better, someone who would like to become pregnant soon!) There is so much I wish I had known before our children came along!

GIVEAWAY COMING SOON!

Details about the giveaway for the advanced copies of Nina’s new book is coming soon, so be sure to Subscribe in a reader or Subscribe via e-mail so you’ll know when all the fun begins!

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If you’re not convinced already, today’s post should do the trick: eat more butter from grass-fed cows and take Cod Liver Oil!

First, in case you don’t know, read who is Weston Price?

I’m beginning a new series of posts with excerpts from this book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.

“Extensive laboratory determinations have shown that most people cannot absorb more than half of the calcium and phosphorus from the foods eaten. The amounts utilized depend directly on the presence of other substances, particularly fat-soluble vitamins. It is at this point probably that the greatest breakdown in our modern diet takes place, namely, in the ingestion and utilization of adequate amounts of the special activating substances, including the vitamins needed for rendering the minerals in the food available to the human system…

It is possible to starve for minerals that are abundant in the foods eaten because they cannot be utilized without an adequate quantity of fat-soluble activators.“

Your turn! Other than butter from grass-fed cows and cod liver oil, which foods do you like for their healthy amounts of vitamins A, D, E, & K?

BE SURE TO READ THE COMMENTS FOR MORE WAYS TO GET THESE VITAMINS INTO OUR DIETS!

More Wisdom from Weston A. Price next time!

• Sally Fallon talks about the Oiling of America – how the low-fat myth began
• Recipes, Meal Ideas, Kitchen Tips
• Healthy Egg Recipes from YOU
  

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I apologize for beating the issue of healthy fats to death lately, but most people I talk to are still not convinced! Sadly, the fat-free mentality has been thoroughly beat into us. But it’s no big surprise to find out that God knew what He was doing all along. You’ll see what I mean when you read this interesting excerpt from my favorite book these days, which I’m STILL reading…

From Real Food, What to Eat and Why by Nina Planck:

“What is true of meat is true of all fat-and-protein pairs: they go together. Consider, for example, two near-perfect foods: eggs and milk. Both foods are a complete nutritional package, designed for a growing organism’s exclusive nutrition, and must contain everything the body needs to assimilate the nutrients they contain. Thus the fats in the egg yolk aid digestion of the protein in the white, and lecithin in the yolk aids metabolism of its cholesterol. The butterfat in milk facilitates protein digestion, and saturated fat in particular is required to absorb the calcium. Calcium, in turn, requires vitamins A and D to be properly assimilated, and they are found only in the butterfat. Finally, vitamin A is required for production of bile salts that enable the body to digest protein. Without the butterfat, then, you don’t get the best of the protein, fat-soluble vitamins, or calcium from milk. That’s why I don’t eat, and cannot recommend, egg white omelets and skim milk. They are low-quality, incomplete foods.”

Say it with me: “EGG WHITES AND SKIM MILK ARE LOW-QUALITY, INCOMPLETE FOODS!”

When we separate components in our foods that God put together for a reason, our bodies will suffer the consequences.

• Read the book review on Real Milk from the Weston A. Price Foundation
• Other books I recommend
• Healthy milk options
• Eggs are good for you!
• My Dark Secrets

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(NEW:  bite sized pieces of WISDOM from WESTON A. PRICE…)

Recently I wrote a post about my “food conversion” story. In it I mentioned finding a website that made so much sense, something inside me changed the day I discovered it. I spent hours reading the information there from the Weston A. Price Foundation (WAPF).

Who is Weston A. Price?

Weston A. Price was a dentist who did research years ago, comparing the health and eating habits of those in America to those in traditional cultures. (Meaning people in remote areas who still ate the way their ancestors did.) His findings and the information in his book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration,” are the basis for the teachings found on the website and in the quarterly publication called, “Wise Traditions.” (Note: I was surprised at the price of this book, but it’s this much everywhere I’ve seen it, you can get it cheaper here if you buy it used, or if you don’t write in your books like I do, just check it out at the library!) GREAT NEWS! I was just told in a comment (below) by “Cheeseslave” (another nutrition blogger) that this book is available for free online. I like to write in my books, though, so I’ll make good use of my copy.

In his research he found these comparisons:

• His Patients ate: high fructose corn syrup/white sugar, white flour, protein powders, canned condensed milk, canned foods, vegetable oils, skim or low-fat milk
• People in traditional cultures ate: no refined foods, nutrient dense foods, foods with a higher healthy fat content, high enzyme content foods, foods higher in vitamins and minerals, animal foods, eggs

• Health of his patients: weak immune systems/not resistant to disease, narrow bone structures (narrow jaw = call the orthodontist; narrow pelvis = difficult childbirths, narrow nasal passages and constricted ear canal = upper respiratory infections), digestive disorders, weak dispositions
• Health of people from traditional cultures: resistant to disease/strong immune systems, healthy digestive systems, no infections, wide bone structure, hardy & strong

• His Patients’ teeth: tooth decay, crooked teeth, narrow jaw, narrow palates, overcrowding, underbites, narrow faces
• Teeth in traditional cultures: no tooth decay, straight teeth, wide jaw, wide palates, room for all the teeth, no overbites or underbites, round faces

What does this mean for us?

The home page of their website says, “The Foundation is dedicated to restoring nutrient-dense foods to the human diet through education, research and activism.” And in a recent e-mail from Sally Fallon, President of the WAPF, she summarized the main principles of the WAPF diet:

• Use of organ meats
• Use of bone broths
• Use of good fats
• Use of properly prepared nuts, grains and legumes
• Use of lacto-fermented foods

Basically, they teach us how to cook foods the way our ancestors did. Since most of us are so unfamiliar with this (along with our mothers and even many of our grandmothers), this cookbook: Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocratsis one I refer to often.

Chicken feet anyone?

One piece of information though: as much as I believe in the wisdom at the WAPF and its teachings, and I love most of the recipes in the cookbook, I have to admit that a few of the suggestions I’m just not sure I’ll ever do. For example, in the cookbook it talks about making bone broth (more about this superfood in future posts) and how a way to make it even more nutrient dense is by throwing in some chicken feet – ICK! I just don’t see me tracking down some chicken feet at a foreign food market, supposedly where those are found. HOWEVER, I’ll bet that if I, or someone I cooked for, had arthritis issues or a joint disease, I might just go after some of those, as they provide extra nutrients needed for healing joints! All the “odd” foods we might hear about in other cultures, now it makes you wonder if they aren’t traditions handed down through generations for their healing wisdom! (GET THIS: my friend Lyn just told me that she found some chicken feet in the freezer at the farm where she gets her meat and she bought them! I told her I’m so proud of her to try something that sounds so gross to most of us. She said they made good broth, but surprisingly not as good as the time when she threw some gizzards in.)

Credibility issues

One part of the WAPF information that bothered me at first was that the studies by Weston A. Price seemed out-dated, since they were done so long ago. However, through the years as I’ve done more of my own research, I’ve come to realize that when the findings in your studies aren’t showing results that will bring about a big profit for various food manufacturers, there isn’t going to be any funding for more studies to be done on the topic.

Also, if you take the time to read through the site (the link is below), you may wonder, “Why haven’t I heard any of this stuff before?” I wondered that too, yet at the same time everything made so much sense, so I stuck with it. Through the past few years, however, there has been an explosion of this same common sense information coming out.  I’ve seen much more WAP research quoted in various publications and websites, not to mention that other more recent researchers are coming up with similar results pointing to the same conclusions about whole, nutrient dense foods, healthy fats, etc. The word is finally getting out!  (Update:  here’s a post with new saturated fat research!)

Lastly, the main reasons this site has credibility in my eyes is because:

• The main people who benefit from their information are local farmers! They are a non-profit organization and do not sell anything, although they do give their stamp of approval on certain products. Also, a page on their site shows complete information regarding the money that comes in and out of the WAPF.
• The articles on their site and in their quarterly publication, “Wise Traditions”, are full of references, clearly showing where they get their solid information.
• As I mentioned before, I happen to think that the teachings from the WAPF just make sense. (Read more here about the criteria I use to find the truth on health & nutrition.) Why would foods that have nourished people for centuries become taboo in the last few decades? (Meat, butter, eggs, etc.) With the increase in refined and processed foods (and things like, “I can’t believe it’s not butter“), we’ve had MORE heart attacks and cancer, not less! That’s just the tip of the iceberg, there’s much more common sense nutrition at the site. (Read more about healthy fats.)
  

If you want to find farms in your area and other stores selling more nutritious foods, go to http://www.eatwellguide.org/. Also, you could request the “shopping guide” at the WAPF site. This little $1 booklet gives you information for each category of food, listing which are “better”, “best”, and which to “avoid”.

Just doing the best we can…

All this is why I often refer to the WAPF site and why many of my recipes are made using the healthy ingredients and traditional food preparation techniques recommended there. Sometimes this is simple to implement, other times much more time-consuming. As time goes on I see there are areas that I’m doing well in, but I also see many areas where I have a long way to go.

God has it right…again

The bottom line is that we don’t need to accept the road that would’ve been ahead for us and our children, had we continued on our processed and refined food diets. There is a better way, and as you would expect, it’s all about getting back to the way God intended us to nurture the bodies we’ve been given. I hope you’ll keep reading and sending your comments, so we can all learn together on this journey toward better health.

• ROOKIE TIPS
  
• Q & A with Sally Fallon, President of the Weston A. Price Foundation
• Raw milk series – part #1
• The Weston A. Price Foundation website
• Find and get involved at your local WAP chapter (monthly meetings, etc.)
• My book suggestions, including a couple by Sally Fallon
• My Dark Secrets
• Information about this site
• Why everyone should take cod liver oil
• WAP shopping guides (print out the form here and mail in) – these $1 shopping guides are full of information to help you know which foods are better, best, and which to avoid
• A lengthy, but well-written article on the findings of Weston A. Price & dental health
• 12/08 Someone just sent me this article by an author who disagrees with the teachings of WAP. While I disagree with him, obviously, I’m including it so you can hear what others might be saying, and so you can decide for yourself. Also because the comments at the bottom were very interesting!

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