An excellent introduction

I always had a "whole foods gut instinct" in my youth.  While it may have not added up to much more than instinct, I knew that anything labeled "low-fat" didn't taste good and furthermore, it probably wasn't good for you anyway. I cut out red meat, not because I didn't like the taste, but because I was afraid of it with the Mad Cow scare or getting sick if I didn't cook it long enough. It was frightening. And bewildering.

Then I started reading about Real Food. My knowledge expanded and I started reading about industrial agriculture and the idea of locally-sourced foods.  That is when I stumbled across the philosophy of eating that gave shape and form to my previously nebulous "whole foods gut instinct".

The answer? Traditional Foods. The cookbook Nourishing Traditions* is what kicked it off. I joined Traditional Foods yahoo groups. I was introduced to the Weston A. Price Foundation.

Through all this, I realized that I could eat grass-fed meat and wouldn't face the dangers of conventionally raised agri-biz beef (and that the animals would live and die humanely). I found a source for raw milk and started experimenting with the wide variety of options it affords, from the many uses for sour milk to butter-making (and the near-distant voyage into cheese-making). I finally understood why I was always so desperately hungry after boxed cereal for breakfast.  I realized that amping up a meal with quality fats left me satiated.  I reveled in butter-slathered vegetables.  I started fermenting.

Then I cleared my then three year old's dry, red cheeks with a daily dose of cod liver oil. I transformed my then four year old's poop, which had always been akin to "frothy slop" into "well-formed stool" by limiting (not eliminating) grains and upping fermented foods. I healed my own cavity (the first ever, btw) by taking butter oil and fermented cod liver oil, limiting grains and natural sugars, upping vegetables and fats, and eating grass-fed meat. These are all things I always meant to blog about but never did, mostly due to the simple march of time (whoopsies, sorry . . . because they are truly amazing stories).

As a philosophy of eating, the idea of Traditional Foods -- AKA eating as our ancestors ate, AKA if your great-grandma wouldn't recognize it as food, don't eat it -- well, it has been a major revelation in my life. And so, dear reader: I offer up this beautiful 20-minute introduction to Traditional Foods through the research of Weston A. Price. If you have time, please watch it. You may find it very interesting.




*Interestingly, I don't care for a good chunk of the recipes this cookbook offers. I generally find them to be either overly bland or too heavy. But the principles and dietary information? Pure gold. And some of the recipes are very good.