While I have eaten in a variety of ways and have embodied a variety of levels of well being, no eating style has been better for me than that of Weston A. Price.
I will not get into the details of his life here, but I will say that due to his extensive studies, he brought traditional foods and preparation to mainstream America. And though most Americans have rejected his teachings due to the brainwashing that has occurred by big food companies pushing unhealthy food, more an more people are starting to wake up and jump on the traditional foods bandwagon.
How can we not? Our food is patented and manipulated. Even the most staunch industrialist has to raise an eyebrow to that.
Here is a link I found to some of Weston A Price’s book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.
Here is a link to the Weston A Price Foundation Website.
It will contradict a lot of what you have been taught about nutrition. This may stop you from exploring these sites, but I highly recommend you continue to read. Even try out some of the food choices and preparation styles (fermented foods, bone broth, cod liver oil, coconut oil, high vitamin butter oil, etc) and see how you feel!
In the meantime, I will give you an example of misleading nutritional information that has become so widespread that people presume it is fact.
Since I was a kid I was told that saturated fats were bad.
I remember a tv report in the 80s stating that M&Ms were taking coconut oil out of their chocolate because it is unhealthy.
The reason that that report is misleading is that it doesn’t mention that the coconut oil has been chemically manipulated, which changes the cellular structure and makes the coconut oil unhealthy.
But unadultarated coconut oil is healthy. I would even dare say that it is heart healthy.
I’m not a doctor but you can get more information on the Weston Price foundation website mentioned above. Do a search for coconut oil. Do some research on the cholesterol theory and if you dig a little deeper than the surface you will find that many studies say that cholesterol is NOT an indicator of heart disease and older women have statistically been shown to be healthier with higher LDLs.
But that would make expensive drugs like Lipitor completely useless and those poor drug companies would lose millions.
Here are some pages that also back up what I’m saying:
http://www.westonaprice.org/know-your-fats/land-of-oz-attack-on-coconut-oil
In a recent interview, for example, he blames foods full of saturated fats, “like croutons,” for everything from obesity to aging.1 The only problem is that commerical croutons are made with vegetable shortenings, full of trans fats, not saturated fats. While the writings of Roizen and Oz mention trans fats in passing, their gunsights are focused on the innocent bystander, saturated fats.
http://www.westonaprice.org/know-your-fats/saturated-fat-attack
The study discussed in this article was supported by a Pfizer Cardiovascular Lipid award. Pfizer makes over ten billion dollars per year from sales of Lipitor, the world’s best-selling cholesterol-lowering drug.
http://www.westonaprice.org/know-your-fats/latest-studies-on-coconut-oil
One of the very useful oils in the food supply comes from the coconut. Coconut oil has suffered from unjust criticism for more than 30 years in the United States because some of the governmental and food oil organizations, as well as consumer activist organizations such as Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), have claimed that coconut oil as a “saturated fat” is shown to be atherogenic. This is not true.
On a personal level, I used coconut oil, bone broths and raw milk, as WPF encourages, to heal myself a few years ago of terrible digestive problems that no specialist could cure.
But the true litmus tests is, “How do you feel?”
How do you feel when you incorporate a new food or habit into your life?
If you feel good, you’re on the right track.
Once I started eating foods in most of the ways that Weston A Price Foundation prescribes, I felt a lot better.
~ Peace ~
Indigo Leslie