Authors: Sally Fallon,Pat Connolly,Phd. Mary G. Enig
Tags: #Non-Fiction, #Reference, #Science, #Health
Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook That Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and The... (2 page)
Technology is a generous benefactor. To those who have wisely used his gifts he has bestowed freedom from drudgery; freedom to travel; freedom from the discomforts of cold, heat and dirt; and freedom from ignorance, boredom and oppression. But father technology has not brought us freedom from disease. Chronic illness in industrialized nations has reached epic proportions because we have been dazzled by his stepchildren—fast foods, fractionated foods, convenience foods, packaged foods, fake foods, embalmed foods, ersatz foods—all the bright baubles that fill up the shelves at our grocery stores, convenience markets, vending machines and even health food stores.
The premise of this book is that modern food choices and preparation techniques constitute a radical change from the way man has nourished himself for thousands of years and, from the perspective of history, represent a fad that not only has severely compromised his health and vitality but may well destroy him; and that the culinary traditions of our ancestors, and the food choices and preparation techniques of healthy nonindustrialized peoples, should serve as the model for contemporary eating habits, even and especially during this modern technological age.
The first modern researcher to take a careful look at the health and eating habits of isolated traditional societies was a dentist, Dr. Weston Price. During the 1930's, Dr. Price traveled the world over to observe population groups untouched by civilization, living entirely on local foods. While the diets of these peoples differed in many particulars, they contained several factors in common. Almost without exception, the groups he studied ate liberally of seafood or other animal proteins and fats in the form of organ meats and dairy products; they valued animal fats as absolutely necessary to good health; and they ate fats, meats, fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, seeds and whole grains in their whole, unrefined state. All primitive diets contained some raw foods, of both animal and vegetable origin.
Dr. Price found fourteen groups—from isolated Irish and Swiss, from Eskimos to Africans—in which almost every member of the tribe or village enjoyed superb health. They were free of chronic disease, dental decay and mental illness; they were strong, sturdy and attractive; and they produced healthy children with ease, generation after generation.
Dr. Price had many opportunities to compare these healthy so-called "primitives" with members of the same racial group who had become "civilized" and were living on the products of the industrial revolution—refined grains, canned foods, pasteurized milk and sugar. In these peoples, he found rampant tooth decay, infectious disease, degenerative illness and infertility. Children born to traditional peoples who had adopted the industrialized diet had crowded and crooked teeth, narrowed faces, deformities of bone structure and susceptibility to every sort of medical problem. Studies too numerous to count have confirmed Dr. Price's observations that the so-called civilized diet, particularly the Western diet of refined carbohydrates and devitalized fats and oils, spoils our God-given genetic inheritance of physical perfection and vibrant health.
Later research on the diets of traditional and nonindustrialized peoples has focused on their food preparation techniques. Almost universally, these societies allow grains, milk products and often vegetables, fruits and meats to ferment or pickle by a process called lacto-fermentation. These pickling techniques preserve foods so that they are available during periods of scarcity, but unlike modern preservation methods, which deaden and denature our foods, lacto-fermentation makes nutrients in these foods more available and supplies the intestinal tract with health-promoting lactic acid and lactic-acid-producing bacteria.
Another technique found universally in ethnic cuisines is the use of bone broths, rich in gelatin as well as in calcium and other minerals. The archives of our medical libraries contain many studies on the beneficial effects of gelatin taken on a daily or frequent basis, but these studies are ignored even as traditional methods for making rich stocks are forgotten.
Technology can be a kind father but only in partnership with his mothering, feminine partner—the nourishing traditions of our ancestors. These traditions require us to apply more wisdom to the way we produce and process our food and, yes, more time in the kitchen, but they give highly satisfying results—delicious meals, increased vitality, robust children and freedom from the chains of acute and chronic illness. The wise and loving marriage of modern invention with the sustaining, nurturing food folkways of our ancestors is the partnership that will transform the Twenty-First Century into the Golden Age; divorce hastens the physical degeneration of the human race, cheats mankind of his limitless potential, destroys his will and condemns him to the role of undercitizen in a totalitarian world order.
In no period of our history as a nation have Americans been so concerned about the subject of diet and nutrition. Yet if we accept the premise that what we eat determines our health, then we must add the observation that in no period of our history as a nation have Americans eaten so poorly, a statement that the most cursory survey of current statistics can prove.
Although heart disease and cancer were rare at the turn of the century, today these two diseases strike with increasing frequency, in spite of billions of dollars in research to combat them, and in spite of tremendous advances in diagnostic and surgical techniques. In America, one person in three dies of cancer, one in three suffers from allergies, one in ten will have ulcers and one in five is mentally ill. Continuing this grim litany, one out of five pregnancies ends in miscarriage and one quarter of a million infants are born with a birth defect each year. Other degenerative diseases—arthritis, multiple sclerosis, digestive disorders, diabetes, osteoporosis, Alzheimer's, epilepsy and chronic fatigue—afflict a significant majority of our citizens, sapping the energy and the very life blood of our nation. Learning disabilities such as dyslexia and hyperactivity afflict seven million young people. These diseases were also extremely rare only a generation or two ago.
Today, chronic illness afflicts nearly half of all Americans and causes three out of four deaths in the United States. Most tragically, these diseases, formerly the purview of the very old, now strike our children and those in the prime of life.
Americans spend one dollar out of every fourteen for medical services, or over $800 billion yearly—more than the national deficit, the food bill and the profits of all U.S. corporations combined—yet we have little to show for this tremendous drain on our resources. Medical science has not even been able to lengthen our life span. Fewer persons alive at 70 today survive until 90 than forty years ago. And those who do survive past 70 are often a helpless burden to their families, rather than useful members of society. Credit for today's relatively long life span belongs to improved sanitation and the reduction of infant mortality.
New killer viruses now command newspaper headlines and even infectious diseases such as tuberculosis are making a comeback, this time in forms resistant to allopathic drugs. Chemical sensitivities and problems with the immune system abound. We have almost forgotten that our natural state is one of balance, wholeness and vitality.
POLITICALLY CORRECT NUTRITION
Clearly something is very wrong, even though many Americans have been conscientious about following orthodox dietary advice. They take exercise seriously, many have stopped smoking, consumption of fresh vegetables has increased, many have reduced their intake of salt, and a good portion of America has cut back on red meats and animal fats. But none of these measures has made a dent in the ever-increasing toll of degenerative disease. We buy foods labeled lowfat, no cholesterol, reduced sodium, thinking they are good for us. Why, then, are we so sick?
The premise of this book is that the advice of the Diet Dictocrats—what they tell us and, just as important, what they don't tell us—is wrong. Not 100 percent wrong. There is a certain amount of truth in their pronouncements, enough to give them credibility, but not enough to save us from the sufferings of chronic disease.
Who are the Diet Dictocrats? In general they are doctors, researchers and spokesmen for various government and quasi-government agencies, such as the Food and Drug Administration; the American Medical Association (AMA); the American Dietetic Association (ADA); prestigious hospitals and research centers, such as Sloan-Kettering, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI); university medical schools and nutrition departments; the National Academy of Science (NAS); and large so-called philanthropic organizations like the American Cancer Society (ACS) and the American Heart Association (AHA), ostensibly dedicated to combatting our most serious diseases. Based on what we read in the newspapers and national magazines, these organizations speak with one voice. "Exercise, eat vegetables, stop smoking, reduce salt," they say, "and cut back or eliminate animal fats and red meat." Recently, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) issued new nutritional guidelines in the form of a pyramid, calling for a diet based on grains—bread, pasta, cereal and crackers—along with fruits and vegetables. The guidelines recommend only small amounts of protein foods—meat, fowl, fish, nuts and legumes—and strictly limited consumption of sweets and fats.
The new guidelines have their good points. The experts are right, for example, in calling for a reduction in sweets in the American diet. We must recognize and applaud progress wherever we find it. Since 1923, when a US Farmers Bulletin recommended one pound of sugar per person per week, consumers have heard numerous government reassurances that sugar is harmless. During the last few years these soothing voices have fallen quiet as the evidence against sugar continues to mount. The new Department of Agriculture guidelines represent a rare establishment warning against eating too much sugar but it is doubtful that the popular press will emphasize this feature of the Food Pyramid.
The new food guidelines rightly stress the importance of fruits and vegetables; for many years, the medical establishment ignored their value. The American Cancer Society even denied the role of fresh vegetables in preventing cancer, in spite of considerable evidence to the contrary. The new guidelines reflect the fact that this evidence can no longer be ignored.
Unfortunately, several dangerous errors are built into the edifice of the USDA Food Pyramid. First, the new guidelines imply that everyone can eat the same foods in the same proportions and be healthy. According to the recommendations, grains should be the basis of our diet; but many people do very poorly on grains. Others have a low tolerance for dairy products. These intolerances are due to a number of factors, including ethnic background and genetic inheritance. Secondly, the pyramid calls for reduced fats without addressing the dangers of lowfat diets. Finally, the new guidelines perpetuate the myth that fats, carbohydrates and proteins have equal nutritional properties no matter how much or how little they are processed. The experts make no distinction between whole grains and refined, between foods grown organically and those grown with pesticides and commercial fertilizers, between unprocessed dairy products from pasture-fed cows and pasteurized dairy products from confined animals raised on processed feed, between fresh and rancid fats, between traditional fresh fruits and vegetables and those that have been irradiated or genetically altered, between range-fed meats and those from animals raised in crowded pens; between natural and battery-produced eggs; in short, between the traditional foods that nourished our ancestors and newfangled products now dominating the modern marketplace.
This is Politically Correct Nutrition. It singles out foods grown by independent producers—eggs and beef—but spares the powerful and highly profitable grain cartels, vegetable oil producers and the food processing industry; it sacrifices old-fashioned butter on the altar of the latest nutritional fad but spares pasteurized milk products and processed cheese; it gives lip service to the overwhelming evidence implicating sugar as a major cause of our degenerative diseases but spares the soft drink industry; and it raises not a murmur against refined flour, hydrogenated vegetable oils and foods adulterated with harmful preservatives, flavorings and coloring agents.
The Diet Dictocrats are strangely silent about the ever increasing trend toward food processing and the devitalization of America's rich agricultural bounty. Food processing is the largest manufacturing industry in the country and hence the most powerful. This industry naturally uses its financial clout to influence the slant of university research and the dictates that come from government agencies. A 1980 study showed that almost half the leading officials at the FDA had previously worked for organizations the agency is mandated to regulate. The universities have equally powerful ties to the food processing industry. A good example is Harvard University where Dr. Frederick Stare, head of the nutrition department for many years, began his career with several articles delineating nutritional deficiencies caused by white flour and a study on Irish brothers that positively correlated a high intake of vegetable oils—not animal fats—with heart disease. Soon after he became department head, however, the university received several important grants from the food processing industry. Dr. Stare's articles and weekly newspaper columns then began assuring the public that there was nothing wrong with white bread, sugar and highly processed foods. He recommended one cup of corn oil per day to prevent heart disease, and in one article he even suggested Coca-Cola as a snack!
Most "nutritional" cookbooks follow the Diet Dictocrats' politically correct guidelines, including all those approved by the American Heart Association. A good example is the bestselling
Eater's Choice
by Dr. Ron Goor and Nancy Goor. A brief introduction rehashing a few politically correct studies, said to implicate saturated fats as the cause of heart disease, is followed by pages of recipes just loaded with sugar and white flour. The authors assure us that the best thing we can do for our hearts is to replace butter with margarine and eliminate eggs and red meat from our diet, in spite of the fact that most studies, honestly evaluated, show that such a diet is not only useless but also harmful.
