Challenging Modern Nutrition: The Value of a Traditional Diet

About 18 months ago, I made profound changes in the way I eat. In my history, I had been a vegetarian and vegan but until this recent change, the food I ate was ultra-low fat. I ate what I thought were balanced meals that were low in carbohydrates with heavy emphasis on vegetables and moderate amounts of protein. All that I had learned in chiropractic school and read in the mainstream media reinforced this way of eating.

But 2 years ago, I began attending seminars taught by Dr. Janet Lang. She teaches healthcare professionals about natural ways to balanced female, stress, and male hormones. In her seminars she frequently referenced Weston A. Price, DDS and his work. I’ve written about him in an earlier blog post.

The fundamentals of Dr. Price’s work reveal what it means to be healthy. In the mid 1990s Sally Fallon wrote Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats. This sizeable book is not only a cookbook but also reference manual for eating traditional foods and realizing optimal health, based on the work by Dr. Price. Traditional foods can be thought of the way our great, great grandparents ate before the industrialization of our food supply and the extensive use of chemicals and the refining of foods.


Nourishing Traditions became my “bible” as I transitioned from my low fat diet to a way of eating that has significantly improved my health. As I’ve explored the world of eating foods prepared in this way, I’ve found additional resources. For the past year, I have been receiving menus from http://www.cookingtf.com/. This is a weekly subscription service that not only provides a menu with a week of 6 dinners with side dishes, but also a shopping list, a planning and preparation list, and a dessert every week. I now have an entire binder worth of recipes. I now primarily rely on these recipes for food ideas. Everything I have made has been phenomenally tasty.


Recently I attended the Weston Price Foundation’s annual conference called Wise Traditions. There, I met the women behind the following 2 menu mailers:

http://www.cheeseslave.com/menus-by-mail/

http://www.jennette-turner.com/dinner_with_jennette.cfm

Both women were energetic foodies who are incredibly passionate about making food not only tasty but nutritious and easy to prepare. For those that don’t know how to cook, all 3 of these menu mailers provide you with the fundamentals to get started. The planning, preparation and shopping lists are a great resource. I invite you to visit their websites, read about them and jump right in. I speak from personal experience that eating this way has changed my life.