Top Three Things to do to improve your health, according to Weston A Price Foundation
I just came back from the Weston A Price 10th annual convention, held this year in Chicago. Weston Price was a dentist who made it his life’s work to travel to the far flung corners of the world, studying people and their natural diet.
He was, as you might imagine, interested in teeth. But perhaps, more importantly, what teeth tell you about a person’s health, their life, and their mother.
Price was motivated to conduct this extensive study by his dismay at the teeth he saw chattering through the door of his dentist’s office in Cleveland during the early part of the twentieth century. Cavities, malocclusions, all manner of ill-formed mouths and teeth.
And he was thorough, if he was anything. He went to the South Seas. He went to Africa. He went to the North Pole. All in all he studied ten or so native groups. And, the fascinating thing is that no matter whether they lived in the tropics or at the cold North pole, they all had great teeth. Wide dental arches, calm dispositions, cheerful demeanors. And they had great smiles.
What conclusions could one draw from populations as different as these? What could so-called Eskimos have in common with Trobriand Islanders. None of these peoples had yet been exposed to the so-called Western diet with its basis in sugar, white flour,highly processed vegetable oils, and assorted processed foods. The results were startling.
From one end of the globe to the other, he found healthy people. This is not to say they weren’t carried off by infectious diseases that came along. But their basic health was amazing.
And within one generation of being exposed to the Western Diet, their children began to show the ravages of the new way of eating. Narrow dental arches. Crooked teeth, cavities, small, ill-formed mouths. And the worst part of it was that indicated underlying weakness.
He wrote extensively about this topic, beginning with the seminal book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, still in print and available at Amazon.
A group of scientists got behind Dr. Price and eventually a University of Maryland graduate student, named Mary Enig, threw sand in the face of conventional medicine with her work, relying on Dr. Price’s work and her own proofs in the lab, and she wrote books that rocked the nutritional world including one called Know Your Fats, The Complete Primer for Understanding the Nutrition of Fats, Oils and Cholesterol.
The powers that be were no happier with Dr. Enig than they had been with Dr. Price. Because she too concluded that a healthy diet needed generous servings of saturated fat, by way of butter, lard, bacon, and steaks with thick rims of fat that one would eat. They also believed in eating organ meats, and drinking raw milk.
This flew in the face of everything being published and taught at the time. Cholesterol? Bring it, they said, its good for you. Improves brain function, improves your sex life, protects against heart disease.
Say what? Wasn’t cholesterol supposed to be the worst thing in the world? And didn’t organ meats contain not only cholesterol but weren’t they the repository for all things evil in the diet, like residual heavy metals and toxins?
Not so. Then the argument evolved into a partnership between Mary Enig and Sally Fallon who wrote an incredible book for the lay public called Nourishing Traditions. May I tell you they could not find a publisher, and so published it themselves. The first edition had typos and all manner of glitches, but a movement had begun.
And now, for 10 years, the Weston A Price Foundation has been issuing papers, and books, and treatises on the value of a traditional diet. Check out their website. It’s a wealth of information.
In the weeks to come, I am going to report on what I learned at the Wise Traditions Meeting in Chicago. But for openers, I recommend you make this excellent pate. After all, you should eat organ meats at least twice a week for health, and unless you plan to keep your diet to The Three Little Pigs Pates (not a bad plan), liver and onions, or fried chicken livers. Remember Angels on Horseback? Chicken liver, bacon and water chestnut, all bound together and baked? Anyway, any or all of these choices are good, but today, I recommend you try, this fabulous pate, they served at the conference.
And by the way those three things the Price Foundation recommends for good health:
1. Drink raw milk.
2. Eat plenty of natural saturated fats.
3. Take cod liver every day.
Sounds like a cousin to the Silver Cloud Diet if you ask me.
Yours in good health,
Linda Eckhardt
Chicken Liver Paté Served With Endive, topped with Diced Red Bell Peppers and Capers
(Serves 12-18)
- 3 tablespoons lard or bacon fat (Wallace Farms, Meadowbreeze Farm)
- 1 pound chicken livers (Pike Valley Farm)
- 1/2 pound mushrooms, washed, dried and coarsely chopped
- 1 bunch green onions, chopped
- 2/3 cup dry white wine or vermouth
- 1 clove garlic, mashed
- 1/2 teaspoon dry mustard (Starwest Botanicals)
- 1/4 teaspoon dried dill (Starwest Botanicals)
- 1/4 teaspoon dried rosemary (Starwest Botanicals)
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 4 oz lard or bacon fat, softened (Wallace Farms)
- sea salt (Selina Naturally)
Garnish:
- 1 red bell pepper small diced
- 2 tablespoons capers
Melt lard or bacon fat in a heavy skillet. Add livers, onions and mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes until livers are browned. Add wine, garlic, mustard, lemon juice and herbs. Bring to a boil and cook, uncovered, until the liquid is gone. Allow to cool. Process in a food processor with additional softened lard or bacon fat. Season to taste. Place in a crock or mold and chill well. Serve with a dollop on top of endive. Top with small diced red bell peppers and capers.
