Dr. Ron"s Ultra-Pure, www.drrons.com or 877-472-8701 Green Pastures, www.greenpasture.org or 402-338-5551 Radiant Life, www.radiantlifecatalog.com or 888-593-8333 Vital Choice, www.vitalchoice.com or 800-608-4825 Traditional American Corn, Wheat, and Rice Anson Mills sells organic whole heirloom seed corn, wheat, and Carolina gold rice grown on farms in Georgia, Virginia, and the Carolinas. Grits and biscuit flour are cold-milled to preserve flavor and nutrients. Carolina gold and white rice are buffered and milled with colonial methods.
www.ansonmills.com or 803-467-4122 Hoppin" John Taylor sells whole-grain grits, cornmeal, and corn flour ground from heirloom Appalachian dent corn grown with ecological methods in Georgia. A high-fat variety, the corn is grown above twenty-five hundred feet (to reduce pest, mold, and mildew damage), left to dry fully in the field, and then ground between blue granite stones. The ground corn is never sifted, which leaves the bran, fat, and flavor intact. An expert on southern foods, Taylor is the author of several cookbooks, including Hoppin" John"s Low country Cooking.
www.hoppinjohns.com or 800-828-4412 Chocolate Scharffen Berger makes chocolate in small batches with vintage European equipment and traditional methods. The unsweetened chocolate and cacao nibs are superb.
www.scharffenberger.com or 800-930-4528 Chocosphere sells many international chocolates. I like the French Pralus, British Green & Black"s, and Grenada.
www.chocosphere.com or 877-992-4626 Sweeteners Find local raw honey and pure maple syrup at farmers" markets, farm stands, and health food stores. For mail order, try these: Deep Mountain Maple Syrup sells pure maple syrup and pure maple sugar made with traditional methods in West Glover, Vermont.
www.deepmountainmaple.com or 802-525-4162 Tropical Traditions and the Grain and Salt Society sell organic whole sugar.
www.tropicaltraditions.com or 866-311-2626 www.celticseasalt.com or 800-867-7528 Various Traditional Foods Radiant Life sells traditional foods based on the research of Weston Price, including gra.s.s-fed, raw b.u.t.ter, unrefined sea salt, unfiltered olive oil, and cod-liver oil.
www.radiantlifecatalog.com or 888-593-8333 Members of the Weston A. Price Foundation receive a newsletter, Wise Traditions. The cla.s.sified section features local gra.s.s-fed and pastured meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy, and other traditional foods such as coconut oil and salmon roe.
www.westonaprice.org or 202-363-4394 The Grain and Salt Society sells traditional foods, including unrefined sea salt, wild salmon, and fermented foods.
www.celticseasalt.com or 800-867-7528 Traditional Soy Foods You will find miso, natto, and tempeh in health food stores, good grocery stores, and Asian markets. Clearspring is a good brand of organic and fermented Asian foods.
Coconut Oil Tropical Traditions sells wet-milled, virgin coconut oil and a rich coconut cream from small organic farms in the Philippines. It also sells coconut soap and skin cream.
www.tropicaltraditions.com or 866-311-2626 Unrefined Salt Only unrefined sea salt contains the essential trace elements. Most sea salt is refined, but the better health food stores and grocers sell unrefined salt. An excellent brand is Celtic. Saltworks sells European and other unrefined sea salts. Real Salt sells unrefined salt from ancient Utah salt mines. Originally (in the Jura.s.sic era) it was sea salt, although I understand some magnesium is lost with time. The Grain and Salt Society sells many types of Celtic sea salt.
www.saltworks.us or 425-885-7258 www.realsalt.com or 800-367-7258 www.celticseasalt.com or 800-867-7258 Breast-Feeding and Infant Formula For information and encouragement about breast-feeding, contact La Leche League.
www.lalecheleague.org or 847-519-7730 If you cannot feed your baby with breast milk, find a recipe for the next best thing at www.westonaprice.org. Many of the ingredients can be found at www.radiantlife.com.can be found at www.radiantlife.com.
Citrus Fruit Citrus is one of the regional foods I buy from small, independent, and ecological producers. Two I like: La Vigne Organics grows biodynamic and organic citrus in San Diego Country, California, including unusual fruits such as minneolas, blood oranges, k.u.mquats, and persimmons. South Tex Organics grows organic grapefruit, oranges, and Meyer lemons.
www.lavignefruits.com.
www.stxorganics.com.
Further Reading and Resources.
Further Reading.
All these books are for the general reader. Most are less famous than they should be. Together, they represent a mountain of good sense on food, cooking, diet, health, and agriculture. Every one ought to be a best seller.
Food and Cooking Appet.i.te, Nigel Slater An English home cook with a taste for simple things, Slater is my favorite food writer. Appet.i.te is a bible for daily home cooking, teaching you how to cook by loose recipes and general principles.
The Complete Dairy Foods Cookbook, Annie Proulx and Lew Nichols This wonderful book on homemade dairy is sadly out of print and worth buying used.
Good Fat, Fran McCullough A cookbook that makes sense of real and industrial fats.
The Gra.s.sfed Gourmet Cookbook, Shannon Hayes Cooking gra.s.s-fed beef properly takes some practice. Get it here.
Last Chance to Eat: The Fate of Taste in a Fast Food World, Gina Mallet A lyrical memoir told via the fate of four foods- eggs, fish, beef, raw milk cheese- with lots of facts for the serious and curious.
Nourishing Traditions, Sally Fallon and Mary Enig A kitchen bible, with all the recipes you need, plus tons of useful information on traditional food.
On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, Harold McGee McGee is indispensable on the science of the kitchen. You will refer to him often.
The Primal Feast: Food, s.e.x, Foraging, and Love, Susan Allport Allport writes with the naturalist"s eye on the human omnivore, why women h.o.a.rd and share food, how farming caused our health to decline, food cravings, and more.
The Whole Beast, Fergus Henderson Henderson is the chef at St. John, a superb London restaurant dedicated to the whole beast, from meat to feet, cheek to marrow.
Health and Diet The Cholesterol Myths: Exposing the Fallacy That Cholesterol and Saturated Fat Cause Heart Disease, Uffe Ravnskov If you know someone who"s afraid to eat b.u.t.ter and eggs, this book will do the trick. See www.thincs.org.
The Healing Miracles of Coconut Oil, Bruce Fife If you read this slim book and are still unsure about eating coconut oil, it will, I hope, at least persuade you to use it on your skin. I swear by pure coconut oil soap and lotion from Tropical Traditions. (See "Where to Find Real Food".) The Heart Revolution: The Extraordinary Discovery That Finally Laid the Cholesterol Myth to Rest and Put Good Food Back on the Table, Kilmer McCully and Martha McCully This readable paperback explains why cholesterol is not the enemy and how real food rich in B vitamins prevents heart disease.
The Omega-3 Connection: The Ground-Breaking Anti-Depression and Diet Program, Andrew Stoll Fish prevents obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and depression.
The Paleo Diet: Lose Weight and Get Healthy Eating the Food You Were Designed to Eat, Loren Cordain Cordain recommends we eat like hunter-gatherers. His research on obesity, diabetes, and heart disease is very useful.
See www.thepaleodiet.com.
Farming Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization, Richard Manning An unforgettable account of the triumph of cereal crops in agriculture.
Keeping a Family Cow, Joann S. Grohman An expert in cow and human nutrition, Grohman writes for (very) small dairy farmers, but anyone who cares about milk will be fascinated. Buy her book at www.real-food.com.
The Omnivore"s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, Michael Pollan Pollan is America"s most talented writer on food and agriculture.
For recent writings, try www.michaelpollan.com.
Pasture Perfect: The Far-Reaching Benefits of Choosing Meat, Eggs, and Dairy Products from Gra.s.s-Fed Animals, Jo Robinson Robinson is the best exponent of the benefits of gra.s.s-fed and pastured foods. See www.eatwild.com.
Salad Bar Beef, Joel Salatin Salatin is America"s most famous gra.s.s farmer. This compelling primer on gra.s.s-fed beef is for farmers, but anyone will appreciate it.
Organizations Traditional Foods The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics (THINCS) A loose affiliation of scientists, doctors, and other researchers who doubt the cholesterol hypothesis of heart disease. Says the founder, Uffe Ravnskov: "Members represent different views about the causation of atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease. Some conflict with others, but this is a normal part of science. What we all oppose is that animal fat and high cholesterol play a role. The aim is to inform our colleagues and the public that this idea is not supported by scientific evidence; in fact, for many years a huge number of scientific studies have directly contradicted it."
www.thincs.org Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation Dedicated to the work of Dr. Francis Pottenger, famous for his experiments with raw milk and cats, and to Weston Price, the PPNF offers a newsletter and a library of research about health and nutrition.
www.price-pottenger.org Slow Food An international organization founded in Italy with members all over the world, Slow Food protects "the pleasures of the table from the h.o.m.ogenization of modern fast food." Join your local chapter to meet like-minded people and to find local, traditional, and artisa.n.a.l foods.
www.slowfood.com or www.slowfoodusa.org Weston A. Price Foundation Dedicated to the work of Weston Price, this membership organization campaigns for traditional foods, publishes a newsletter on nutrition and disease, and encourages people to buy real food in season from independent, local farmers.
www.westonaprice.org Sustainable Agriculture Glynwood Center Glynwood"s Agricultural Initiative promotes local and traditional foods, with an emphasis on small farmers, financially viable farms, scenic habitats, and diverse wildlife.
www.glynwood.org Inst.i.tute for Agriculture and Trade Policy IATP works for environmentally sound and financially viable rural and trade policies.
www.iatp.org National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture An alliance of groups promoting ecological farm policies.
www.sustainableagriculture.net Movies The Future of Food A smart, thorough, and moving doc.u.mentary on the threat of genetic engineering to small farmers, biodiversity, ecology, and food security for entire nations. Buy the DVD.
www.thefutureoffood.com The Meatrix A spoof on the hit film The Matrix, The Meatrix is a four-minute flash animation skewering factory farming. Ten million people have seen it. You"re next.
www.themeatrix.com The Real Dirt on Farmer John A third-generation Illinois farmer turns combines into farm shares.
www.therealdirt.net Super Size Me Morgan Spurlock ate industrial foods for thirty days and wrecked his health. Rent the PG version for any kid you love.
www.supersizeme.com Clothing and Accessories FoodGoods designs beautiful T-shirts, tote bags, and ap.r.o.ns with amusing slogans about traditional and local foods.
www.foodgoods.com
Notes.
1.1 Grow Up on Real Food, Lose My Way, and Come Home Again 1. To calculate your BMI, see www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi.
2. William R. Leonard, "Food for Thought," Scientific American 13, no. 2 (2003; updated from December 2002 issue).
3. Talk by Michel Odent attended by the author. Midwifery Today conference, Philadelphia, March 18, 2004.
4. Lindsay Allen spoke at the 2005 meeting of the American a.s.sociation for the Advancement of Science.
5. Some vitamin B 12 is produced by microorganisms in fermentation. Yeast and beer, for example, contain vitamin B12 made by these tiny animals. A small quant.i.ty of B12 prevents deficiency.
6. A. P. Simopoulos, "The Importance of the Ratio of Omega-6/Omega-3 Essential Fatty Acids," Biomedicine and Pharmacotherapy 56, no. 8 (2002): 453.
7. Andrew L. Stoll, The Omega-3 Connection: The Ground-Breaking Anti-Depression and Diet Program (New York: Fireside, 2001), 92.
8. Anthony Colpo, "LDL Cholesterol: "Bad" Cholesterol, or Bad Science?" Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons 10, no. 3 (2005).
9. N. Schupf et al., "Relationship Between Plasma Lipids and All-Cause Mortality in Non-Demented Elderly," Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 53 (2005) 219-229.
10. "Malignant Medical Myths About Heart Disease," a talk given on November 13, 2005, by Joel Kauffman attended by the author at the Weston A. Price Foundation Conference in Chantilly, Virginia. See also the chapter on cholesterol from Kauffman"s book Malignant Medical Myths.
11. Leonard, "Food for Thought."
2. Real Milk, b.u.t.ter, and Cheese 1. A. P. Simopoulos, "The Importance of the Ratio of Omega-6/Omega-3 Essential Fatty Acids," Biomedicine and Pharmacotherapy 56, no. 8 (2002): 453.
2. Mary Enig, Know Your Fats: The Complete Primer for Understanding the Nutrition of Fats, Oils, and Cholesterol (Silver Spring, MD: Bethesda Press, 2000), 57.
3. R. L. Duyff and the American Dietetic a.s.sociation, American-Dietetic a.s.sociation Complete Food and Nutrition Guide, 2nd ed. (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley, 2002), 65.
4. The antibodies are known as immunoglobulins. The other four are IgG, IgM, IgD, and IgE.
5. Enig, Know Your Fats, 189; and R. Uauy, C. E. Mize, and C. Castillo-Duran, "Fat Intake During Childhood: Metabolic Responses and Effects on Growth," American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 72 (2000): S1354-60.
6. For a recipe, see Sally Fallon and Mary Enig, Nourishing Traditions, revised 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: NewTrends, 2001) or www.westonaprice.org.
7. J. M. Neeson, Commoners: Common Rights, Enclosure and Social Change in England, 1700 to 1820 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 11.
8. Thokild Kjaergaard, The Danish Revolution, 1500-1800: An Ecohistorical Interpretation, trans. David Hohnen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 162-63.
9. Interview with the author on May 6, 2004, prompted by Grout"s review of Grohman"s book, posted on www.amazon.com on March 23, 2004.
10. Robert Cohen, Milk: The Deadly Poison (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Argus, 1997), 100-101.
11. Albano Beja-Pereira et al., "Gene-Culture Coevolution Between Cattle Milk Protein Genes and Human Lactase Genes," Nature Genetics, published online November 23, 2003.
12. Uffe Ravnskov, The Cholesterol Myths: Exposing the Fallacy That Cholesterol and Saturated Fat Cause Heart Disease (Washington, DC: NewTrends, 2000), 32-33.
13. Nutrition Week, March 22, 1991, 2-3.
14. Ravnskov, The Cholesterol Myths, 104.
15. E. Somer, "Minerals," in The Essential Guide to Vitamins and Minerals (New York: Harper Perennial, 1995), 89-94.
16. Sally Fallon and Mary Enig, Eat Fat, Lose Fat (New York: Hudson Street Press/Penguin, 2005), 51-52.
17. P. C. Elwood et al., "Milk Consumption, Stroke, and Heart Attack Risk: Evidence from the Caerphilly Cohort of Older Men," Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 59 (2005): 502-5.
18. P. Reaven, S. Parthasarathy, B. J. Gra.s.se, E. Miller, F. Almazan, F. H. Mattson, J. C. Khoo, D. Steinberg, and J. L. Witztum, "Feasibility of Using an Oleate-Rich Diet to Reduce the Susceptibility of Low-Density Lipoprotein to Oxidative Modification in Humans," American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 54, no. 4 (1991): 701-6.
19. M. L. Kelly, E. S. Kolver, D. E. Bauman, M. E. Van Amburgh, and L. D. Muller, "Effect of Intake of Pasture on Concentrations of Conjugated Linoleic Acid in Milk of Lactating Cows," Journal of Dairy Science 81, no. 6 (1998): 1630-36. See also T. R. Dhiman, G. R. Anand, L. D. Satter, and M. W Pariza, "Conjugated Linoleic Acid Content of Milk from Cows Fed Different Diets," Journal of Dairy Science 82, no. 10 (1999): 2146-56.
20. Laurie S. Z. Greenberg and Darcy Klasna, "The Marketing Potential of Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA) in Cheese: A Market Scan," Cooperative Development Services, May 2002, 9.
21. W. Campbell, M. A. Drake, and D. K. Larick, "The Impact of Fortification with Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA) on the Quality of Fluid Milk," Journal of Dairy Science 86 (2003): 48.
22. California Morbidity Weekly Report, March 31, 1989.
23. Martha M. Kramer, F. Latzke, and M. M. Shaw, "A Comparison of Raw, Pasteurized, Evaporated and Dried Milks as Sources of Calcium and Phosphorus for the Human Subject," Journal of Biological Chemistry 79 (1928): 283-95.
24. Madeleine Vedel, "Saving the Raw Milk Cheeses of Provence," Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts (newsletter of the Weston A. Price Foundation), 5, no. 4 (2004): 60-65.
25. X. Z. Ding et al., "Anti-Pancreatic Cancer Effects of Myristoleic Acid," Pancreatology 3 (2003): 209-69.
26. Schmid {The Untold Story of Milk) found the Mayo Clinic study. See also Bernarr Macfadden, The Miracle of Milk: How to Use the Milk Diet Scientifically at Home (Mcfadden Publications, 1924).
27. M. B. Zemel, "Role of Dietary Calcium and Dairy Products in Modulating Adiposity," Lipids 38, no. 2 (2003): 139-46.
3. Real Meat 1. Nichola Fletcher, "Hunting for Fat, Searching for Lean," in The Fat of the Land: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, 2002, ed. Harlan Walker (Bristol: Footwork, 2003), 88.