Thursday, September 3, 2009

What Do We Eat?

I hope that I don't sound as bad as a person who quits smoking. I know there are a million plus folks out there who study diets and the relationship between food and disease. I am not sure how I missed the work by Weston A Price. I have certainly heard of a plethora of diets. There are all kinds of ideas out there. We have the grapefruit diet, the watermelon diet, the low fat high carb, diet, the Atkins diet, the Weight Watchers diet, the liquid diets, the vegan diets add on infinitude.
So what sets this work apart from the rest of the pack?

Do you know what the people who are trained in recognizing counterfeit money study? They study real money. They study the real thing until they can spot a fake a mile away. There is something to that, a premise on how to recognize the real deal. In 1930 Weston A. Price DDS. began to hunt for people groups who exhibited good health and were free of dental carries and degenerative disease. He studied for over 10 years and paid for all of research with his won money. No vested interest groups. He studied healthy people, and he took lots of pictures of them.
In his life time there were still small pockets of native "stock" as he referred to them who had not yet incorporated any civilized foods. He studied 14 people groups from the Swiss mountains to the equator. There were a few things these groups had in common. None of them practiced food combining, none of them were vegetarians, all of them ate some type of raw animal products, milk, cultured milk, cheeses or fish and meat. The other things these people had in common were wide full faces with plenty of room for all their teeth, including the wisdom teeth. Teeth that were amazingly straight, white, and free of disease, even without brushing! These people groups also shared robust strength, some men could easily carry 100lbs in each hand. They had strong physiques and energy, keen eyesight and he found very little if any degenerative diseases.

As he studied he noticed a relationship between dental carries and the increase of tuberculosis infection. He took multiple photographs of each group. He followed up with the groups and studied them when they adopted "civilized" foods into their diets and quit eating their traditional foods. Within one generation mass amounts of dental decay were noted, also changes in the entire structure of their faces. Narrow faces with pinched nares and crowded mouths with high misshapen dental arches were noted. People were committing suicide because of abscessed teeth and they could not stand the pain. Another change occurred in energy and motivation. These same people who were still located next to the rivers they once fished from would not fish. It was difficult to get people to work or get up and do anything productive. There diets were now white bread, sugar, syrups, and canned vegetables. They had adopted the SAD diet, standard American diet.

I am not going to get into the "goodness or badness" of these events. I don't think there was an evil plot to wreck health. During the industrial revolution we as a society exchanged our home fronts for the modern age, and we still do. I don't know anyone who has a Jersey cow that eats bright green fresh grass and is hand milked each day. Yet that very thing could change American health. Raising animals the way God intended them to live makes sense. Locking them up into cramped unhealthy conditions feeding them what they were never intended to eat, and treating them with huge amounts of drugs to keep them alive long enough to kill is poor stewardship. It might be profitable but it is a sin. Man was given dominion over the Earth to CARE for it, not exploit it. The law of sowing and reaping is a law. It is as much a law as the law of gravity. We have sown in a spirit of greed for wealth, and we are reaping disease. We are going broke as a nation with disease. We are addicted to the very foods that are killing us because they have addictive chemicals in them, over 2200 in fact. Chemicals that have an additive effect in our systems. The latest I have read is that almost 80% of our children have to take some kind of class 2 regulated medication in order to participate in school. Why?

What do we eat? Why do we eat it? How many women still know how to cook, other than cookies and a slather of canned frosting on a cake mix cake? How many families even cook? Here where I live the houses have the most incredible kitchens you have ever seen. All Viking appliances, spikets at the stove to fill pasta pots, restaurant quality stoves and huge stainless refrigerators and freezers; with all of this wealth the average family in the South anyway, eats out or buys take out, almost every night of the week. If you cook what do you put into your food? Do you use hydrolyzed animal and vegetable proteins? They are full of MSG. MSG is a potent neurotransmitter and it will MESS UP YOUR HEAD! Let's not even start on the glucose, fructose, corn syrup, pesticides, formaldehyde's, additives, preservatives, refined toxic salts, etc. etc. etc.....

Are you depressed yet?

What can we eat? Can I ever again put anything good into my mouth? The answer is yes. The answer is that you can learn to cook wholesome foods, that take some planning and preparation but are satisfying to the body and the palate. It can be done. Simple changes one at a time. The first one is label reading, oh gah, no, if you read the labels on the things in your pantry you may freak out. When you get to the words that you can't pronounce and you don't know what they are, well that's because those are the chemicals you really would'nt want to eat if you saw them on a counter top some where.

Margarine is the grossest "food" ever devised, throw it out. Don't even feed it to a pig it is garbage. Eat real organic butter raw if you can get it. Breakfast cereal? How about the word "slurry" doesn't that sound good? Let's make a highly processed liquid out of these flours mostly white, "wheat" just means it once was, at the beginning, lets add some chemicals to make the slurry taste good, bake it in sheets and then bust it up to call it flakes. Now that is nutrition! It would be better to have a slice of chocolate cake, like Bill Cosby said when he gave it to his kids for breakfast, there is eggs and milk in the cake.

I have discovered something else. I have yet another new book. This one is titled"The Fourfold Path to Healing," by Thomas S. Cowan MD. He has some far out ideas in here, in terms of his sources but I am still willing to listen. God rains on the just and the unjust, His blessings fall on all people even those who reject him, because He is love. I can read these ideas that don't come from my theology and make an application to it. When he talks about life energies I know where it comes from and who it is. What has interested me is that the very foods that I need according to this doctor are the foods I crave. I have always loved beets, meat, cheese, milk, eggs, creamy sauces, creamy salad dressings, liver pate, salt, butter, and yogurt. A person with adrenal gland exhaustion needs these foods. Wowzers, my body is asking for the food that will heal it. Personally I think that is a big deal. What is your body asking for? Can't hear anything? Get off of sugar and soda and see what it tells you. The good news is that when you get rid of the toxic stuff what is left is really great, really delicious decadently rich food! Cream, butter, cheese, meat milk, fish, vegetables, fermented veggies like saurkraut, whole rich grain sour dough breads, oh and that's just the start!

Are you still there? This has become quite long. Tomorrow I'm going to tell you a super easy way to make bread, you won't believe how easy. We can talk about substituting out healthier ingredients in your favorite recipes. Don't give up on me Cathy! I have now been completely off of sugar for several weeks and some good things are happening. I can taste food better. I am calmer and more relaxed. I can have Celtic sea salt and all that I want too, last night I even chewed up a chunk to see what it tasted like, it's good. I am on a quest for bones but that is another topic and I'll save that one for later. Ya'll have a healthy day!

16 comments:

Heidi said...

Girl - you have hit on what I have wanted to do for YEARS! Other than being self sufficent I dont/wont eat the processed crap if I dont have to. We either eat home canned food or fresh...

LDF said...

I am so with you on this! It is quite challenging to be foodie self-sufficient living in an apartment in the city, however I try very hard to listen to my body and eat the foods I crave instead of listening to conventional medical "wisdom" about low-fat this and that, marg instead of butter, etc. And I feel better eating this way than I've felt in years!

Becky said...

I look forward to your bread recipe. I'm afraid I would have to make it in bulk though. We go through at least four loaves a week, but it is whole grain. I would love to live the little house way... or even before that, where you eat what you grow.

However the mortgage calls so for now I'll accept some help from my quick and easy baking pals. ;-) I do make cookies from scratch. :-D

Becky said...

Meant to say as well:

I do find your studies intriguing and appreciate you sharing it. It is nice to be informed.

joanne said...

great post...I am 'hungry' for more..;p

noble pig said...

No sugar? Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Michelle said...

I think our diet is such an interesting topic and quite a source of our diseases/mental health problems in the USA. Can't wait to read more about your studies!

Debbie in CA : ) said...

*CLAP!*CLAP!*CLAP!*

Get on board and grab some pate! Let's celebrate healthy living. You go girl!

p.s.
I'm in California . . . we can still buy REAL food from REAL animals raised the REAL way. Now if I can just keep my local/state/federal government from butting in and messing it all up I'll be happy.

p.p.s.
Speaking of "butting in" . . . did you get that raw goat's milk yet? How was it? Make butter? Good? Can't wait for more Kulinary Khronicles with Karen.

Unknown said...

Yea a healthy living book I haven't read yet!!!

We drink raw cow's milk and it is sooo yummy. Eat all organic fresh produce from local suppliers. Super YUMMY!!!!
I can't wait to see how much better my kids do thru puberty and other life mile stones.

Twisted Fencepost said...

Great post!
This is a lot of good information. Here on the farm, I have been working hard to preserve as much fresh food as possible. And trying to eat less of the big corporation processed food that may have sat on a shelf for years before being sold.
I believe all those chemicals are what are causing all the diseases in our people.

Lynne's Somewhat Invented Life said...

Great post. We were vegan for years and then slowly we added this and that and now we eat SAD. I'm so sad about eating SAD. I knonw sugar is the worst.

Can't wait for future posts.

WudWerkr said...

The candle lady has suffered from migraine headaches her whole life , my son has adhd , we read that refined sugars were alot of the problem , so we went to the "atkins" diest for his adhd . Cutting out all the refined sugars we could and he was able to stop taking the meds as long as he stayed with the diet. another positive was that when candle lady stayed with it she stopped haveing migrains maybe a fluke but who cares it worked for us !

Kathy said...

About 10 years ago, I became a Christian and experienced many life changes. My first Easter, learning about the lent tradition, I decided not to give up merely chocolate or candy and cakes. I made a decision to eat what I coined my God Diet, ate only what was provided for man to eat, and gave up what man created to eat. Later I found out that there is an actually movement that follows this. I felt so much better and healthier in a very short time. I ate natural for a couple of years. Then I "fell off the wagon". After the grandkids all left at the end of this summer, I surveyed the pantry full of open bads of chips, sodas, cake mixes, boxes of mac and cheese and I was appalled. I have been back to my God Diet for a few weeks now, with some exceptions. (yesterday's lunch). I already feel better and am very dedicated to this. Funny that you are doing this at the same time. While in Hawaii last summer, I read a book that Jerry's cousin laoned me, something about ingredients in our foods, it started out dissecting the twinkie, it was great but I've forgotten the title. I loved this post Karen. Thanks!

Rosie_Kate said...

Sing it, Sistah! :-)

Angela said...

You have been a busy little beaver sis...Thanks for sharing. Not long at all if there is a lot of wisdom and truths shared...awesome

Karey Swan said...

Preach it sister! ;^)

Another tidbit I could add to your info is about Australian aborigines. When they left behind their food and activities, they got diabetes. A study was done encouraging any who would, to return to old eating habits, which would mean hunting. Surprise, surprise - absolutely no diabetes showed up in their follow-up testing at all! Have you ever heard of such a thing!?!?!?

Basically no sugars, refined flours, pre-packaged, pre-made foods.