I have a few books that I regularly turn to. I find them absolutely invaluable to getting back in the right frame of mind when life turns into a blur and I can no longer maintain consistent good eating habits at home. I’ll go through those books over time, but for the moment I’d like to boast about my latest acquisition!
I’ve read mention of Dr Weston Price’s book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration in a number of books and blogs that I follow. In particular, Sally Fallon’s highly regarded Nourishing Traditions is based on the research and findings of Dr Price’s work. Though I am happy and appreciative of others interpretation of a person’s body of work, it is interesting and often adds greater understanding by going straight to the source.
My copy of Nutrition and Physical Degeneration arrived yesterday (purchased here: http://www.booktopia.com.au/nutrition-and-physical-degeneration-weston-price/prod9781849027700.html), and so far I have found it incredibly enlightening.
There is currently a popular push among many nutritionists and certain high profile figures that although untrained in the field of health have still managed great influence on the eating public, to eat high fat (or a high protein), low carb diets. This message would at first glance appear to be supported by some of the findings of Dr Weston Price, save for a few and all important elements. Chiefly, where is this fat obtained, how was it raised/produced, and what processing has taken place to either render the end product a valuable, nourishing, assimilable food, or simply a denatured product.
I personally don’t think any naturally occurring food group should be rejected, unless of course a person suffers life threatening reaction to consuming it, and although the dieticians that heavily promoted a low fat and high carb diet may have been a tad reactionary (there would have been reasons the diet of the time was overhauled, I don’t believe in any conspiracy theory relating to underhanded pressure by food manufacturing giants), and unfortunately missed the important messages regarding the proper treatment of grains necessary to engender good health (that being they ought to be freshly ground to retain their nutritional profile, and ideally soaked in an acidic solution in order to remove many of the phytates that hamper the absorption of nutrients), I don’t think they have been entirely wrong either. Certainly no more flawed than the messages promoted by the LCHF proponents. Both camps have missed valuable messages about how a food product needs to be treated in order to create good health, and not rob the body of its strength and vitality, and fail to address the health of the soil on which the foods are raised, whether they be plant or animal. Dr Price’s book I think is invaluable in dispelling any myths about where the focus of our modern diets and lifestyles should be. The answers, not surprisingly are to be found in the so-called primitive cultures whose lifestyles reflect a long history health and vitality.
I am still reading and learning, but I am loving having a new found understanding of how all of this information channeled through other health authors is coming together, because it is so hard to create change in your own life when you don’t understand the why’s and the how’s. Once the mind is sorted, the body starts to work in unison. I look forward to moving ahead with greater focus and a deep set understanding of why I began this journey in the first place.
simple living 