Vacation Reading

I used to mock my mother for reading cookbooks, but, apparently, I am my mother's son, because on my recent vacation to Maine, I read a cookbook.

Not just any cookbook, but Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats by Sally Fallon and Mary G. Enig, Ph.D. This cookbook follows the philosophy of Weston A. Price, whose book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration (which I partially reviewed) inspired her cookbook and led to the creation of the Weston A. Price foundation. In brief, Price traveled around the world in the 1930's and studied traditional cultures to see what gave them their perfect health. (The photos in the book are amazing).  He came up with a number of recommendations, and this cookbook puts those recommendations into action.

The "cookbook" is actually much more than a cookbook. The first seventy-five or so pages review nutritional science and challenge many existing ideas, such as the lipid hypothesis. It is a book on how to cook in the traditional, healthy manner as much as a list of recipes and the book is loaded with a lot of information in the sidebars on each page.

The authors go into a great amount of detail on how to prepare ingredients for each recipe. For example, how to soak grains, such as wheat, to remove the problematic phytates; how to prepare bone broth; why you should consume raw milk and cream; how to (and why it is necessary) produce whey and homemade cream cheese; and how to cook with organ meats, among many other topics. There is a source of supplies in the back and while not strictly low carb, it is an overall healthy philosophy of eating. The cookbook shuns processed foods of all types (e.g., refined flour and processed sugar) and in all things seeks to emulate how traditional societies prepared foods for perfect health. While not completely low carb, most of what is in the cookbook aligns quite nicely with the low carb philosophy because the authors' philosophy on eating is very similar.

Personally, I found the cookbook very exciting to read and cannot wait to try out many of the recipes. But I do think it will be time consuming and require a lot of advanced planning. For example, to make biscuits, I would need to spend a week preparing a sour dough starter, plus soak the wheat for a few days until it starts to sprout; then dry the sprouted wheat, before grinding it. That might also take the better part of a week. I can see that this method of cooking will require a lot of advanced planning.

Jimmy Moore demonstrated that raw milk had almost no effect on his blood sugar levels, so I am very curious to see how sprouted or soaked wheat will effect my blood sugars. I suspect I will be pleasantly surprised.

All in all, this was a very worthwhile reading experience. I wish I had known what I know now when we were raising children, as I am sure I would have had a bigger influence on what was prepared for family meals. (For purposes of clarity, my wife did most of the cooking when the kids were at home and tried to cook in as healthy a manner as she knew how, based on the available information. There is no criticism of her cooking leveled or implied in this blog entry).

Misc. Thoughts, Studies, and Blog Posts

No updates this week, as I am traveling and away from home, where I weigh myself. However, I can feel my pants getting looser by the day, so I am confident I have lost weight. Below are some jumbled thoughts and ramblings from my surfing throughout the low carb blogosphere.

I have received two books in the mail from Amazon.com that I am currently reading: Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig and The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living by Stephen Phinney and Jeff Volek. I haven't had time to read them yet, but will report on them when I do. The first one, Nourishing Traditions, is actually a cookbook which explains the philosophy behind the Weston A. Price Foundation's view on achieving perfect health. As I have flipped through it, it looks very interesting and unlike other cookbooks I have referenced. The second book is a How To book, which explains the ins and outs of the low carb lifestyle. It is targeted towards health professionals.

In news from around the low carb blogosphere, Chris Kresser of the Healthy Skeptic has a new post on natural childbirth. My daughter has been educating me on natural childbirth (I've commented on the topic before), and I find it interesting that a man has written on the topic. His wife makes several comments about the topic (e.g., here, here, and here) in the comments section and he is fully supportive of the procedure. In fact, it seems logical, given his focus on natural health and the paleo diet.

Denise Minger of the Raw Foods SOS blog tweeted about a study showing a link between antidepressant drugs (e.g., Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Celexa) and the occurrence of autism. Caution: this is an observational study which shows correlation, not causation. Nevertheless, it is an interesting hypothesis that warrants further study.

Tom Naughton of the Fathead blog writes that most vegetarians become ex-vegetarians. He reviews a news article on the subject and makes some interesting conclusions. People who chose vegetarianism for ethical reasons are now eating meat (prepared in an ethical manner, e.g., grass fed, not feedlot meat). Poor health from the vegetarian diet is the number one reason people go back to eating meat.

A recent rodent study showed that a low carb diet helps prevent weight gain, cancer development and progression, and tumor growth.

Another study shows that fake fat (like Olestra) causes more weight gain than real fat. It was fun watching the authors spin the results of this study!

Nutrition and Physical Degeneration

Since discovering the low carb way of living, I have been reading a number of new and different books, which have expanded my horizon.  I am about half way through a very interesting book called Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston A. Price.  It is by a Cleveland are dentist who, in the 1930's, decided to see what habits led to healthy teeth and overall health.

He visited isolated populations around the globe, including isolated villages in the tops of the Swiss Alps, Eskimos, African tribes, Melanesians, Maori, Peruvian Indians, etc.  His investigations happened at a very interesting time, right at the intersection between traditional and modern ways of eating, and what he discovered was truly amazing.  Those who followed traditional eating habits were healthy, vibrant, and had a full set of teeth without much evidence of tooth decay.  Those who followed a modern diet of, among other things, refined white flour and sugar, were much less healthy and had a lot of dental problems.  I am now in the part of the book where he is distilling what he learned over a decade of such travels.

The next time you are in Barnes and Noble, pick up a copy of this book and simply look at the photographs.  You will be astounded at the differences in dental hygiene between those who at the traditional diet and those who ate the modern diet.  An image is truly worth a thousand words and I was stunned by the difference one single generation made in the health of these peoples.  He also has a lot of photos of skulls of ancient peoples who lived before modern times, and their teeth and jaws are perfect, with little to no decay or deformities.

One thing that has bothered me about this book is that it was written in a time period when eugenics was practiced and believed.  Phrases like, "Is it just for society to permit production of physical and mental cripples?" (p. 8) almost made me abandon the book before I got started.  For a brief historical overview of the eugenics movement, read this essay by novelist Michael Crichton.  But if you can get past the eugenics and elitist comments that are a product of the time period in which it was written, it is an excellent book.  I am glad I did not abandon the book, as it has been extremely interesting.

I have discovered there is a Weston A. Price Foundation dedicated to the nutritional philosophies discovered in this remarkable book.  While not completely low carb, it is certainly a very healthy way of eating.  I will report more on this remarkable book when I have finished it.