Raw Milk Recovery
I grew up in the Netherlands. For 25 years there, I consumed raw milk. My family would take a bucket full of milk and put it in the cellar because we didn’t have refrigeration, and they would skim it. Whenever the cream turned sour, I always got the sour cream. . . because I was the runt of the litter, and it was good for me. When I came to this country in 1950, I was employed in the dairy industry, and I still drank raw milk—I never took to the pasteurized and homogenized milk that you have here.
When my wife and I adopted our daughter, we were told that she was lactose intolerant. Well, we solved that problem with raw milk. I got it from my own cows because by that time I had my own dairy. My cows greatly outperformed those of my neighbors, and I credit that success to pasturing my herd once a day. After five years I moved to a dry-lot operation, which brought on leptospirosis [a bacterial disease of animals and humans] in my herd. At that point I stopped drinking my own product and I told my raw milk customers I didn’t feel right about it… so I stopped giving it to them. I went to considerable expense to solve the disease problem. After overcoming the illness in my cows, I was financially exhausted and sold the herd.
It wasn’t until three or four years ago, after moving to Bakersfield, that I started drinking raw milk again. I’ve been a steady customer of Organic Pastures ever since. I recently recovered from hospitalization during which I didn’t get any raw milk. They offered me non-fat milk which I refused to consume. At one point after the hospitalization I told my wife, “I’m losing ground.” I felt like I was going down. Then I resumed consuming raw milk at the rate of one and one-half gallons per week. That’s not quite a quart a day. Since then I’ve been told that I look really healthy. I divorced my wheelchair and I’m now trying to orphan my cane.
I’m nearly 84 years old, and I’m doing my part in fighting the government to keep them from interfering with my raw milk. To paraphrase John McCain, “I’ll go to the gates of hell to defend raw milk.”
Ed De Boer
Bakersfield, California
From Russia With Living Milk
Yesterday we received a book of photos by an old friend who is the head of urban planning in St. Petersburg. Volodya is also a talented amateur photographer who’s exhibited his work around the world. This latest collection of photos from St. Petersburg included one of a small cistern on wheels, cheerfully painted like a cow with the words “Living Milk” on its side.
We wondered what this was and called a friend in the city to find out. She told us that these are small cisterns of raw milk from nearby farms (she had no details about them) that regularly appear in the courtyards of apartment houses. They look a lot like a kvass cistern—except for the decorations, of course! Residents come out with pitchers and other containers and receive milk from the spigot. Our friend said the same milk is available bottled in the shops, but the cistern milk is cheaper and tends to go sour faster. It is not refrigerated; a truck brings it into the courtyard, detaches the cistern and an attendant with an apron services the patrons. They sell out quickly and a truck comes to retrieve the empty cistern. The attendant dutifully recommends that you boil the milk. This arrangement is very common, apparently. We asked our friend if she’d heard of any instances of illness from the Living Milk dispersals and she said that no, she’d never heard of any.
Can you possibly imagine such a setup in this country?? We do need to revisit our ideas of what is dangerous!
Katherine Czapp
Ann Arbor, Michigan
The Birds Know
Thank you for your unwavering message: our bodies need nutrientdense food. I avoided healthy fats for many years, only to find myself easily fatigued.
Here is a story from Ranger Rick magazine, printed in the 1980s, about a girl who was new to Great Britain. Upon having milk delivered to the house, something tore off the foil milk caps and left dirt in the milk. What was it? “The milk-snitching birds . . . were tits. These birds don’t live in North America. But they are relatives of our chickadees and titmice.
“How did these birds learn to snitch milk from bottles? People first noticed some birds taking milk about 70 years ago. At that time, milk bottles in England had waxy cardboard caps, and the birds liked to nibble on the wax. A few birds may have pecked so hard at the wax that their beaks went right through the cardboard tops. Then they discovered that the strange white stuff under the caps tasted good. Soon birds all over the country learned to do it, too.
“The milk bottles in England have different colored foil caps now. There’s one color for creamy milk, which the birds like, and another color for skim milk. The birds have learned to be choosy. They open the caps of the creamy milk and leave the skim milk alone!”
Nature truly does teach best!
Don Von Deinzon
Dental Health in Bulgaria
Greetings from Bulgaria! Dental health in children is my big concern. For 45 years we were isolated from the world, behind the Iron Curtain, so we were kept away from the western diet. Dental checkups were mandatory and tooth decay was uncommon. But after the fall of communism, when fast and junk food quickly gained popularity, the results have been disastrous. Today 70 percent of our children have tooth decay, and every second teenager has had at least one tooth extracted. The government officially approved fluoridation of the water and food in kindergartens, which will make things even worse, as you know.
Last year I discovered Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Dr. Price and read it all. Needless to say I got the answer to all my questions concerning dental health and degeneration. Now, the question is how to bring this knowledge to the people of Bulgaria? Weston Price is virtually unknown here; no one wants to pay for the translation of his book. I translated a small presentation video on Google but that’s far from enough. Please, advise me on what to do now.
Ludmil Egov
Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria
Principles Are the Difference
From studying Parelli natural horsemanship, I have learned the value of principles. Principles don’t make a difference, they are the difference.
The Weston A. Price Foundation provides us with dietary principles. When reading the book Sugar Blues, I was frustrated by the statements “sugar is the cheapest source of calories” and “calories are energy.” Such statements might lead one to think that sugar is good and acceptable. I knew this was wrong and I know that you are right in your insistence on nutrient-dense foods, but I couldn’t figure out the “how”!
Then it occurred to me. The premise that sugar is calories and therefore fuel sounds good. However, it’s a takeoff from the Age of Mechanization. Vehicles need fuel to perform, but they don’t regenerate. Living beings regenerate! You must have nutrient-dense foods to regenerate—including procreation and recovery from illness. We are not mechanical things, we are living beings. In order to live and regenerate, we must have more than mere calories. We must have real food!
Candis Veach
Leorr, Iowa
Useful Information
I have been a fan of Nourishing Traditions and the Weston A. Price Foundation for a number of years now. All of your wonderful advice has changed the lives of my family. We are all so much healthier!
All of your issues of Wise Traditions are rich with information but the last two were especially outstanding. Thank you for the article about cookware. You gave me many new reasons to enjoy using my cast-iron Lodge cookware as well as my enameled cast-iron cookware.
Next, the articles in your most recent issue about cooking nourishing traditional foods on a budget and cooking for children in school were some of your best. Both articles are so chockfull of useful information. I have been working so hard over the last few months to buy the best food that I can find—organic and local—and I was amazed at how much money I was able to save by buying as much as I can from local farms. With meal planning and menu creations, and some advanced preparation, my family is able to eat real food prepared in a traditional, healthgiving manner. Dr. Sergeant’s article has armed me with additional information to help me even more with feeding my family on a budget.
Finally, the article on a healthy school lunch program was so timely for me. I recently enrolled my son in a twoday home school co-op that presently has no lunch program in place. After some observations of what the children were bringing for lunch, all I could think about was the manual that Ms. Rivers described in her article about Sequoia Academy.
I am on a mission now to teach, teach, teach. I am responsible for bringing the mid-morning snack for the children and am going to start bringing healthy traditional snacks. I am going to start compiling the recipes, tips, etc., in a notebook, and then have it made up into a cookbook, which will make a wonderful fundraising opportunity for our co-op. I hope the snacks and the cookbook will encourage more nourishing lunches brought from home. My son is a wonderful ambassador, proud to bring out his raw milk, crispy nuts and sourdough meat-filled sandwiches at lunch time. With his impressive height, trim yet strong physique, “milk-fed” rosy cheeks and pleasant demeanor, I can see some of the other parents taking notice!
I wanted to share with you a photo of my parents Gloria and Jim, married for fifty years. Mom is 83 and Dad is 78. My mother never succumbed to the lowfat movement. She has always eaten a diet rich in whole milk, yogurt, butter, cream, cheese and meat with the fat on. She is in great health, takes no medication, still cooks and cleans, gardens, and walks everywhere. Her skin is amazing. My Dad is also in great health, a great cook and gardener! They both take cod liver oil every day. Both of them are mentally sharp and have their original teeth.
I have one other thing to share with you. One of my girlfriends was plagued with miscarriages— about seven over the course of the last twenty years. Then she started eating a nourishing traditional diet a few years back, including raw dairy, organ meats (she loves head cheese!) and fermented beverages. And now she is pregnant, at 43. She is looking forward to delivering a healthy and happy baby boy in January! Thank you once again.
Mary Shrader
Austin, Texas
School Lunch Cookbook Needed!
Thank you for your article, “Cooking for Sequoia Academy” (Fall, 2008). We need author Stephanie Rivers to write a cookbook! It’s very challenging, at times, to come up with WAPF-type recipes when there are multiple food sensitivities involved. For example, my daughter and some of her friends are on gluten-free diets. I make gluten-free muffins, but I have been unfortunately using those rice-based mixes from the store. Stephanie’s sweet potato muffins were a hit, and so healthy, at my threeyear- old’s birthday party!
I need to learn healthier, alternative recipes like that as I struggle with the alternative grains and food preparation for kids. I’d like to see recipes like this in every journal.
The traditional foods are easy, but not if you have to avoid things like dairy, eggs, gluten grains and nuts. And my daughter reacts immediately to coconut! Believe it or not, I know two other kids who do as well. I just want to thank you for the work you all do.
Lisa Olauson
Long Beach, California
Many Styles of Meal Planning
I just wanted to add my two cents regarding the recent articles on money and meal planning published in the last issue (Fall, 2008). I wanted to present another side of the story for all those mothers who are struggling with tightened spending while cooking healthy meals.
I must admit I’m a maverick mom and budgeting and meal planning are dirty words in my house. Yes, I do follow WAPF principles to the best of my ability. My children still eat junk but there is only so much you can hold back from them when all their friends are eating that way. Once upon a time I tried to apply all the proper principles of a budget-conscious mother and at the end of the day it didn’t work. For example, when I’m shopping for healthy food and I’m competing with the junk processed food, I spend the money so my kids will not feel deprived that they are not getting the newest space-age techno-food. I want them to feel good about what they are eating.
If you come from a home where the parents have the final word and children do as they are told, including finishing every last morsel on their plate, please ignore my comments. Since I abhor physically manipulating food into my children’s mouths, I opt for the look and taste appeal of naturally satisfying food. So when the organic pasture-raised foods cost double and triple I don’t bat an eyelash, I put them in my shopping cart. I have even stopped looking at the prices. So much for budget! However, since I do avoid processed food, I usually spend less, although not always.
As for meal planning, once upon a time I would diligently plan a weekly menu, but no more! How do you plan when life’s twists and turns are so unpredictable? For example, I cook double and my kids gobble up everything. Who’s to stop a hungry child from eating good food or thwart a mother’s delight in watching? Then, I cook for one meal and it lasts a week. I don’t want to waste my expensive food so now I have to camouflage it in other foods before it rots in the never-never land of my refrigerator.
I cook a sumptuous dinner and everybody rejects it for toast with cheese. One week the kids finish every drop and the next week no one wants it.
One week a certain child has special nutritional requirements so I make a different menu for him. One week I’m too pregnant and nauseated to look at anything, so the kids fend for themselves. I plan a meal in the morning, but since I’m out all day in an adventurous search for organic food, I come home too tired to cook what I planned, so I opt for Plan B (whatever that may be).
One week there is an unplanned bargain when I go shopping so I stock up for the next few months. Now I actually have to use up all that I bought. I hope you get the picture!
I have my few set guidelines that have helped me, which is why I would like to share them with you. During a busy work week, I try to prepare meals that take about one-half hour prep time and about one and one-half hours’ cooking time. I consider a meal successful when more than a majority of family members consumes at least four spoonfuls. I am happy when about 85 percent of the meal is prepared according to WAPF principles. So sometimes my grains are soaked properly and sometimes they are just baptized (toiveled, if you are Jewish). On a bad week I’m happy if I cooked a decent meal 50 percent of the time. I have no qualms about serving breakfast food for dinner or vice versa. Pancakes are one example.
I’m also not concerned if a child is on a monodiet. Isn’t that what Dr. Price learned from native cultures? I’m a sneaky cook so I try to prepare food that looks like the neighbor’s but with my ingredients. Millet in our house is called couscous. Our brown rice is disguised with turmeric and called “yellow rice.” Some vegetables are processed into a smooth paste so that they are indiscernible in the meat sauce. (However, it didn’t help for the one child with X-ray vision.) Liver is mixed with the ground meat. Dense, sourdough bread is fried in butter—we call it fried bread. Maple syrup is lavishly poured on the buckwheat! Smoothies are a smorgasbord of hidden secrets.
Sometimes I throw everything into one pot because the dishwasher (me) is out of commission. I have learned to speed cook. I can slice and dice with the best of them. I have learned to go with the flow and can change my dinner plans in seconds. The frozen meal I tried to defrost is still a solid rock. Scrambled eggs with fried bread and salad are great and speedy. Radical maybe, survival definitely.
The challenge of feeding my family WAPF-style is, at the end of the day, a very rewarding and fulfilling endeavor. When (on those rare nights) everybody is actually eating what I made I’m beaming from ear to ear. I wish everybody much success in feeding the next generation. May you grow from all the challenges and difficulties.
Milka Feldman, Maverick Mom
Ramat Bet Shemesh, Israel
Editor’s Response: Thank you for sharing your wonderful cooking style—it’s a gentle reminder to the rest of us not to take our meal planning and food providing too seriously!
Huge Change in Family Health
Thank you for all your information! It has made a huge change in my family’s health. The asthma my threeyear- old daughter and I have suffered has completely gone away in less than ten months by just cooking the WAPF way.
My son weighed only 32 pounds at the age of six, but has now put on seven pounds and grown four inches. He can now play sports with kids his own age. By the way, the main reason I started looking to change my diet was from a back injury in 2003. I herniated a lower disk and was told that I would live with pain for the rest of my life, and that I should forget about riding my mountain bike, hiking and snowboarding—all the things that I loved doing. After about a month on a WAPF diet (and some secrets from my grandmother, too), my pain began to leave me. I now am totally pain free and have no problem riding fifteen miles or hiking several trails in the same day.
It really is amazing that a year ago the doctors were telling me that I would have to take multiple medications for my back pain.
Jeff Smith
Frederick, Maryland
No More PCOS
Thank you for all your information on nutrient-dense diets! I suffered from polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) and irregular periods, and as soon as I started implementing your nutritional recommendations into my diet, I noticed a change. I am now almost five months pregnant, and conception was made a lot easier because of my improved health!
Donielle Baker
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Feeling Whole
My wife and I learned about your dietary information a couple of years ago, and have slowly changed our diet. As a result, we feel so much more “whole.” We’ve seen benefits like weight loss and more energy, but most important, the feeling of being “whole” has been wonderful. Thank you very much for your work!
Saiful Haque and Laila Hernandez
Hamilton, New Jersey
My Soy Story
I just found out about your website and information on soy and have been sending emails to people ever since to let them know: Soy is not a health food, it’s not just an allergen, it’s poison! All three of my children were fed soy baby formula for the entire first year of their lives. As an adult, my son tends to be on the hyper side and is bored very easily. His hands have always had a slight shake to them.
My daughter was diagnosed with ADD at age 12 and was put on Ritalin, which created a nightmare chain of events leading to drug and alcohol abuse and psychiatric hospitalization.
My youngest daughter has learning disabilities, and she has had focus and impulse problems since she was small. Anything that requires grasping concepts is a challenge for her. She has had a history of difficulty in her personal relationships with peers as well. She is a bright, beautiful child and this is breaking my heart.
All my children are bright and beautiful and it makes me horribly sad to think they have been poisoned by me, when I thought I was doing something good for them. It was considered the healthier way to formula feed. I was working full-time and breastfeeding just wasn’t going to be convenient or comfortable—if I only had the chance to make that choice again.
I am still in a state of shock and disbelief, and still discovering the widespread ways in which this poison has affected my own body, not to mention the broad effect it’s had on my children. I am trying to figure out a treatment plan to regain our health.
Lynn Roberts
Lemoore, California
Editor’s Response: See the article “Recovery from Soy,” by Dr. Kaayla Daniel, in the Spring 2007 issue of Wise Traditions. Cod liver oil, raw milk, organ meats, butter and bone broths are essential components of any soy recovery program. Dr. Daniel also offers a new CD, “Recovery from Soy.” For further information, contact her at kaayla@drkaayladaniel. com.
Deep Propaganda
I thought of all my WAPF friends while in the deep South, attending a blues festival. A billboard advertising pork fat was in a grocery store parking lot. What struck me was the fact that one would never see a sign like this in the suburbs where I live, in the San Francisco Bay area.
I learned about the Weston A. Price Foundation and traditional diets several years ago. Perhaps some people can throw off the lowfat dogma in 24 hours, but it took me a long time. Only recently have I realized the genuine propaganda effect of it all and how deep it goes. I remember that it took two months after I heard about WAPF to cancel my “advanced seminar” with the vegetarian diet promoter John McDougall. I may glance back now and again, as someone who believes in knowing what is going on and being said in that realm, but I am no longer tempted to attend any “lowfat” seminar, buy a book or see a speaker.
It has taken me several years to begin to see the depth and breadth of the lowfat credo. The devastation of it all as we slide into higher rates of diabetes and the despair of obesity! Thank you for working so diligently. I’m surrounded by those who have gone before me and who keep me from sliding backwards.
Karen Ferguson
Sunnyside, California
MME For Chronic Low Back Pain
As the Foundation has reported on our magnet therapy for stroke victims (Spring, 2001, www.westonaprice.org/ moderndiseases/magnet.html), I’d like to report to your readers the latest news from Advanced Magnetic Research Institute.
Our primary research involves the Magnetic Molecular Energizer (MME). For those of you who are unfamiliar with the MME, it resembles an open MRI machine but is used for magnetic therapy only and does not generate any images. We are currently near completion of our randomized, blinded, sham controlled trial using the MME for treatment of chronic low back pain. The results are looking great and offer strong scientific support for the effectiveness of the MME treatment for this condition.
The MME is currently considered an experimental device by the FDA. We plan to submit the data from this trial to the FDA for approval of MME as an approved medical device. We want this therapy to be made available to the many people who suffer from this debilitating condition.
We plan to have 100 participants with chronic low back pain in the trial. So far we have enrolled 77 participants with low back pain resulting from many different diagnoses, including bulging discs, herniated discs and arthritis. Some have had previous surgery. Many had pains radiating into their legs. The average duration of low back pain for the trial participants was 14 years and the average pain score was 5.3 on a zero-to-ten scale. These were people with significant, long-term back pain.
Of the 77 participants, 43 received Active MME and 34 received the sham or inactive MME. The sham MME magnets were turned off. The treatment consisted of 140 hours of MME administered over 12 – 15 days. That is a lot of time to spend lying on a MME treatment bed, but the people who signed up for the trial were faithful in showing up for their treatment. Very few dropped out. They were willing to spend the time to get rid of the pain!
To be fair to the participants who were placed in the Sham MME group, they were offered the active MME treatment once they were finished with the follow-up of their part in the trial.
Within 5 days of starting MME treatment, the participants in the Active MME group began to report less pain than those in the Sham MME group. At the end of 140 hours of MME treatment the Active MME group reported an average drop in pain score of 3.2 points, while the Sham MME group reported a drop of only 0.9 points.
Six months after the MME hours were completed, the Active MME group still reported an average improvement in pain score of 2.8 points. The Sham MME group’s pain score was improved by only 0.5 points. These figures are averages for each group. Some Sham MME participants exhibited a placebo response but further analysis showed that being in the Active MME group meant that you were twice as likely to get an improvement of two points or greater compared to being in the Sham MME group.
Wayne Bonlie, MD, Research Director
Advanced Magnetic Research Institute, International
Calgary, Canada
Editor’s Response: The combination of energy healing methods such as MME with a nourishing traditional diet should be the remedy of choice for all those suffering from pain. The diet should include cod liver oil, bone broths, grass-fed animal foods and no processed foods containing MSG.
NAIS and Human Rights
I believe the proposed National Animal Identification System (NAIS) is one of the most significant issues to come along in a while, as the NAIS appears to be a fundamental infringement of human rights.
It’s one thing if a majority of Americans wants to run ever deeper into the technological jungle of mass communications, of unsurpassed production of herbicides, pesticides and industrial chemicals, of an ever more pervasive petroleum industry, of agribusiness with feedlots of 10,000 cattle. But a step like the NAIS begins to seriously impose the will of the majority on the small number of people in America who still want to live plain, simple, healthy lives. It’s as though three-quarters of the citizens in America took up smoking, but not being content with that, they want to require by law that the remaining one quarter also become smokers.
At the founding of this country, John Adams was concerned that in time a serious problem would develop, which he called “the tyranny of the majority.” He was a perceptive man.
David Ellis
Portsmouth, Rhode Island
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