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The Nutrition Information Army

Dear Friends,

I’m writing to invite you to enlist in the army. . .

. . . because there is a war going on in this country and around the world--a war of words about what foods we should eat to be healthy.

For too long we have been told that we shouldn’t eat healthy traditional foods like butter, eggs, whole milk and meat--the kinds of foods that kept our grandparents healthy. For too long we’ve been told that animal fats cause cancer and heart disease. For too long we’ve been told that the quality of our food doesn’t matter, just the proportions of protein, fat and carbohydrate that we take in.

And worst of all, we are now being told to feed lowfat foods to our children when we know that foods like whole milk and eggs provide the very nutrients that they need to grow healthy and strong. It’s time to fight back against this misinformation-- before it’s too late!

That’s why I’m writing to enlist you as a teacher-soldier in our NUTRITION INFORMATION ARMY. But first let me tell you about Weston A. Price and the foundation dedicated to his teachings.

Weston A. Price was a dentist and a researcher who, back in the 1930’s and 1940’s, conducted a series of unique studies to find out what we need to eat to be healthy. He was disturbed by the fact that the patients he was seeing in his dental practice in Cleveland had so many health problems. Not only did they suffer from lots of tooth decay, they also had crowded teeth and poor bone structure. In addition, they had many serious diseases--both infectious diseases like tuberculosis and chronic diseases like infertility, cancer, arthritis and heart disease. Sound familiar?

Dr. Price suspected that the health problems he was seeing in his patients were due to poor nutrition. He decided to travel to isolated parts of the globe where people did not have access to modern foods--foods like sugar, white flour and commercial vegetable oils--to see whether they were healthy.

His travels took him to isolated villages in the Swiss Alps, a windswept island off the coast of Scotland, remote villages in Alaska and northern Canada, the back country of Africa and Australia, mountainous regions in Peru and a number of out-of-the-way islands in the South Pacific.

He was completely amazed by what he found. In communities where the inhabitants were consuming only their own indigenous traditional foods, they were superbly healthy. Even though they never brushed their teeth, they had no tooth decay. They had good bone structure, wide faces and beautiful, straight teeth. They did not suffer from obesity, arthritis, cancer or heart disease, and they gave birth to healthy babies with ease.

What struck him most of all was the cheerful, sunny dispositions of the people living in these so-called "primitive" backwaters. They had an optimistic attitude in spite of the hardships of their life-style.

Dr. Price took many photographs of the healthy peoples he studied in these communities and published them in his classic book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. I’ve reproduced a few of these photographs in our information brochure, which is included in this letter. Imagine coming into a community where everybody had beautiful, straight white teeth--even the old people. Dr. Price’s book shows us how healthy people look--how we are all supposed to look!

Dr. Price’s research also shows us how healthy people eat. He studied their diets and found that the foods they ate were very rich in vitamins and minerals. In fact, their foods had four times the minerals that were in the typical American diet of his day. That’s partly because these people didn’t eat any empty foods, like sugar and white flour. But it’s also because they ate foods that were naturally rich in minerals--either seafood from mineral-rich waters or meats and vegetables from animals and plants that were nourished by mineral-rich soil.

That’s why the quality of the food we eat is so important. That’s why we need to encourage farmers to farm in ways that replenish the soil with nutrients instead of depleting the soil with commercial fertilizers.

The other thing that Price discovered was that the healthy isolated peoples put a very high value on certain nutrient-dense foods like butter and cream, eggs, organ meats, insects, fish, fish eggs, fish oils and shell fish. They went to great lengths to obtain these foods and considered them very important for having healthy babies.

That’s where the war of words comes in, because these are the very high-fat, high-cholesterol foods that our establishment nutritionists--I call them the "Diet Dictocrats"--are telling us not to eat! We’ve been led to believe that these vital foods cause cancer and heart disease.

What Dr. Price discovered about these special animal foods is that they are very rich in what he called fat-soluble activators such as vitamin A and vitamin D, particularly when the animals they came from had been grazing on rich, rapidly growing green grass. These vitamins are actually catalysts, They help us absorb the minerals in our food. Without them our bodies have a very hard time assimilating minerals like calcium, phosphorus and iron. Many scientific studies show that these fat-soluble vitamins also protect us against many diseases, including cancer and heart disease.

So why have our "Diet Dictocrats" demonized these nutritious foods? Why have we been led believe that the very foods Dr. Price discovered to be so important to our health are bad for us?

Because these ingredients are too expensive for food manufacturers to use in processed foods. The food industry can make a bigger profit margin using vegetable oils instead of animal fats, particularly the partially hydrogenated vegetable oils that mimic the properties of mostly saturated fats found in traditional foods like butter, lard and coconut oil. And scientists have discovered that these altered fats can cause everything from cancer and heart disease to growth problems and infertility.

My friends, the situation today is very serious. We know from many studies that if nutrients are lacking in our food, particularly the fat-soluble vitamins, rates of chronic disease will continue to grow; children will not develop properly; and more and more couples will find themselves infertile. Even emotional and behavioral problems have been linked to nutritional deficiencies.

It’s more than just a matter of correcting dietary misinformation: it’s a matter of life and death--the future of our children and grandchildren. And the way we can turn this situation around is to heed Dr. Price’s dying words, "You teach, you teach, you teach!"

The Weston A. Price Foundation was founded to orchestrate a worldwide campaign to teach the principles of good nutrition. Our number-one priority is to return nutrient-dense foods to American tables. That means educating Americans about the importance of traditional, whole foods; that means putting consumers in touch with conscientious farmers who can provide meat and dairy products from grass-fed animals; that means getting sound scientific findings into the hands of the medical community; that means lobbying for labeling laws that tell us what is in our foods and how they are grown and processed; that means alerting the public to the dangers of newfangled additions to our food supply, like partially hydrogenated vegetable oils and soy protein powders.

Above all, it means making the research of Weston A. Price known to millions of American. My personal goal is to make the name of Weston A. Price a household word and his book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration required reading by all health professionals.

These are ambitious goals but we can win this nutrition information war if we all pitch in. Our main weapon in the war of words is the enclosed brochure. It was put together with the help of two scientists, Dr. Mary Enig, renowned lipid biochemist, and Mike Fitzpatrick, a distinguished toxicologist. We’ve tried to put as much nutrition information as possible in a few short pages.

If you appreciate what you read, consider signing up as a teacher-soldier in our NUTRITION INFORMATION ARMY. Here’s how:

1. Use the enclosed reply form to order brochures to give to your family, friends, colleagues, health practitioners, food markets, libraries and local farmers. We’re making them available for just $1 each, and that includes postage. Consider ordering 20, 50, 100, 200, 500 or more. Health professionals can stamp their name and address on the front and give them to their patients. With your help, we can create a tidal wave of lifesaving information that will sweep the nation and defeat the forces that promote imitation foods.
2. If you have not done so already, sign up to be a member of the Weston A. Price Foundation. Dues are a modest $40 per year ($25 for students and seniors). Members will receive Wise Traditions, our lively and informative quarterly magazine full of practical information--from a regular column on fats by Dr. Mary Enig to a section that will help you find locally grown whole foods. Our Shopping Guide, which provides recommended brand names and helps you make wise decisions in the grocery store, will be included in your membership packet.
3. Consider additional financial support with a special, sponsor, patron, benefactor or millennium membership for $100, $250, $500, $1,000 and $10,000 or any number in between. Your donation couldn’t go to a better cause. We have plans for mailings to health professionals, the establishment of a research lab, a lobbying campaign and program to help farmers return to pasture feeding and nontoxic farming--all of which can only blossom with your financial support. Your dollars will be wisely spent on well-planned projects that can really make a difference,
4. Give the gift of membership to your friends and family. What better gift than the gift of accurate information on diet and health! All new members will receive our informational brochure, our shopping guide and the current issue of Wise Traditions in their membership package.
5. Finally, if you have the time and energy, consider setting up a local chapter. Our local chapters help people find locally produced nutrient-dense foods, including pasture-fed meat and dairy products. They may also maintain a list of health professionals who are familiar with the work of Weston A. Price and who apply his findings in their practice. Local chapters can also represent us at conferences, shows and fairs. Our goal is thousands of local chapters throughout the country--we already have over 300. If you are the organizing type, why not add your name to the list?

So consider this a recruitment letter. You can enlist as a teacher-soldier in the Weston A. Price Foundation’s NUTRITION INFORMATION ARMY simply by ordering brochures or becoming a member. You can play a commanding role with additional financial support or by setting up a local chapter. We need willing teacher-soldiers from all walks of life and from all parts of the country--in fact, all parts of the globe.

I look forward to hearing from you. I look forward to working with you as a team. I look forward to the day when all of our livestock is back on the farm, feeding on rich green grass. I look forward to the day when nutrient-dense whole foods are returned to American tables and we can celebrate the robust good health of ALL our children and grandchildren.

Yours in good health!

Sally Fallon
President

Sally Fallon is the author of Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats (with Mary G. Enig, PhD), a well-researched, thought-provoking guide to traditional foods with a startling message: Animal fats and cholesterol are not villains but vital factors in the diet, necessary for normal growth, proper function of the brain and nervous system, protection from disease and optimum energy levels. She joined forces with Enig again to write Eat Fat, Lose Fat, and has authored numerous articles on the subject of diet and health. The President of the Weston A. Price Foundation and founder of A Campaign for Real Milk, Sally is also a journalist, chef, nutrition researcher, homemaker, and community activist. Her four healthy children were raised on whole foods including butter, cream, eggs and meat.

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