Page 7 - summer2016

Letters

the country exported it. hundred four, he was in his corn field in another village full of centenarians
I finally went to a faraway village working the land under a scorching sun and a bit further from the sea at some
in Nicoya in 2012 and obtained the and unbearable heat (not the only one point before they completely disappear
following information from three very of his age doing this though). but have not found the time so far (it is
old people who told me that the whole They also went to the mountain to also extremely hot there).
village virtually ate the same way. They hunt all sorts of game but mainly deli- Wishing a ton of blessings for the
had virtually no money, were mostly cious wild pig. Weston A. Price Foundation.
self-sufficient, especially in food and They ate lots of fish and shrimp Gina Baker, Chapter Leader
engaged mostly in barter. Everybody from the seas and the river. One man Turrialba, Costa Rica
had a big piece of land (milpa) where told me that everybody in the village
they grew corn and tubers and where was as thin as a stick (not the situation TRADITIONAL FOOD
their pigs spent the day eating. They now) and unlike his children and worse IN UZBEKISTAN
also had at least one milking cow and his grandchildren, people’s flesh was Recently I was on an “expedition”
many chickens. (Costa Rica's entire very hard to the touch, and now his to Uzbekistan and enjoyed the very ba-
population at that time was less than grandchildren's flesh is very soft. They sic food stuffs, including the fermented
a million people for a vast amount of made a lot of bone soup (chicken, pork, milk items. An article in the Uzbekistan
land.) Their houses were made of natu- beef and fish—no parts wasted). One of Airway Magazine explained the four
ral material and covered by a thatched the old men told me that bone soup was basic milk ferments we received at
roof. the cure for a soft body (he had begged almost every meal. The round, small
The diet of a family of seven his daughter to give bone soup to his cheeses were “snacks” and quite a good
(mother, father and five children) in- sickly grandson to no avail). food with the beer! I also loved the
cluded milk fresh and still warm from Regarding sugar consumption, he beautiful butter boxes for yak butter!
the cow and whatever eggs the chickens said that at first sugar cost money so Keep up the sensational work you
had managed to lay. They would kill they did not have it in the village. Sec- are doing!
one pig per month on average and that ond, when they could get their hands on Jorie Johnson
pig gave five gallons of lard to cook for a little of it, it was always tapa dulce. Kyoto, Japan
seven people for the whole month. Third, they only had it about every two
I must add that one of them (age months, sometimes less frequently. CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT
one hundred three) told me that every They also sometimes used coconut oil I'm a WAPF member who is enthu-
two years for the last ten an institute for cooking. They ate some fresh fruits siastic about your nutritional principles,
from San Jose (Costa Rica’s capital) from trees, but no juice. and am grateful for your work in fight-
came to interview him about his lon- However, their children and grand- ing the bureaucracy that is working to
gevity, but they never asked him once children eat a lot of processed food, suppress small, sustainable farmers
what kind of oil he used to cook his processed vegetable oil, artificial ev- and take away our basic freedoms of
food. This particular old man said to erything sodas and unlimited white what we put into our bodies. I have
one of the interviewers that his favorite sugar and white flour. They also get something that I'd like to share.
meat was pork to which this member of vaccinated routinely. They do still eat Growing numbers of Americans
the institute replied that pork was the pork and even lard a few times a year, are fed up with industrial food and
worst meat—this in a country where but that does not seem enough to stop medicine and are increasingly looking
people today, who have drastically the ravages of sugar. The water they for healthier alternatives, as bureaucrats
changed their food habits, die like flies drink is from the same location as be- that are bought and paid for keep intro-
from cancer or heart diseases before fore but now treated with chlorine. ducing legislation that seeks to force us
age sixty-five. There was one old man I I have wished to go back and spend into their system. I think it was from
could not interview because at age one more time and conduct more interviews reading Joel Salatin that I first got the
Wise Traditions SUMMER 2016 Wise Traditions 7