Sensitive to Electricity
I have become sensitive to electricity–I can feel it in my head, my feet, from each spring in my mattress, driving down big commercial streets lined with wires and passing by the transformers on utility poles.
Then I had the idea that cod liver oil might help. There are some buried wires along a railroad bed 100 feet from my kitchen door, and they are insulated with oil, so it made sense that oil and fats might help insulate me. I noticed a small improvement with the cod liver oil so I knew I was on the right track, but the biggest improvement came from cream, drippings from poultry and the fat on all the other meats.
Hillary Little
Baltimore, MD
My First Glass of Real Milk
In 1980, when I was 12 years old, I had the opportunity to travel throughout the former Soviet Union for 3 weeks with my family. As you know, children like their food predictable and consistent, nothing too exotic. At this time the nation was still communist, and I remember seeing milk lines that were blocks long. After many meals of hard-boiled eggs, cucumbers, dry bread, cold cuts and mineral water, my brother and I were homesick for our beloved cereal with milk.
At one point in our travels we journeyed by rail through lush farmland. I can still picture the stout little ladies with colorful kerchiefs on their heads going up and down the corridors calling, “Chai, chai,” meaning “tea.” They couldn’t get enough of us, the American children; we were fawned over and treated like royalty.
While I was sitting in the dining car playing solitaire to pass the time, one of the babushkas came to me and asked–with lots of gestures as I didn’t speak Russian–if I wanted anything to drink. “Milk?” I asked hopefully. Her face dropped, she shook her head, and walked away. I so missed my pasteurized, homogenized, vitamin D milk!
Some time passed, and I was still playing my card game, when suddenly the train lurched to a stop. I glanced out the window and wondered why we were stopping because there was no station, only lush green pastures with contented grazing cows. Then I noticed the babushka, tin pail in hand, purposefully walking into the field toward a cow. With obvious experience she milked that cow, and the fleeting feeling of awe I had turned to apprehension as it dawned on me that I was likely the intended recipient. She returned, the train started rolling again, and I began to relax. But before long, the dining car door swung open and she approached me, carrying a tall glass of milk. Her face was beaming as she offered it to me. I, however, was a jumble of feelings. To my modern suburban sensibilities, this was archaic. The milk just came out of the cow! How could I drink it? On the other hand, how could I not? They had stopped the train to get the little American girl a glass of milk.
I took the glass, probably with a half-hearted thank-you, and was instantly taken aback at its warmth. The milk I was accustomed to drinking was properly refrigerated. With a deep breath and probably a little queasiness, I mustered the courage to take a sip. All my apprehension instantly melted away. Not only was it the first milk I’d had in over a week, it was the most delicious milk I had ever tasted. Sweet, smooth, sublime; it was like tasting a little piece of heaven, and I had no problem downing the whole glass.
I will never forget the generosity of the Russian and Ukranian people, and the experience that left an indelible mark on an impressionable 12-year-old mind. I will always hold that experience as sacred. I learned that day that what passes for milk in our ultra-sterile society does not even come close in flavor and texture to milk the way nature intended it. I thank the cow, the sun and rain, the grass, the farmer, and the babushka for that incredible gift.
Jill Sheeler-Shenk
Scottsdale, Arizona
Butter Oil for Crohn’s
I am an osteopathic physician in practice for 11 years. I have been using high-vitamin butter oil for over a year, and I can tell you I think it does help my Crohn’s disease considerably.
In my natural practice of cranial osteopathy, homeopathy, nutrition and herbs, I find that the butter oil works well. I would love for you to fund a small pilot study I can run on Crohn’s patients or colitis patients to test out the butter oil and the cod liver oil together or separately. I feel a calling to help Crohn’s patients.
Paul Capobianco, DO
Glen Cove, New York
Editor’s Response: This is a wonderful idea for a study. We do not have funds available for research, but you may not need any. Any members who would like to participate in a study with Dr. Capobianco may contact him at graceofhealing (at) aol.com.
Raw Milk for the Eyes
I am a 63-year-old male. About a year ago, the vision in my right eye started getting blurry. I went to the optometrist and she said that I had the start of a cataract in my right eye. She said there was not much that I could do about it and that it would slowly get worse.
I had been reading Dr. Mercola’s articles on raw milk and the benefits of it, so I purchased some Organic Pastures milk a week after the eye exam and started drinking it regularly. Amazingly, about six weeks after drinking the raw milk my right eye got better and better, and today my vision is super clear. I’ve always had to wear corrective lenses, but when I do my eyesight is now actually better than it was 15 years ago.
On a recent physical exam with a local MD, the doctor said this improvement was just a coincidence. I don’t agree. Thanks, Organic Pastures, for providing the milk to us.
Bing Gibbs
Volcano, California
The True Cost of Commercial Milk
I have been collecting information on the North Carolina Dairy Producers Association and have read the proceedings from their last two annual conferences. Very interesting information on everything from mastitis to calf food (such as cottonseed husks and soy meal) to using Rumensin to improve rumen fermentation. Pastured cattle don’t need cottonseed husks or special medicine to digest that foreign material!
Another discovery from the North Carolina Dairy Producers Association worth passing on concerned the daily expense of keeping a cow. The cow costs $7.50 per day while producing 5.5 gallons for which the farmer receives $1.21 per gallon. When you do the math you discover that the farmer loses 85 cents per day on each cow! Either the farmer gets subsidies or he goes out of business.
With more digging I learned that it requires four gallons of water to process one gallon of pasteurized milk. One processing plant uses the equivalent water of a town of 1,000.
Ruth Ann Foster
Greensboro, North Carolina
A Takeover Bid
This last weekend, I spent four days cooking for 120 permaculture people from all over Australia. In my capacity as chapter leader I gave out sample herd share contracts to people of all six states. I implored them all to seek out farmers who they thought could be part of this; and on each contract I have my stamp with address and phone number.
I also discovered during the weekend that Woolworths has made a bid to take over IGA food stores. IGA is a franchise line of small supermarkets in almost all towns (small and large) and in cities across Australia. Should Woolworths be successful, this will create a monopoly of disastrous proportions and effects.
A class action lawsuit should be in place against the “Fresh Food People” logo that Woolworths uses, when some 60 percent of that so-called “fresh food” is imported and irradiated. And still our bureaucrats sit on their hands. I understood that democracy was government of the people, by the people, for the people!
In the end, however, we will win. The universe is on our side.
James Cutcliffe
Flaxton, Queensland, Australia
What Is Happening?
Your teachings about Dr. Price have affected how I think about health and look at other people. I have several friends who have children; one of these has a very narrow palate and crooked teeth, which needed to be widened and straightened. My nephew was born autistic. Yesterday I found out that a 17-year-old boy, one of my clients’ sons, went in last week for an infected lymph node on his neck. There is a possibility he may have lymphoma. What is happening to our children?
The diet of this family is based on extruded grains, white bread, fat-free milk, margarine, polyunsaturated vegetable oils and boneless, skinless white meat. They all have allergies, nasal and lung sensitivities, pasty skin and a look of fatigue. The parents of this kid are distraught. I spoke to the mother yesterday, and she said the doctor told her that lymphomas in young boys is rising alarmingly! And he said he believed it was environmental.
I told her about your website and findings. She’d like me to forward some of your information. I was wondering what I could show her: would I be remiss in recommending cod liver oil, coconut oil and some of the superfoods? At the very least, these compounds, might they help ward off some of the inflammation, infection and the trauma?
Niel Rishoi
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Editor’s Response: The superfoods cannot be very effective without the background of a good diet. In fact, cod liver oil works synergistically with saturated fats.
Outdoor Market
Last Saturday when we got to our outdoor organic market it was in uproar because all the stall holders had just been told the market would close due to council reasons. All the customers and suppliers were devastated.
So I called three TV stations and the Sun Herald and got them down immediately. We ended up with lots of media coverage that night and the next day. The community then stormed the council to protest their right to access real food and the market organizer was held to account for not following due process.
My egg lady just rang to say the market would continue and thanks for my help.
I was also on ABC radio yesterday talking about buying pasture-fed meat directly from farmers, that “we are what we eat and we are what our meat eats.” I explained how we should support farmers doing the right thing and managed to talk about the Weston A. Price Foundation. Quite a few people rang in interested and the program told me they were interested in doing a follow-up on WAPF in the near future.
Vicki Poulter
Sydney, Australia
Without Any Awareness
I want to thank you for all the work you do. I am a kindergarten teacher trying to bring the Weston Price/biodynamic view to families at my school. Most of them are without any awareness of nutrition and fill their children with processed food.
I live in California where we can easily get raw milk, although it is expensive. I grew up on a farm in Ohio where I was raised on raw milk. I look forward to the time when I can visit my family there and drink raw milk again.
Pati Callan
Fair Oaks, California
Editor’s Response: Raw milk is now widely available in Ohio through cow-share programs.
Picking Up Steam
Things are really picking up steam out here in California. When the first Whole Foods Market opened up in Sacramento, I asked the dairy manager to carry raw milk. He was happy to help and since then the orders for raw milk from Organic Pastures and Claravale are going like gang busters.
This also includes cheeses. According to the cheese man at the store, the demand for raw cheese is skyrocketing. People are learning, thanks to the Weston A. Price Foundation and its members.
Furthermore, at my local health food store, I did the same thing. They began to carry Organic Pastures milk and butter a few months ago and people are buying it as fast as they can get it in. Orders have increased four times since they started. I always gently let people know of the Real Milk website, and I believe the site has being instrumental in this learning process.
Also, organic farm-to-school programs are popping up, as well as localized organic groups. Very exciting!
My son will be moving to Kansas for college in August and the chapter leaders in Kansas and Missouri have been a great help in locating raw milk.
So many of my elders that I have spoken with speak of the days past when they drank raw milk, their mom gave them cod liver oil and good health came naturally. Now I see so much suffering among older adults and seniors who have been misinformed and we just need to do something to help. I keep handing out flyers and WAPF materials. They are short and sweet and to the point. People pick up the facts fast without losing their concentration on the topic. Then they go to the websites to learn more.
Michael E. Kersten
Rancho Cordova, California
A Protocol for Fibromyalgia
I would like to point out an inaccuracy on your website in an article by Stephen Byrnes, in which he states that fibromyalgia “is a new name given to an old condition, one involving chronic inflammation of the muscles and the fibrous connective tissues that cushion the joints.”
According to Professor St. Amand of UCLA–who is an authority on the disease: “Fibromyalgia is not autoimmune and it is not inflammatory. That is known for sure. Cells have been examined for inflammation and there is none. No trace of antibodies has been found and there has never been tissue destruction in fibromyalgia.” Thus, any treatment based on the assumption that it’s an inflammatory disease will be ineffective.
St. Amand postulates that fibromyalgia is a genetic disease. In some people it is active from childhood. In others it is triggered later by trauma or infection. Scottish researchers have recently reported distinctive genetic patterns in ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis) sufferers. I personally know many families where almost everyone has ME , fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue. A lady I met recently has fibromyalgia and so do her four daughters. The odds that this is random are around 10,000,000,000 to 1!
Dr. St. Amand believes the disease is caused by a genetic kidney disfunction that leads to a buildup of phosphates in tissue cells. To prevent cell death, the cells take in more water to dilute the phosphates. This causes the tissue to swell, pressing against nearby nerves. This is the best explanation I have seen for the presence of pain without inflammation–an unusual combination.
Scientific evidence for this theory is beginning to accumulate. But the main evidence is clinical: Dr. St. Amand has developed a protocol that reverses the disease using a safe and inexpensive over-the-counter drug called guaifenesin. In his own practice, well over 90 percent of his thousands of patients have regained their health. This is a far higher rate of recovery than any other protocol to date. The protocol can be self-administered.
St. Amand has discovered a pattern of tissue lesions distinctive to ME/FMS/CFS. These can be palpated by any experienced body worker after a little training. The presence of these lesions indicates strongly that the protocol will help. The breakup of these lesions while on the protocol indicates strongly that symptoms will shortly improve. I have been in contact with literally hundreds of people who have benefited from this protocol. If you look at Dr St Amand’s What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Fibromyalgia : The Revolutionary Treatment That Can Reverse the Disease (available on Amazon), you will find many hundreds more testimonials. Personally, I’m in the early stages of the protocol but progressing well–the prognosis is good.
If St. Amand is correct, and I’m increasingly confident he’s on the right track, diet can only play a secondary role in health recovery. What is needed is a protocol to help the body rid itself of the excess phosphates.
Personally, I have been eating a traditional diet for some time now with no reduction in symptoms. I’ve introduced the approach to other sufferers for its general health benefits, but they didn’t experience any relief of symptoms either. The key exception is the many fibromyalgia sufferers (mainly women) who also suffer from hypoglycemia. Dr. St. Amand proposes a hypoglycemic diet, which helps reduce symptoms somewhat for these people, but they don’t regain health with this alone.
Some time back the Centers For Disease Control did a major long-term study of recovery rates from fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue. The results were extremely pessimistic–only a very small percentage of long-term sufferers improved. Despite the claims of many complementary practitioners to be able to reverse the disease, they found no evidence for this. There was no evidence that diet or naturopathic treatments (or any other treatments) were successful. Compare this to the 95 percent success rate of Dr. St. Amand’s patients who achieve major long-term improvements.
I’m a great fan of the WAPF. As the standard bearers for sensible eating, it is surely vital that all articles on the site are accurate, up-to-date and evidence-based. The article on fibromyalgia contains a major factual inaccuracy and proposes a treatment for which there is no research evidence. I feel that there is a strong case for taking the article off the website.
Geoff Caplan
Los Angeles, California
Editor’s Response: Thank you for introducing us to this fascinating information. We will post your letter on our website along with Byrne’s article. The theory that fibromyalgia has a genetic component does not mean that fibromyalgia is inevitable in those who inherit the gene. A family in which everyone suffers from fibromyalgia may also share the same diet and same environmental stresses. The malfunction of the kidneys and the build-up of phosphates suggest several precautionary actions that can be taken to prevent the disease, including avoidance of foods containing components toxic to the kidneys (such as anti-freeze in commercial ice cream and microwaved foods, in which kidney toxins are formed). Obviously, commercial soft drinks containing phosphoric acid could be stressors. Cod liver oil–our old favorite–to supply vitamins A and D, will provide strong protection to the kidneys, and saturated fats ensure healthy cell membranes to facilitate the body’s efforts to get rid of phosphates.
Autism and Glutathione
An article posted at www.denvernaturopathic.com/news/autism.html suggests that children who have low serum levels of glutathione (which binds with and helps to expel heavy metals) are prone to develop autism when they receive the mercury-laden vaccinations, or are exposed to other heavy metals.
The article described recent study by S. Jill James in the April, 2005 issue of Biology. The researchers found that autistic kids had unusually low concentrations of the antioxidant glutathione in their cells. The ratio of active glutathione to its inactive breakdown products was also unusually low. “This pattern is consistent with an inability to detoxify [poisons], especially heavy metals,” such as mercury or lead, James says. That’s because glutathione normally binds to heavy metals and the body then targets the molecular complex for elimination.
This has me thinking, isn’t getting enough sulfur the key to having enough glutathione? If you are vegetarian (no eggs, no meat) and don’t fill up on cruciferous veggies or turnips all the time (who would?), then you’re setting yourself (or your kids) up to be low in glutathione?
Thus, while we’ve been avoiding cholesterol and fat like the plague, we’ve been setting ourselves up to be unable to detoxify heavy metals.
Laura Cooper
Stillwater, Oklahoma
Nervous about Fish
I get very nervous when fish is recommended to childbearing age women, or pregnant women or children, as was done in your Summer 2005 magazine. It is very clear that fish is OK but the methylmercury is not.
Fish in Dr. Weston A Price’s time would have been a lot cleaner source. We need to realize that we can not go back to the horse and buggy days, and be very clear about fish consumption for high risk groups such as women (pregnant, breastfeeding) and children, those with neurodegenerative disease, kidney disease, autoimmune disease and even heart disease. (High levels of mercury have been found in the hair of heart disease victims.)
There is incontrovertible evidence that mercury is a poison and that there is no safe level of exposure. For this reason, the Environmental Working Group recommends that pregnant women limit their dietary intake of fish, especially fish that tend to concentrate mercury such as shark, tuna, and king mackerel.
Eric Davis
Red Bank, Australia
Editor’s Response: Mercury has always been present in our environment, especially in the sea. (One potent source is volcanic eruptions, which also spew out harmful compounds such as dioxins.) For this reason, our bodies have mechanisms for getting rid of these toxins. One such mechanism is glutathione, as described above. Many foods that are very good for us also contain toxins–such as liver and fish. While we should not overload our systems by unnecessarily exposing ourselves and our children to toxins like mercury, we can also protect ourselves against small amounts inherently present in our food and environment by eating the right foods. Sea foods provide many important nutrients for the growing baby and contribute to superb physical development in sea-coast populations such as those in Alaska. We recommend a variety of seafood, especially shellfish, for pregnant women and growing children instead of an overreliance on the larger fish such as tuna, along with avoidance of a much more serious source of mercury, dental amalgams. By the way, there is an excellent website at www.oceana.org that posts the results of yearly testing for mercury in fish. Many commonly eaten fish are surprisingly low in mercury.
A Remedy for Cramps
I was shocked to read the article on women’s health (Summer, 2005) where Susan Weed writes about dealing with menstrual cramps. In the end she says that getting a hysterectomy could be a possible solution. I had terrible cramps through my teen years. After having tried everything, I discovered coffee enemas in my early twenties and have never had a problem since. Now my daughter is experiencing menstrual cramps. When they start, she simply does a coffee enema and they are gone. It works every time. Information about coffee enemas is available in the book The Gerson Therapy, by Charlotte Gerson. Try this before you think about a hysterectomy!
Thank you for all you are doing. I look forward to my Wise Traditions!
Torre Forrest
Big Sur, California
Editor’s Response: Thank you for sharing this useful information with our readers!
A Wedding Feast
On September 17, 2005, Adam and I were married in my hometown of Owls Head, Maine. Of course, the ceremony was the most important part, but the food was a close second and we put a lot of time and effort into making sure everyone would enjoy a WAPF-inspired feast.
The unfiltered, unpasteurized beer was from a local brewery. Hors d’oeuvres included fresh lobster, Adam’s chicken and pork liver pate, local handcrafted artisan cheeses made from raw milk and plenty of fresh colorful veggies I picked out from the farmers’ markets.
Dinner was simple yet scrumptious. The pig for our pig roast was organic, pasture-raised and local. We picked her up the day before and took part in the killing, cleaning, stuffing and fire building. The pig roasted over oak coals for twelve hours. A friend made bean-hole beans to accompany the pork. For those, another pit was dug, filled with hot coals, the two cast-iron pots of Maine yellow-eye beans were placed in the pit, covered with more coals, then covered with earth and left for about twelve hours.
A meal like this definitely requires sauerkraut, which we had made a month earlier, with local organic cabbage. There was also a delicious salad made with all local organic veggies, and fresh wholegrain sourdough rolls. Last but not least, the most beautiful thing on everyone’s table was the golden, grass-fed raw butter.
Emily Lowe
Owls Head, Maine
Editor’s Response: What a wonderful wedding dinner! We’d love to have the recipe for the chicken and pork liver pate as well as the beans.
Grateful for the Formula
Thank you so much for providing an acceptable option to breastmilk. My daughter has been nursing my 8-week-old grandson since birth but had to discontinue due to health problems. Since commercial formula was out of the question, I was frantic for several days, until I learned about your whole foods infant formula.
My grandson loves the formula! He had problems with gas and constipation on commercial formula, as well as a drop in weight. (He was over 10 pounds at birth so he is a hungry boy!) My daughter has done her best, but is limited due to her illness. He is already less gassy, calmer, sleeps better at night and is having more frequent and less troublesome bowel movements.
Martha Roades
Perkasie, Pennsylvania
Chicken Feet
Those who make broth need to know that it is important to peel the feet. That not only removes all the dirt and dung, but also helps release the gelatin. There is a Polish recipe that calls for “peeled’ feet to be deep fried in lard. They are crispy and good! My Thai customers peel the feet by dipping in boiling water for a minute or so and then make a broth seasoned with lemon grass. The Chinese do the same with duck feet.
Cindy Dutcher
Goetzville, Michigan
Editor’s Response: This is very important information you have shared with us. Often chicken stock does not gel well. Peeling the chicken feet sounds like the answer.
Formula Curdling
In the Fall, 2005 issue, Deverell Pederson wrote that she has had difficulty preventing her formula from curdling when heated. I had this same problem when I used whey leftover from heesemaking. This whey contains some active rennet and even if the formula is only brought to room temperature it will curdle. In the refrigerator, the curdling will occur more slowly, but even within 24 hours there is significant separation. Whey from cheesemaking (the whey typically sold at farms) cannot be used for the formula. For my own baby, I drain yogurt to obtain whey.
Katie Bush
Cedar Hills, Utah
Cod Liver Oil Study
In the Fall 2005 article on cod liver oil (“The Right Price“) you mention a 1938 study by Wayne Brehm, MD (page 16), which Price describes in his book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. In the study, cod liver oil given by itself to pregnant mothers caused slight calcification of the placenta and slight fontanelle closure (slight in comparison with the calcifying effects of synthetic vitamin D) whereas cod liver oil given with calcium had no detrimental effects.
Yet Price failed to describe a control group that did not take either synthetic vitamin D or cod liver oil but was instructed to consume plenty of fresh vegetables, fruits and milk. Like the group that took cod liver oil, the babies of this group showed only slight calcification, similar to the group whose mothers took cod liver oil. Does this mean that pregnant women should not take cod liver oil?
Ernestine Majors
Denver, Colorado
Editor’s Response: Price refers to this study to show that taking cod liver oil is not harmful, whereas taking synthetic vitamin D has a very negative effect. The researchers used the closing of the fontenelle as a visible sign of the abnormal calcification caused by synthetic vitamin D. In this study, the effects of using cod liver oil and not using cod liver oil were the same so far as the closing of the fontenelle is concerned. There are many beneficial effects of cod liver oil that cannot be seen but that would warrant adding it to the diet of pregnant women consuming a healthy diet.
Iodine Investigation
We are looking for participants in an iodine investigation project to explore:
- whether there is a possible connection between iodine deficiency and breast cancer;
- whether remedying that deficiency by iodine supplementation can reduce recurrence; and
- whether iodine should be studied as an adjuvant therapy for breast cancer.
If you are female, wehther or not you have been diagnosed with breast cancer, please go to www.breastcancerchoices.org and click on Iodine Investigation.
Lynn Farrow
Amagansett, New York
The Joy that Is Possible
Thank you for all the great information and outreach! I am deeply grateful that this organization has arisen at this time. The teachings are so badly needed.
And, I am grateful to be able to practice and teach others this way of eating and being because how we choose to eat reflects our relationship with ourselves, with fellow humans, wIth other beings and with the earth. It helps awaken our spiritual nature.
Eating the Standard Amercian Diet (SAD), or any of the fad diets, will keep us dependent upon the oppressive violent system that enslaves us to chemical addictions, including pharmaceuticals, and prevents us from realizing our amazing potential as human beings.
When I look at the smiling faces of the traditional people Weston Price photographed, I see people who are not only well nourished in body but people who are well rooted in their relationship to all of creation; people who know–not just with their minds but with their hearts–the joy that is possible to know as a human being.
Beth Ingham
Winchendon Springs, Massachusetts
Leave a Reply