Why I don’t like (Meatless) Mondays!

Cows on pasture at Polyface Farm

Hello dear readers! Happy New Year to all of you!

I am writing because it is Monday…a Monday suggested to be “Meatless” by Food, Inc. and others.  (Yep. All over FB today.) Heck, there’s a whole website and movement dedicated to it. It’s the start of a new year, and I’d just like to clear something up from the get-go.

I would LOVE “Meatless Mondays” if it was specified that the meat we are being asked to go without on Mondays was CAFO meat. That is, meat from animals raised in confinement–specifically, Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, “CAFOs”. You see, a CAFO burger is not a burger…a CAFO steak is not a steak…one cannot compare meat from a CAFO operation with that from a pasture. CAFOs are also known as feedlots.  (There are a  lot of them out here in Colorado; I have the distinct displeasure of driving by them and the stench of them permeates the air some mornings, depending on how the wind blows. Ever put your head into a diaper pail filled with dirty diapers and taken a sniff? You get the idea. Repulsive. Hundreds and thousands of cows crowded on a dirt lot, standing in their own excrement, eating grain full of soy and corn and more–which is probably GMO. And that’s the meat we get to eat here in the USA.)

The vast majority of meat eaten in America comes from CAFOs. Yes, it does. That burger at your favorite burger joint, that filet mignon at that fancy French restaurant, the taco at your favorite Mexican restaurant…nearly all the beef in every supermarket in the country including Whole Foods Market (unless it is marked “grassfed” and “grass-finished”.) But let us not confuse meat from CAFOs with meat from animals raised on pasture as they are meant to be. Grassfed and -finished meat is good for the planet, good for the animals and good for you and your health. One just cannot compare CAFO meat with grass-fed and -finished meat. So let’s not lump them together, shall we? The health problems attributed to meat is not the meat that is raised on pasture, sustainably.

Grass-fed meat is good for the planet. Grass farming sequesters carbon! This knocks out the popular argument that eating meat contributes to global warming… “if you care about the planet, stop eating meat”. Oy.  If all cows were on pasture, we would not have the methane gas problem that we do today, nor many of the other problems that feedlots produce including runoff and water pollution. The High Priest of Pasture, one of my heroes, Joel Salatin, talks eloquently about carbon sequestration all the time.  Here’s a great talk Joel gave at TEDMED in DC April 2012.  Chris Kerston of Chaffin Family Orchards  also spoke on How Grassfed Beef will Save the World last November at the Weston A. Price Foundation annual conference.

Grass-fed meat is good for the animals because…well, duh. Animals are meant to express their “animal-ness”, to paraphrase Joel Salatin. Cows and bison are meant to eat grass. Chickens are meant to eat grass and bugs. It’s “humane” if that fits for animals, it’s ethical, and it’s natural. What’s good for the animals is good for us. Read on.

Grass-fed meat is good for us to eat because it is more nutritious, leaner, and chock full of Omega 3s (those Essential Fatty Acids your brain and your body needs) and CLAs (conjugated linoleic acid…with anti-cancer properties and many other good things!) Everyone knows that the nutrient profile of meat depends upon what the animal (or bird or fish) is fed. Meat from animals raised on pasture is simply more nutritious because it comes from animals that ate what they are supposed to eat. Grass.  Also, you know this food is more nutrient-dense because you are not hungry an hour or two after you eat! You are satisfied.

But again, this is America, and the vast majority of meat eaten in this country is from animals in CAFOs.  Not kidding. We can continue to patronize our crazy food system that perpetuates the confinement model, or we can make another choice; take a different path. Truth is, I would love it if EVERY day were declared a CAFO-meatless day! Can you imagine if everyone stopped eating meat from animals raised on feedlots or in cages? The entire fast-food industry would come crashing down…supermarket meat shelves would bulge with burger patties and steaks and hot dogs and sausages…and chicken tenders and breasts until they rotted past their expiration date. People would be healthier! Hospitals and doctors and prescription drug makers would have no takers! We would have more energy due to more nutrients in our bodies AND less toxins from our food. Heck, I daresay we would have a revolution on our hands!

Let’s do it.

Let’s make EVERY day a CAFO-meatless day! Or to say it differently, let’s make every day a pastured meat day! Vote with your pocket book, folks! Seek out meat from local sources (or not so local when necessary) that raise their animals on pasture. And make it a CAFO-meatless Monday! And Tuesday! And Wednesday! And…you get it. 😉 Eat Wild is a great site to find local grass-fed meat. And check with your local WAPF chapter for farmers, farmers markets, and CSAs near you.

(Don’t even get me started about all the milk Americans drink from confinement dairies. That will have to be for another time.)

Now Here’s an Idea – Learn To Teach Traditional Cooking!

The Inaugural class of Cooking for Well-Being Teacher Training! August 2012

Want to know the story behind Cooking for Well-Being, how it started and where I am going? Check out my article on The Healthy Home Economist blog…I am the featured guest blogger today! Thanks to Sarah Pope for the opportunity!

Real Food Summit starts July 8–And it’s FREE!

Hi all,

Love real food? You know I do!! Teaching folks how to cook it and inspiring them back to the kitchen is my life’s passion! Check out the Real Food Summit, an online, free event that features some of my favorite Real Food Heroes…including JOEL SALATIN of Polyface Farms!! And Chris Masterjohn of the Daily Lipid! And many more.

More information  HERE!

Book testimonial…!

Hi folks,

I wanted to share this one with you … a testimonial about my new book, with Love from Grandmother’s Kitchen: Traditional Cooking Techniques for Well-Being

“Good Heavens to Murgatroid! as Landon would say!! If I had known how great this book was going to be, I would have ordered more than just two copies — one for me and one for MHF. It’s like having all the notes and charts you’ve scattered all about the house neatly encapsulated in a small kitchen DRAWER. It’s like having Monica Corrado at your shoulder when you need her. What was I THINKING?!? The binding is brilliant, the format and type are brilliant, the content is brilliant, it is BRILIG and doth teach you well. It is compact and concise but nutrient-dense. It might be Monica’s first book, but I don’t think even SHE can do better. THIS is the book you need. And you know who you are! TRUST ME!! Get it now and start the New Year off right. And no, I don’t work for Monica. And I didn’t even gush about Joel Salatin’s latest book. But I’m gushing about this one. TRUST ME!!  P.Hannam,VA

Thanks, P!!

out here on the road

We are traveling by car across the US yet again, and once a day we stop for lunch to stretch our legs and get some grub. The options are few out here on the highways of our great land for those of us who wish to eat sustainably-raised food, or care about where our food comes from as well as how it is raised and even slaughtered.

Oh yes, be sure, I always pack a cooler and a sack of REAL FOOD, snacks and stuff for breakfast and dinner when we stop to camp and I can cook. I even bring homemade soup we can sip cold. But the car ride gets old after a few hundred miles and we need to stop and stretch. So when we do, we always try to find a local diner or restaurant, a “mom and pop” stop among the plethora of McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and Hardee’s. Sometimes we find one, sometimes we don’t.

Today we thought we found one, “The Friendly Grille” just inside the IL border. Too bad road construction blocked the road it was on and kept us from finding it.

So it was back onto the interstate, and  we traveled on down the road another 15-20 miles or so, as far as we could go before we needed to fill up the tank again. This time, a Country Kitchen. My honey was happy to see one; it had been a while. I have never seen one, so off we went. And then it was obvious: another chain restaurant. A small chain, but a chain again. Oy.

This prompted an interesting conversation about where food comes from. Another “aha” moment. I have not really seen the breadth of this prior to now. There seem to be three groups: 1. McDonald’s and Wendy’s and the big chains, 2. the small chains and 3. the Moms and Pops. To my knowledge, the big chains AND the small chains get their food from central suppliers, for the most part. I am guessing that MickeyD’s et al have their own main suppliers, and the small chain restaurants also get their food from suppliers such as Sysco, etc. These may vary by area, but there are still companies whose main business is to get groceries/staples to restaurants. So both the large chains and the small chains are purchasing the same brands, the same foods, full of salt and preservatives and lots of long ingredient labels. Yuck. Not sure about where the mom and pop restaurants get their food stuffs; probably depends upon their size and location. They, too, may use the same food distributors…so it’s all the same dead food, (enzymatically dead) the same processed food to varying degrees, the same pasteurized food, the same GMO-laden food, conventional food, pesticide-laden food…out here on the road. Ugh.

Another observation: once we were in this “small chain restaurant”, there were no good choices. Here’s what’s on the menu: a burger or steak from a cow raised on a feedlot, eating food it is not meant to eat while standing in its own fecal matter, and slaughtered assembly line fashion, pulled pork bbq from a pig raised in a cage, chicken from hens raised in cages with what Joel Salatin has pointed out “fecal particulate” in their lungs, salmon-no doubt farm-raised and fed GMO feed at the least. Hmmm. Hard to be a sustainably-eating carnivore out on the road.  Very difficult choices. What one does when faced with these bad options is, of course, a personal decision. It may come down to just how hungry you are. And as I always say, a blessing does a lot to make whatever you eat more palatable…as well as a request for forgiveness for what I call the Food Industrial Complex and some actions to help remedy the situation. Join the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund…join a CSA…volunteer on a farm…purchase your food at a farmer’s market, vote with your pocketbook…and when you are on the road, bring your own food with you. Try to research sustainable food options on your route beforehand! And if the only options you have are gas station convenience stores every 60 or 70 miles out here on the road, well, just do your best. 😉

“Real Food 101″, aka,”Real Food for Dummies” or Top 5 Things You Can Do for Your Health

I have been meeting many people along the way on our trip across the country from Maryland to Wyoming and Colorado and back again. We have passed through Maryland, PA, WV, OH,  IN, IL, IO, NE, WY, CO, SD, MN, WI, and now we are on our way to IN and MI. In addition to everyone I met and had the privilege of teaching at my Cooking for Well-Being conference in Colorado, I am having wonderful conversations with folks about real food and good health. All sorts of people are being introduced to Nourishing Traditions and the Weston A. Price Foundation, realmilk.com, the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund and the Nourishing Our Children Campaign. Makes me so happy to be spreading the good word about all this good food!

My husband Franklin Taggart calls me an “inspirer”: someone who calls people to realize what they are capable of…and shows them that they “have the goods to do what they need to do”. I must say I love to inspire people to good health, good food, and help to provide them with the tools, techniques and resources to “take their power back”: their power to eat well and be well…to decide where they purchase their food and from whom (from the Food Industrial Complex with all of its implications for the health of the people and the Earth or from farmers, farmers markets, CSAs, etc etc) …(Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm has been reminding us that we “vote with our pocketbooks” when we choose our food. Who are you/we voting for today?!)

So along the way I have had questions from friends, family and acquaintances which are really  the same question: “what can I do that would be easy *and* high impact?” So I have come up with the top 5 things anyone can do that are simply a “switcheroo”, involve no training or classes, or menu changes. Just swap what you are using now with the following, and the nutrient density of your food will go up. In my private practice with clients of all ages and in my own life, I have seen hunger decrease,  thought become less foggy, children become more focused, weight drop off, and cholesterol levels beautify. (For information on the cholesterol myth, see Uffe Ravnskov, The Cholesterol Myth as well as Dr. Mercola’s Huffington Post article on the same.)

And so, the top five:

1. Use real salt. Throw out that Morton’s salt and purchase some salt that is high in trace minerals. Celtic Sea Salt from the Grain and Salt Society is highest in trace minerals, so I use that. Just check out the label…all “sea salt” is not the same. If they can tell you about the trace mineral content on the label, you’ve got a good one.

2. Use pastured eggs. Swap out supermarket eggs, free range eggs, organic eggs, or eggs fed “vegetarian feed” for eggs from hens *on pasture*. Buy them from a farmer or the farmer’s market, or from your CSA. Chickens are omnivores; the most nutritious eggs will be those from hens that eat a good amount of bugs! (Just check the color of the yolks…eggs from chickens that eat bugs are bright, deep orange…if your yolks are light yellow or the whites runny, they *are not* nutrient dense eggs!)

3. Use pastured butter, aka, butter from cows that eat grass. Don’t rest on your laurels and think the term “organic butter” is enough. “Organic” says nothing about whether the cows ate grass. Look for “pasture butter” from Organic Valley, or Trickling Springs Farm in the DC metro area. Look for butter at the farmers market , or get some *real cream* and make your own. (Butter has the perfect fatty acid profile. Stop slurping that fish oil and pile on the good old fashioned grass-fed butter!)

4. (If you eat bread at all) Eat sprouted bread or a true sourdough bread. There are several brands on the market that make sprouted bread, sprouted bagels, sprouted English muffins. Find a baker that makes real sourdough, or make it yourself! (Be sure you slather on the pastured butter, as it will help to neutralize the rest of the phytic acid that has not been neutralized by sprouting. For more on phytic acid, see  Living with Phytic Acid)

5.Eat grass-fed meat and poultry. The nutrient profile is very different for meat and poultry that is raised on pasture. Far more nutritious for you, better for the animal and for the planet. (All meat is not the same–comparing meat from animals raised in the Food Industrial Complex with meat from animals raised on pasture is like comparing apples and oranges–)

Okay, that’s the beginning. We’ll call it  “real food for dummies” or, “real food 101”. I am not going to go into fresh, raw milk at this time, as so many people in our country do not have access to it. (To find out about the state of raw milk in your state, check out the map on the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund’s website or check out www.realmilk.com) I am not going to go into fermentation or soaking your beans and grains, or making your own stock. That’s for level 2. Take it easy. Go slowly. One step at a time.

a 99 cent sausage is not a sausage

It is quite interesting these days, folks, food is not food. I continue to be amazed at how easily we are allowing ourselves to have the proverbial wool pulled over our eyes multiple times a day…almost everywhere we look.

Today we drove by a 7 Eleven, which boasted “sausage biscuit 99 cents” on a very large sign. Oy. Looks like a great deal, a sausage biscuit for less than a dollar. What do you think is in that sausage? Hmmmmmm. And what do you think is in that biscuit? Used to be that a sausage biscuit could be a health-full breakfast option. 7 Eleven is banking on your remembering it fondly. I can almost smell the sage sausage cooking and see the flaky biscuit it sits on. (You can bet this bargain biscuit was not made with good for you lard, like your grandma used to make!)

“Sausage healthy?!” you ask. “She surely is mistaken.” But alas, I am not. A sausage is not a sausage, and a 99 cent sausage from 7 Eleven is surely not healthy. First of all, as cheap as it is, I would bet the sausage is made of pork parts you would rather not be eating, if you knew which part of the pig from which they came. Next, this 99 cent sausage has to be from a pig that was raised in a CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operation)–otherwise known as CAGES where pigs are concerned. (I know I cannot feel good about eating any animal that has been raised in a cage, a crate, on concrete, or in any other way that is contrary to their specific “animal-ness”. For more information about an animal expressing their animal-ness, see Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm who talks about it all the time.) Don’t want to even guess what was in that pig’s fed. And hmmm, I would also bet that a good bit of that thing they are calling “sausage” is made up of soy protein…GMO soy protein, to boot. How about the preservatives and nitrates and nitrites? So there are quite a few problems with that “sausage”. I would venture to say it is not a sausage at all. A FAR CRY from sausage that is a) all pork, and b) raised on on pasture (or woods, really. Pigs like that best.) A 99 cent sausage is not sausage. Neither is al lot of other sausage out there. Know your sources, folks. You get my point.

And let’s talk a bit about that FAT issue that is going through your mind–I can see it now. Fat from pigs raised sustainably is good fat. It is health-full fat, and it is good for you. The “diet dictocrats” as Sally Fallon Morell would call them want you to think that saturated fat and eggs are bad for your health. It couldn’t be further from the truth! Your brain and your heart are saturated fat dependent organs, (according to Tom Cowan, M.D. at the Fourfold Path to Healing Conference, 2011) and every cell in your body is made up of saturated fat. It is necessary for all sorts of functions in the body, from cell membranes to lung surfectant, to kidneys and  your brain. Saturated fat makes up the largest percentage of breast milk, our first food. “Human physiology does not change as our bodies grow”, according to Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride. And our nutrient needs do not change as we grow older. So eat that nitrate-free, sustainably raised sausage. And bacon, too. Liberally. And with relish, so to speak. 🙂

Let’s look into a few more foods which are not what they seem to be.

Eat pastured eggs! You can tell by the dark orange yolk that the egg on the right is nutrient-dense! It's from POLYFACE Farm.

An egg is not an egg. Whether teaching my Cooking for Well-Being cooking classes or giving a talk at a school PTA meeting on foods for healthy children, I find myself needing to illuminate again the understanding that “an egg is not an egg”. Eggs have been demonized throughout American culture for decades now, and I must say that I am disappointed that we continue to lump all eggs into one basket, so to speak. They are just not the same. One cannot compare the nutrient value of an egg produced by a hen expressing her “chicken-ness” as Joel Salatin would say, to those in an egg from a chicken who is prohibited to do so. Eggs from chickens living in battery cages stacked on top of one another and eating fortified grain (and grain filled with GMO soy and a host of other unsavory, not good for you things, I might add) , and prohibited from eating bugs, produce a very different nutrient profile. What goes IN determines what comes OUT .  The nutrient profile and nutrient density of eggs produced in these two dramatically different environs simply cannot be the same. An egg IS NOT an egg. But those who tell you not to eat eggs do not mention this and don’t want you to think about it. They would prefer that you not see, not look, not compare…so you may continue to be “hoodwinked” and believe that “all eggs are not good for you”. Couldn’t be farther from the truth, folks.

Let’s look together at milk. All milk IS NOT created equal. This comes up a lot when people come to me to talk about children with food allergies and seasonal allergies, and lots of colds and sinus infections. They have had their children tested and their children are “allergic to dairy”. And for years I have been asking them-“which dairy”? Cow dairy? Goat dairy? or sheep dairy? and most cannot tell me, because their doctor or allergist did not tell them. They don’t even know which dairy their children were tested for. But then “the kicker”–they are lumping pasteurized milk in with raw milk. Milk is not milk, folks. What  is currently being sold as milk is not milk at all. Different nutrient profile. Different nutrient density. No lactase to digest the lactose. Denatured protein. From cows fed GRAIN (unless you check for grass-fed) and let’s not even talk about the hormones! So simply said, organic or not, grass-fed or not, pasteurized milk is not the same as raw milk. It is not the same as milk the way nature intended it to be. It is not the same as it was designed to be as it is produced by cows.  But the dairy industry and the FDA want you to believe it is. Because if you knew, if you REALLY knew what is in that pasteurized milk, and what has happened to the proteins in the milk as a result of pasteurization, you would not drink that milk. And you certainly would not serve it to your children.

Certified raw milk is full of live enzymes, lactase to break down lactose (which is why “lactose-intolerant” folks can often drink raw milk with ease of digestion) and healthy bacteria, which is REQUIRED for good health. Heck, raw milk will even heal wounds. When raw milk goes sour, you can continue to use it, continue to drink it, as it has healthfully soured. (Contrast with soured pasteurized milk which can make you very sick. Pasteurization not only kills enzymes and denatures proteins in milk, it also kills both good and bad bacteria. And the “bad bacteria” is left in the milk for you to drink. Dead bad bacteria in every gulp. Yuck.)

While we are at it, let’s take a look at salt. Yep, you guessed it. Salt is not salt. All salt is not created equal. Everyone tells you, cut down on salt. Especially those with high blood pressure. Well…yes. Cut down on sodium chloride, good ole NaCl. The salt with the girl with the umbrella on the container. Kosher salt. Heck, any salt that is not full of trace minerals IS suspect. We NEED THOSE TRACE MINERALS. So be sure to use a sea salt, ancient sea bed salt, or celtic salt that is chock full of minerals. Every cell needs them. Every day. So don’t be fooled again…use that celtic salt. AND be sure to use it when cooking for your children. They need minerals too!

Ahhh, just enough pastured butter. Delish!

Let’s not forget BUTTER. Mmmm mmm yum. Everyone I remind about the health benefits of pastured butter thanks me profusely. People LOVE butter. And for good reason: grass-fed butter is just plain good for you. And I am not talking about L___ O’ Lakes. I am not even talking organic butter. Because one more time with feeling… all butter IS NOT alike. Butter from pastured cows has a perfect fatty acid profile. That means if you eat enough of it, you may be able to stop popping those fish oil capsules. Can you believe it? And good butter, grass-fed butter, is a wonderful fat to cook with, add to those SOAKED grains you serve, and slather on sourdough bread. It even helps to neutralize the phytates left in the bread after a good soak or ferment. So serve that butter! and enjoy!

I am asking you folks to pull the wool off your eyes and start using that discriminating brain you’ve got when it comes to food. Don’t be hoodwinked! Don’t be fooled! Use that brain to discriminate between “REAL Food” and the “food products” out there that are masquerading as food. I’ve unmasked some of the key impostors here for you, and hopefully given you more than “food for thought”. The rest is up to you. Be well. Eat well. Eat REAL food. 🙂

reflections on Wise Traditions 2010…

Here I am with Sally Fallon Morell in front of my table at WT 2010!

So I’ve been home 6 days…and this is my first chance to write about my experience at the Weston A. Price Foundation’s Wise Traditions Conference in King of Prussia PA. What a wonderful conference! The FOOD! The FOOD! The FOOD! (did I say “the FOOD”?!) Unbelievable. Don’t know how they did it. (Actually, I do know, having been an event planner, conference manager and catering company owner in the not so distant past. ) It was  QUITE A FEAT, and pulled off quite well by the staff of the WAPF and PTF Associates. Over 1500 people registered before the conference began, and I am guessing another hundred or so on-site. All those people. All those happy people…people IN SEARCH OF something more, something REAL…real information about FOOD, FARMING and the HEALING ARTS. This year’s conference was focused upon THE POLITICS OF FOOD…and if you don’t think food is political, think again.

One of the most basic things, one of the most primal things, is to eat. All of us do it. Everyone must eat to live. We are challenged, though, in this day and this age to EAT TO THRIVE. The food at this conference, the basis of the teachings of Weston A. Price and the foundation that Sally Fallon Morell began over 12 years ago is about EATING TO THRIVE.

Eating is a political act. What one chooses to eat, where one purchases one’s food is a political act. Every day we are voting with our pocketbooks…do you support family farms or factory farms? “Animals expressing their animal-ness” (as Joel Salatin has said it), or CAFOs? Do you support small enterprises or big business? REAL food or processed food? Surviving or THRIVING for yourself and your family?

With The Barefoot Cook, Amanda Love at Sunday Brunch. Great Job, Amanda!

Every meal we ate at the conference was REAL food: meat and turkey and eggs and produce and cheese, butter and milk from sustainable farms. REAL milk…raw milk. Delicious, nutritious, FULL of live enzymes and vitamins and good health.   Soaked oatmeal or quinoa every morning for breakfast. Hand-made sausages on soaked flour biscuits. (Only my fermented KETCHUP or mustard would have made them better!) REAL butter. Lots of it. 170 pounds per meal served! The ferments. The FERMENTS! Cortido, chutneys, salsas, red cabbage, garlic flowers…The BREAD! Soaked or sourdough…easy to digest, covered with real BUTTER or coconut ghee if you preferred. NOTHING PROCESSED. NO REFINED SUGAR. NO COFFEE.  Can you believe it?! 1500+ people on no processed food, sugar or coffee for 4 days! And the food was plentiful. Our bodies were in FOOD HEAVEN, and our minds worked well through the packed conference days because of it. No late afternoon blood sugar crashes sending us off for a chocolate or coffee fix; focused minds.  Thanks to all the farmers and organizations that contributed!!

Serving hundreds nourishing, traditional food!

Eating is a political act. If you care about small farms and your right to continue to purchase from them, as well as your right to nutrient-dense food, GET INVOLVED.  The Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund is a great source of information and can keep you up to date on what is happening. Support the Fund and the Foundation so that they can continue to support and protect the farms you want to purchase from…through farmer’s markets, CSAs and on-farm purchases. It matters now more than ever. See FTCLDF’s info on S. 510 HERE.

One week ago today, I taught an all-day session on Pulling It All Together: Fitting Nourishing, Traditional Food into Your Busy Life to a room of over 85 people. A veritable tour de force! Seven of my normally two and a half hour classes in less than 5.5 hours…and hand-outs to boot! Lots of information and lots of fun. What wonderful folks attended. Sandy in the front row…Marie who doesn’t like her beans mushy…the lady who has a thing about plastic! I so enjoyed their questions and our dialog. THANKS to everyone that attended, and especially to the two gals without whom it could not have happened: Susan Lucas and Amy Berger. The session was filmed…thanks, Steve!…and I am GREAT ON CAMERA, if I do say so myself! If you would like to order a copy of the session, you may do so HERE.  (Check back with Fleetwood Onsite for individual session recordings.) I will also have DVDs of the session for purchase in the near future.  More on that later. :))

So, just a few reflections on a wonderful conference.  I am sure I will write more in the days to come. I encourage you to attend next year…for information…resources…and connections. If you love nutrient-dense food, cooked in a way that is delicious AND good for you, come and be with your tribe. I know I will. The FOOD ALONE is worth it.

YUM! Sunday Brunch: all farm-fresh sausages, bacon, egg and veg frittata, soaked waffles with fresh whipped cream!

 

 

Notes: The people of Pennsylvania and several other states in the U.S.  are blessed to be able to purchase raw milk in stores in their state. If you want to know more about raw milk and your rights to it, see www.realmilk.com,and support the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund, HERE.

the jig is up! Happy Meals not so happy for any of us

aka, Why PROCESSED FOOD ISN’T FOOD…!

I started out with the intention of writing about “food fractions” today…and it appears that McDonald’s–yes, the Golden Arches–has given a perfect intro.

I’ve been talking about this for years…a while back, my Honey told me of a blog he came across where a woman carried around a regular McDonald’s hamburger in her purse for 12 YEARS and it never decomposed. No mold. No deterioration at all. Can you believe it?! But that didn’t get as much press as this one…

If you have ever wondered why you should cook and serve REAL food to your families, especially your CHILDREN, here’s one good reason. It’s finally out… Happy Meals don’t decompose! Do we want to feed this to our children? Do we think this could be at all nutritious and promote thriving and good health? Do we even have to wonder why our children are plagued with allergies, eczema, or over-tired/always wired? How about the inability to focus? ADD? AD/HD? We cannot expect our children to function optimally if they are not given the resources to do so. And INSTEAD of FEEDING THEM REAL FOOD and giving their bodies/minds/spirits a chance to COME TO BALANCE, our medical culture is promoting drugs instead. Let’s not even BEGIN to talk about CHILDHOOD DIABETES and OBESITY. Do ya wonder? Can ya wonder? McDonald’s is not serving FOOD. The problem is, hardly anyone else out there is, either.

Okay, maybe I am being too hard. McDonald’s does serve lettuce and tomatoes, albeit conventionally grown and therefore most probably laden with chemical pesticides, fungicides, and fertilizers. (Chemical soup for the diet! One more thing contributing to the toxic load the body has to deal with!) And McDonald’s ISN’T THE ONLY ONE serving what I call “food fractions“. Even those gourmet restaurants use buckets of food fractions with long lists of ingredients! Food fractions are components of food that are isolated in a lab or processing plant, and then mixed together and served up as “food”. (Can you see the cauldron or mad scientist…hear the pipe organ behind the scene? No, really, I am sure the current Food Industrial Complex meant well, in the interest of speed, production, and money…it’s just that OUR HEALTH has suffered!) An easy food fraction to identify is called an “isolate” (e.g., soy protein isolate). You can recognize food fractions because they are usually more than 3 syllables and are very hard to pronounce. Another red flag is when there are more than 5  ingredients on the label. Having a label at all should set off warning bells to take a look at the ingredient list!

So………is this food? The answer is NO. Michael Pollan has talked about it in In Defense of Food and Omnivore’s Dilemma and continues to talk about it.  Nina Planck has talked about it in REAL Food.  The Weston A. Price Foundation has been talking about it non-stop since it was inspired and birthed by Sally Fallon Morell in the late 1990’s…and they will continue the conversation at this year’s Wise Traditions conference in King of Prussia, PA November 12-15. Joel Salatin talks about it in The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer…SLOW FOOD began in Italy years ago to counter the Fast Food Movement in the US…How about Fast Food Nation? FRESH: The Movie…There are many more out there pointing the way back to REAL Food. Nourishing, traditional food.

We cannot feed our children (or ourselves) food fractions and expect them to be well. This is ersatz food, FAKE FOOD, stuff that looks like food, smells like food (how about those chemical flavor factories in my home state of NJ? can’t say I’m proud of that!)  and even tastes like food…but IS NOT REAL FOOD. ( I challenge you to stop eating the stuff for a month and see if you can go back to eating it again…your taste buds will be able to taste the difference after only 30 days hiatus!)

What does REAL food look like? To state the obvious, REAL FOOD LOOKS LIKE FOOD! REAL food is minimally processed. It is as close to the source as possible. For example, oats and oatmeal, vs “Honey Bunches of Oats” or “Whole Grain Cheerios”. Read “high in sugar” and “processed”. I cannot even RECOGNIZE an OAT in either of those cereals! Can you? Really? REAL food starts with the highest quality ingredients that are prepared in a way that maximizes nutrition for the body. The ingredients are fresh, local, sustainably raised, organic or biodynamic. Meats are from animals raised on pasture, or “grass-fed”. The fats are traditional fats: lard, tallow, pastured butter, animal fats, coconut oil and olive oil. The dairy is from cows that are raised on pasture, which has not been subjected to heat (i.e., pasteurized) or homogenization. It is certified raw dairy. Or if you are unfortunate enough to live in a state where fresh milk is illegal (can you believe it?? In the land of the free?) it is cultured, pasteurized dairy.  There are no additives, flavorings, colorings, or preservatives. The food has not been subjected to high heat or pressure. (Read most things that are canned.) Therefore, it’s molecular structure is still intact and its enzymes are still alive.

Basically, stay out of what I call “THE DEAD ZONE” in the grocery store. Heck, stay out of the grocery store! (Okay, now I’ve gone off the deep end, right?!) Get your food from coops, CSAs, farmers markets, wholesale clubs…grow some yourself. If you are going to shop in the grocery store, and many of us must…read your labels, and stay on the perimeter as much as possible.

Enough said.

Start feeding your children, your family and yourselves REAL Food. Nourishing, traditional food. Try it for 3 months. Heck, try it for 1 month, I dare ya! You will start feeling better, symptoms and allergies will subside…the ability to focus will follow. If you don’t know how to cook nourishing, traditional food, REAL food, come to a class…or watch for my cookbook, due out by the WAPF conference–mid November.

If you won’t cook for yourself, cook for your children. I teach a series of Cooking for Well-Being Classes called REAL Foods for Thriving Children. I am starting a new series in Oakton, VA on Tuesday mornings 10/19.  I also teach a series called small changes: BIG impact–REAL food to Balance Children on the Autistic Spectrum and with AD/HD. I am teaching this series in Great Falls, VA on Saturday mornings. Check the Schedule of Classes for details. All of these classes are open to everyone. You do not have to have a child to benefit. THE TECHNIQUES ARE UNIVERSAL. And if time is tight and you would like to learn it all in one day, come to the Wise Traditions conference in November and sign up for an all-day class with me on Monday, November 15. All the techniques and all the timing to fit this food into your busy life! Just come!

As always, I look forward to teaching you how to cook nourishing, traditional food! REAL food! 🙂

I got to ride behind Joel Salatin…

…you’ll just have to believe me.

In the days before pictures, the written word was all we had to capture thoughts, impressions, moments. Well, that’s all I’ve got to use today to convey my visit to Polyface Farm Saturday…heartbroken, almost…as all 110 of my glorious photos went the way of a curious 4 year old playing with buttons on the digital camera. He found the “trash all” button, and they were lost forever.

How can I convey how happy I was, privileged, blessed, in fact, to be riding on the hay wagon directly behind the Lunatic Farmer HIMSELF, Joel Salatin, who was driving the red tractor pulling about a hundred of us? A man with so clear a vision, and so unwavering a focus upon it.  It was his mission today to explain to those of us that came to the benefactor event of the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund and Farm to Consumer Foundation what he is doing at Polyface Farm, and why he and other small farmers need the organization and the support…and he got choked up later in his speech after lunch as he expressed his gratitude for their assistance twice since its inception.

It was a beautiful day in Swoope, VA. Bright sun, a lot hotter than the forecast had promised. My son and I arrived about 15 minutes early, as I wanted to deliver 10 quarts of fermented Peach Chutney and fermented Lemon Thyme Garlic and Garlic Dill Pickles to the caterer upon arrival.  We were met by Mike, a white dog who stands taller on all fours than my very tall 4 year old. He welcomed both of us by jumping up and placing a paw on Bodhi’s chest, knocking him over. The day at the farm had begun! We will see ducks, pigs, chickens, (layers and broilers), cows and rabbits before the day was over.

So…instead of a chronology of the day…just a few “snapshots” (pardon the pun)…

I went over to say hello to Joel, who had just flown in the night before from somewhere, whom I hadn’t seen since I was honored to be on a panel with him and Sally Fallon Morell to discuss FRESH: the movie last November. Gosh, had it been that long? I introduced him to my son, Bodhi, who was so excited about meeting The Farmer, Joel. He said he liked Joel’s hat, (yes, that beat up, worn out, full of holes farm hat that is Joel’s trademark) and told him he had brought his cowboy hat, too. They decided together that Bodhi’s brand new white cowboy hat from Cheyenne, Wyoming was probably a lot like Joel’s “city hat”, which he would rotate in after his farm hat had truly lived its last days. Bodhi was thrilled to “talk hats” with Joel. Then he ran off to play with the cat.

The first animals we saw on the hayride were pigs…fifty or so pigs, some pink, some brown, some spotted brown on pink…the pigs see Joel’s red tractor approaching and RUN to greet him and us. Came right up; no fear. Each pig about 50 pounds, running and playing and chasing each other in a paddock, contained only by a single wire of electric fence. They seemed to laugh, giggle, romp and roll. They would move in a day or so to the next paddock we could see over the hill, where the grass was green and tall. They would grow to about 400 pounds on grass and acorns and starchy roots. (This is about 160 pounds more than confinement pigs…they grow that big foraging and rooting around…one thing confinement pigs do not have the pleasure of doing.) Joel explained that the job of the pigs was to create upheaval–in their routing around with their snouts, and running around with their hooves, they overturned much…creating the space for new growth to begin after them.  As Joel explained the ecology and economy of it all, he invited us to take a big sniff and notice their was no odor. A far cry from the conventional pig farms, where one can smell the stench of confinement miles away.

The fields…sooooooo beautiful. So lush, so green. A horticulturist’s dream. I looked around and identified a few species, some of my favorites…the steely blue-lavender color of chicory against its dark gray/black stalks, gorgeous, bright golden yarrow swaying in the breeze, thistles! Oh, the thistles! Rich lavendery-purpley-magenta thistles…dark green, tall, woody stems and prickly leaves. Red clover…grasses that looked like brush-tails and 40 or 50 more species growing, growing. When Joel stopped the tractor in the middle of a pasture to ask folks to note the variety of plants growing, and that this pasture had already been grazed 2 or 3 times this year and would be grazed again, I had a fantasy that he must have noticed me pointing out the beauty of it all to my son as he drove.  “Where did they all come from?” one of the guests asked. No seeds were ever planted, no species introduced. This is Nature creating as she does when all is in balance. When one stewards the Earth.

Next, the broilers. A thousand birds on one pasture…all in movable chicken houses, all on the grass with shelter and sun…a line of 10 or 15 of these movable houses I am guessing with about 15 birds each (could have been 20;  I didn’t count). Again, you could see where the houses had been yesterday–that grass had been “mowed” down to the dirt. The houses are moved daily to new, fresh grass… so there were stripes of already eaten pasture, covered with chicken poop and then stripes of lush pasture not yet travelled…all the way through. It was here that my boy found the most exotic and exquisite caterpillar that he played with while Joel spoke…yellow and orange and black, with black spikes sticking out all over and two black antennae. (You’ll have to trust me on this one, too. The close up of the insect was beautiful.)

The cows…oh, the cows. I will never forget the sound of the munching of the cows. Munch, munch, munch. Have you ever heard a cow munch grass? Just wonderful. So…chewing, chewing, chewing! I noted that we were driving over a pasture that had been grazed very far…down to the dirt…and how it was covered with cow pies! (Did you know that grass-fed cows drop 50 pounds of cow pies a day?! and that when you step on them, they are bright GREEN inside?!!!) On the far end, in the grassy pasture, were 50 or so cows, and opposite from them, in the “already been grazed, almost dirt, covered with cow pies pasture” was an “egg mobile” with lots of hens running around outside it, pecking the ground, pecking the cow pies for luscious, divine fly larve. (Did you know that cow pies contain all the enzymes that chickens need to digest their food?! Gosh, Nature really knows what she is doing!) Sooooooooo on one end, the cows grazing in the lush green grass (the “teenager grass” Joel calls it, the high growth grass that one WANTS cows to graze–timing is everything when you are a Grass Farmer!) and on the other end, the chickens, laying hens, doing what Joel calls “Sanitation” on the field. They go through and EAT AS CHICKENS ARE MEANT TO EAT, BUGS out of the cow pies. Not “vegetarian feed enhanced with omega 3s”! (I had pictures of those cow pies and those chickens pecking through them for treats!) The result? Nutrient-dense, ORANGE-YOLKED eggs. Pure nutritive gold.

Transparency. This is a word Joel uses all the time–transparency. The ability to see through, to see all. The willingness to be seen…to be looked at, and to be held accountable. Michael Pollan used this word in The Omnivore’s Dilemma when he wrote about his experience at Polyface. Transparency and the circle of life. And the naturalness of the circle… I will never forget the scene of my 4 year old child swinging on the swing in the tree right next to the open killing shed. He and a bunch of girls and boys ages 4-9ish…running, swinging, laughing. Yep, just a few feet from where the chickens are slaughtered and cleaned for sale. I had no worry about germs…this was Polyface farm and I knew that because of the way birds are processed on this farm all was well. The birds are “processed” right outside where all can see, in manageable batches once a week, instead of in a big factory operations that reek of the stench of killing thousands of birds at a time. Here, by hand, no odor, no stench…just transparency. Come and look and see where it is done, how it is done. And then choose to eat or not.

How happy I was, how grateful, yes, feeling blessed to be in the presence of one hundred or so like-minded folks who care enough about their rights to real, fresh from the farm food (really, not just proclaimed on a box from a supermarket) to offer up $250 or more each to help ensure small family farmers do the work of farming, and lawyers do the work of defending their right to do so. We shared a meal of local, sustainable meat, cheese, wine and vegetables with others who had come from as far away as Gainesville, Florida and Minnesota, Arizona…all to support each other, to support the farmers, to support and ensure their right to sell directly to consumers, and for the consumers right (that means you and me) to purchase directly from them. We heard from the head of the FTCLDF and from others who are spearheading the movement to protect what Joel calls “the rights of my several trillion members” i.e., the right to feed one’s own body with the foods one chooses…and the challenges to that right.  Sally Fallon Morell, another visionary, another of my favorite people…I met Sally 12 years ago when she taught me and a group of others how to make butter from real cream. Sally’s efforts inspire me daily to “teach, teach teach…”. She is one of the founders of the FTCLDF, FTCF, and of the Weston A. Price Foundation.   Thank you Sally for all you do for all of us. And for the children. Sally spoke about the three things are needed for a successful renaissance in farming: 1.  Creation of customers (WAPF does this), 2. Legal Defense (FTCLDF does this) and 3. Figuring out the best ways to farm. . . the farmers do that. And after a day at Polyface, it was clear to all who attended that Joel Salatin has done that.

Cathy Raymond of the FTCLDF raffled off  lots of donated items in thanksgiving for people having come…homemade, artisanal bread, local wine, hard copies of Nourishing Traditions, one of my own DVDs: The Ketchup Revolution and a Preparing Whole Grains and Legumes chart, gift certificates to the Polyface Farm store (you know they don’t ship!)…among others.  Our day ended with a visit to the farm store ourselves, for a couple dozen of those ungraded Polyface Eggs, the best hot dogs in the world (made from real meat and not meat parts you wouldn’t want to eat), and of course, chicken. As I packed a happy, exhausted child into his car seat and began to drive out, I caught Joel’s eye and waved my thanks. He stopped his conversation and walked over to me in the van, and grabbed my hand to thank me for coming down. He asked after my husband, whom he had met 8 years prior, and was happy to hear of the miracles that have happened in his health this year. The last thing I said to the self-proclaimed “Lunatic Farmer” was to thank him for being my inspiration. “Whenever I am foggy about why I am here or what I need to do”, I said, “I think of you and your focus and your clarity, and I say, Joel is my model.” May I be as clear about why I do what I do, and as focused in bringing it to fruition. Thank you Joel Salatin, for all you do for all of us. As I write, I am choked up and grateful. And maybe we’ll just have to take another trip down to Polyface Farm soon. With the camera. 🙂