Back to Butter: A Traditional Foods Cookbook - Nourishing Recipes Inspired by Our Ancestors (2 page)

Nourishing Traditions
is inspired by the work of Dr. Weston A. Price, a prominent American dentist from the early 1900s who wondered why he was seeing so many dental problems in his patients—not only cavities and infection, but also what he called “dental deformities,” that is, crowded and crooked teeth, overbites, and underbites. These findings, juxtaposed with the many reports he had heard of so-called “primitive people” from around the globe with beautiful straight white teeth inspired him and his wife to research the phenomenon.

Dr. Price located fourteen non-industrialized groups of people that had uniformly straight teeth, were free from cavities, and who exhibited excellent health overall. He then turned his attention to their diets. What kind of diet, he wanted to know, resulted in such obvious physical health?

His findings, documented in his book
Nutrition and Physical Degeneration
, revealed that while the diets of these healthy traditional peoples differed in the particulars—the diet of the Eskimos, for
instance, relied heavily on fatty meats, organ meats, and fish, while those in the Swiss Alps ate more dairy and grains—the underlying principle remained the same: All the diets were extremely nutrient-dense, with particularly high levels of what he called the “fat-soluble activators,” namely vitamins A, D, and K2. Without these fat-soluble vitamins, the body cannot assimilate the minerals and water-soluble vitamins also in our food. Yet these fat-soluble vitamins are found in the very foods that we are often told
not
to eat: organ meats, butter, cream, egg yolks, fish eggs, animal fats, shellfish, and fish liver oils. Traditional peoples, on the other hand, held these foods to be sacred and particularly important for pregnant women and growing children.

When members of these “simple” societies left their native places and began eating processed foods, however, Dr. Price found that their health declined and cavities became rampant; children born in the next generation had more narrow faces and crowded teeth. Yet when people returned to their tribe or village and resumed their traditional diet, their health and vitality returned and their physical degeneration was reversed in the next generation. Holy smokes, right?

Dr. Price went on to implement some of the dietary practices he observed abroad in his own patients, using a combination of high-vitamin cod liver oil (rich in vitamins A and D) and an oil extracted from butter produced when cows grazed on lush spring grass (rich in vitamin K2) to treat many diseases, including growth problems, infertility, arthritis, and seizures; he was even able to remineralize teeth and heal cavities with this combination.

When information makes logical sense, it becomes hard to ignore. Eager to find my own truth, I quit dabbling and became fully committed to this age-old food perspective, incorporating Dr. Price’s principles—along with additional principles of healthy traditional diets described by other researchers and including things such as lacto-fermented foods, careful preparation of nuts and grains, use of gelatin-rich bone broths, and soulful farming and soil preservation—into my own meals. And I began, for the very first time, to feel stronger and infinitely more grounded. I literally stopped bumping into things. My energy leveled. And using personal trial and error, I eventually overcame each and every diagnostic
medical label. I humbly admit that we are each, forever, a work in progress, and many things take generations to unwind. But folks, my intense acid reflux and PCOS completely reversed. This was done without even one pill from conventional medicine, just food. Pretty powerful stuff.

Now, this next bit might seem a tad passionate because honestly, it was! In May of 2011, inspired by our “new” way of eating and our renewed appreciation for those who grow food, yet simultaneously puzzled by the limited availability of grass-based farmers, my husband, John, and I risked our established careers, moved to the country, and started to farm. It was the best decision we’ve ever made! Apricot Lane Farms (pictured above), a 160-acre (65 ha) gem in scenic Southern California, is farmed organically and biodynamically to produce extremely nutrient-dense and flavorful foods, pastured eggs, and more than seventy-five varieties of fruit trees. We’ll be sharing tidbits from the farm throughout this book.

Prior to my farming days, I was a private chef for some of the biggest names in Hollywood (who, by the way, are beginning to embrace this information). I am not a scientist. Neither is my mother. She and I are simply cooks who have both overcome health issues by returning to Traditional Foods. Certainly, for every opinion, fact, and study, a counter-opinion, fact, and study can be referenced. But perhaps more importantly, what is the quality of the foods being used in these studies in the first place? Are grass-fed meats and pastured eggs, which could dramatically change the results of health studies, being sourced? Probably not. Therefore, while we wait for the smoke to clear, we simply request you open your hearts and ask yourself whether the information in these pages feels logical. And if so, does it make sense to you to give it a try? That’s what we’ve always done.

The recipes in this book are favorites of our family and are filtered through the lens of the Traditional Foods movement. To ensure your success with these age-old techniques and ways of eating, Part I: The Traditional Foods Pantry (
page 17
) will carefully cover the basics. Overall, we encourage personal awareness and don’t subscribe to the notion of a universal diet. Yet before you determine you cannot eat a certain food, I encourage you to read through everything and keep an open mind, because quality farming and the way that food is prepared can affect tastes and tolerances. Even a grain of wheat,
grown by a different farmer on different soil, can react differently to your body. It’s quite possible, when eating the nutritionally rich version of a food that’s been prepared traditionally, that your body may thrive.* What a gift would that be!

The Traditional Foods lifestyle flourishes when we surrender to the process. You will get no apology that many of these recipes take time. In fact, more time needs to be allocated to the important task of food preparation in the first place! The mind settles while soaking, rinsing, and spreading nuts onto dehydrator trays, or carefully culturing vegetables or dairy. A Nourishing Beef Stock (
page 84
) simmering happily on the stove offers contentment to anyone within sniffing range. Yet, in an effort to respect the balance of life, several of these recipes are family-friendly and downright speedy! Wisely approach your transition one step at a time, but remember this—somewhere in your historical genes, we believe you already know how to do this.

A bit of housekeeping to enhance your experience of this book: In order to avoid clutter, we decided to omit writing certain descriptive words into the ingredients lists of the recipes. For example, organic is not placed before, well,
everything
! But, we certainly recommend it be so. We recommend all meat and eggs be pastured, also known as grass-fed (
page 35
). All seafood is wild with sustainable certification, such as MSC (Marine Stewardship Council). All butter used in the creation of the recipes was pastured and unsalted. We highly recommend a quality mineral-rich sea salt, rather than refined
table salt. All vinegar is unfiltered and unpasteurized. All water is filtered. We recommend dairy be sourced as grass-fed, whole/full fat, and possibly raw, for uncooked applications (
page 37
). All flour, unless specifically noted, is soaked, sprouted, dehydrated, and then fresh-milled the day of use without ever being frozen. Lastly, we recommend raw honey (
page 64
) for all uncooked applications. When purchasing raw honey, we suggest sourcing a “pourable” type, which simply makes things easier. Many raw honeys are thick like peanut butter, which is delicious, but sometimes hard to stir into a recipe. Although many pourable honeys are not truly raw, there are definitely some that are both raw and pourable.

We feel grateful to have uncovered tools that heal our own bodies, and we’re thrilled to share these seemingly magical tricks with you. Food holds the power to gradually change the trajectory of our future, and if we’d only listen, the proven successes of our ancestors can serve to inform our progress. Most of this groundbreaking information is not new to our world; we’re simply starting to remember it.

Now, let’s get cooking!

*Although many of the principles of traditional foods are healing for the body, the mission of this particular book is to keep an already healthy body strong. For example, if you are looking to reverse PCOS, you may also need to cut out alcohol and sugar, even natural kinds, plus possibly lower your overall grain intake, or ramp up to quality fats more slowly, which is not reflected in this book. Find a good doctor who understands traditional foods, and then remember these foods were and are a critical element to our personal well-being, and they can be for you!

PART 1
THE TRADITIONAL FOODS PANTRY