Authors: Mary Enig
Raw milk sold in stores is almost always organic, but farmers selling raw milk directly usually don’t bother to get organic certification. More important than the organic label is how the farmer feeds his cows, as described earlier.
If you can’t find raw milk, we recommend not using milk at all. But don’t worry—milk is not critical to any of our diet plans. Instead, eat raw cheeses (available in many stores and on the Internet) and good-quality yogurt (which is cultured to put at least some of the enzymes back into the product). A good substitute for raw milk is our
Coconut Milk Tonic
(for recipe), which is formulated to contain approximately the same amount of fat, calories, and calcium as whole milk.
Raw Cheese
Today, many people rely on “energy bars” and “meal replacements” for their convenience; they don’t spoil easily, require no preparation, and can be taken on outings and trips. Unfortunately, though touted as “complete,” these bars are made with chemicals and many processed ingredients, such as high-fructose corn syrup, soy protein isolate, and refined and hydrogenated oils. Anything but complete, they lack many nutrients, especially calcium and fat-soluble vitamins.
From our perspective, the ideal convenience food is cheese, a delicious, concentrated food that travels easily and provides all necessary nutrients, including adequate calcium, along with the whole gamut of vitamins and minerals, including vitamin C if the cheese is made from unheated milk.
Unlike raw milk, raw cheese is available in most towns and also on the Internet (see Resources). Remember: we’re not talking about processed products like Velveeta, nor even the type of cheese sold in supermarkets. Look for raw cheese from cows raised naturally, such as cheddar, feta, and blue cheese, which has been processed on or near the farm—the label will tell you that it is made from “raw” or “unpasteurized” milk. The range of taste and textures of such cheese is extraordinary. (See Resources for sources and brand names.)
Fish Eggs
Fish eggs were a sacred food in widely diverse cultures, Dr. Price found. The Eskimos in Alaska dried salmon roe “so they could have healthy babies.” South American Indians living high in the Andes Mountains, the people of the South Sea Islands and the islands north of Australia, the Gaelics in the Outer Hebrides, and the coastal Peruvian Indians all used fish eggs during pregnancy. Roe was prized in the Orkney Islands and among all peoples who consumed seafood. Even today, caviar is considered an aphrodisiac.
Roe is truly a nutrient-dense food, containing components key to healthy reproduction, including vitamins A and D, vitamin E, zinc, iodine, and the special long-chain fatty acids DHA and EPA. In our menu plans, we recommend salted cured roe spread on buttered whole-grain bread or crackers and a delicious fish roe spread made with
Mary’s Oil Blend
, which contains coconut oil ( for recipe).
Shellfish
Populations eating seafoods had the best bone structure—the widest palates and thickest skulls, Dr. Price noted. And chief among sea foods were shellfish, easy to gather and often eaten raw. Oysters, clams, conch, abalone, shrimp, crab, lobster, crayfish—all were considered sacred foods, rich in vital factors needed for good health and successful reproduction. Shellfish are particularly rich in vitamin D, but they also provide vitamin A, the gamut of minerals and fatty acids.
Shrimp and oysters are particularly important. Shrimp is very rich in vitamin D, and throughout Africa and Asia little dried shrimp form the basis of condiments and sauces. And oysters are our best source of zinc (essential for male reproductive health), which is probably why they’re considered an aphrodisiac.
Nuts
Nuts are an extremely nutrient-dense food, supplying high levels of minerals, as well as B vitamins, some protein, and lots of fat. The fat content of nuts ranges from 40 to 70 percent, most of it monounsaturated. A few varieties of nuts, particularly walnuts, are a good source of omega-3 fatty acids. Nuts are very satisfying and make a great snack food. But be warned: they are caloriedense, and their monounsaturated fats can contribute to weight gain. So nuts are great if you lead an active life or don’t need to lose weight (or even need to gain weight). But they’re not for you if you need to take pounds off.
Many traditional cultures used nuts, from the acorns eaten by the California natives to the Queensland nuts (macadamias) used by the Australian Aborigines. But these groups instinctively realized that nuts contain many irritants and toxins, such as enzyme inhibitors and tannins. That is why they prepared nuts very carefully, usually by soaking, then sun-drying. Roasting also eliminates some of the anti-nutrients.
The best preparation method is to soak raw nuts in salt water for 6 to 8 hours, then drain and dehydrate in a warm oven or dehydrator until completely dry and crisp. We call these
Crispy Nuts
(for recipe.)
A word of caution:
Do not buy nuts from open bins—they are often rancid. Purchase nuts in airtight packages.
Whole Grains/Tubers/Legumes
Proponents of traditional foods, including Loren Cordain, author of
The Paleo Diet,
theorize that ancestral diets did not include high-carbohydrate foods. However, an in-depth look at traditional diets refutes this notion. Even Paleolithic peoples had access to carbohydrate foods. Native Americans consumed tubers called
wapatos
that thrived in swampy areas. Tubers such as the taro root were a staple in South Sea diets. South Americans ate various types of potato. Grains and legumes were consumed in Australia, Africa, and both North and South America.
However, traditional peoples did not eat these foods hastily prepared, as we do. They usually prepared starchy foods by long soaking or fermentation, which greatly increased their nutrient values and minimized their anti-nutrient content, as well as making them much more digestible.
In Chapter 10, you’ll find many recipes using these ancient methods, which give whole-grain foods a light taste and make them easy to digest. Genuine sourdough breads, fermented to neutralize the phytic acid and enzyme inhibitors, are also available for purchase. (See the Resources section for sources.)
Lacto-Fermented Foods
To recover from digestive disorders, many people today take probiotics, supplements containing healthy bacteria for the digestive tract. Traditional people did not take probiotics. They got beneficial bacteria from lacto-fermented foods such as sauerkraut and other pickled vegetables and fruits. All traditional cultures consumed fermented food, from fermented fish in Arctic regions to fermented tubers, such as poi (fermented cassava), in the tropics. Coconut meat and coconut juice can also be fermented.
Toxic Breakfast Cereals?
All but a few brands of cold breakfast cereals—even so-called organic health food cereals—are produced by a process called extrusion that subjects the grains to very high pressure at high temperatures (Grape Nuts is one exception—it is not extruded but baked). Analysis of the grains after extrusion indicates that this industrial process breaks up the carefully organized proteins they contain, creating neurotoxic (damaging to nerves) protein fragments.
Unpublished animal studies described by Paul Stitt in his book
Fighting the Food Giants
indicate that animals fed extruded grains rapidly develop serious anomalies of the digestive and nervous systems and die before animals given nothing but water. And, since organic whole grains are high in protein, extruded health food cereals are likely to contain higher levels of these toxic protein fragments than the cereals sold in supermarkets.
That’s why it’s so much healthier to prepare your own grain dishes, making sure to soak and ferment the grains. So we’ve provided two delicious recipes for soaked, then baked, cold breakfast cereals.
Sauerkraut, cabbage that has been preserved by lacto-fermentation, is familiar to most Westerners. Traditionally, it’s never made with sugar or vinegar, nor is it canned or pasteurized. Instead, the cabbage is pounded and mixed with salt, to encourage the growth of lactobacilli, bacteria that produce lactic acid, which acts as a preservative. Fermented dairy products, such as yogurt and kefir (a sour, fermented milk beverage), also act as probiotics.
Another big topic today among health-conscious people, one that encourages sales of a lot of supplements, is enzymes. Enzymes in our food aid digestion, saving the body a lot of work. Some people assert that all our food should be raw, because enzymes are destroyed in cooking (see sidebar). But all traditional cultures cooked some or even most of their food; they got their enzymes from moderate amounts of fermented foods. We like to think of fermented foods as “super-raw,” because they contain very high levels of enzymes (formed during the lacto-fermentation process) that more than compensate for the enzymes destroyed by cooking. Consumed as condiments, these fermented foods help digest cooked foods.
Raw Versus Cooked
How much of your food should be cooked? Proponents of the newly popular raw food diets claim that cooking ruins vitamins and enzymes, making food difficult to digest and therefore contributing to disease.
But all traditional peoples cooked some or most of their food. Even in the tropics, where people did not have to build fires to keep warm, they built fires every day to cook. In addition to cooking grains and legumes, they usually cooked their vegetables, the very foods some recommend that people eat raw.
Why cook? Cooking helps neutralize many naturally occurring anti-nutrients and irritants in food, also breaking down indigestible fiber. Many foods, such as beans and potatoes, are indigestible until cooked.
While cooking—especially at very high temperatures—does destroy some nutrients, it makes minerals more available; and a surprising benefit of cooking is the fact that it makes proteins more digestible by gently unfolding these large molecules so that the digestive enzymes can latch on and do their work.
Though cooking does destroy enzymes, many foods we cook do not have many enzymes to start with. Consuming lacto-fermented condiments and beverages will more than compensate for enzymes lost in cooking.
Raw Foods You Should Eat
Interestingly, all traditional cultures consumed at least some of their animal foods raw. Cooking destroys vitamin B
6
, derived from animal foods, and greatly reduces milk’s nutrients. That is why we’ve included several raw meat and fish dishes in this book.
Note:
It’s important to freeze meat that will be eaten raw for 14 days before using, to ensure that parasites are destroyed. Fish to be eaten raw is marinated in an acidic medium, equally effective for getting rid of parasites.
Fermented foods also contain high nutrient levels. For example, the vitamin C content of cabbage increases up to tenfold in the process of making sauerkraut. B vitamin content also greatly increases, and the minerals in the foods become more bio-available.
Lacto-Fermented Beverages
Traditional cultures made healthy lacto-fermented beverages (either non-alcoholic or slightly alcoholic) out of palm sap, coconut juice, herbs, roots, tubers, and fruit. They drank these beverages to provide quick energy and aid digestion.
Soaking grains is one form of lacto-fermentation, while making lacto-fermented beverages from grains increases their nutritive value even further. North Americans made a sour corn beverage, while Africans made beer from sorghum, a type of cereal grass. These beverages supplied abundant vitamins, enzymes, beneficial bacteria, and lactic acid, all of which contribute to intestinal health.
Lacto-fermented beverages are an important feature in Health Recovery and optional (although strongly suggested) in Quick and Easy Weight Loss and Everyday Gourmet. They are delicious and actually more nutritious than the raw vegetable juices recommended in some diets. Think of lacto-fermented beverages as soft drinks that are good for you! There’s a tremendous need for beverages that provide a healthy alternative to commercial sodas, and these traditional sparkling beverages—especially our
Kefir Sodas
(for recipes) flavored with fruit and ginger—can really help people kick the soft drink habit.
We’ve included several recipes for easy-to-make lacto-fermented beverages. But if you don’t have time even for that, you can buy them ready-made (see Resources)—or just add a pinch of sea salt and a squeeze of fresh lemon, lime, or grapefruit to sparkling water to provide important trace minerals and aid digestion.
Broth
Traditional diets contain only two good sources of calcium—dairy products and bones. In very primitive cultures, the bones of small animals are ground with water to make a paste. In more advanced cultures, the bones are cooked in water to make broth or stock. In cultures that do not consume milk and cheese, bone broths play a key role in supplying calcium, as in the Asian diet, where a bone broth is consumed with every meal, even at breakfast. Miso soup, so popular in Japan, is actually a fish broth to which miso has been added (for recipe).
A Glossary of Lacto-Fermented Beverages
Here are descriptions of less familiar lacto-fermented beverages that are especially healthful and useful for the Eat Fat, Lose Fat program.
Beet kvass:
A fermented Russian beverage made out of beets (for recipe). It requires
Homemade Whey
(made from yogurt, for recipe), but once you have the whey, beet kvass is actually very easy to make. The taste is somewhat medicinal but not unpleasant.
Coconut kefir:
Many people report complete recovery from digestive problems using coconut kefir. You make it by adding a culture to fresh coconut water, the liquid from inside the immature coconut. Many markets now carry immature (white) coconuts. It’s easy to make a hole in these relatively soft coconuts to extract the juice, or you can buy packaged coconut water by mail order. To make coconut kefir, simply add the culture (which comes in powdered and grain form) to the fresh coconut juice and leave at room temperature for about two days, then transfer to bottles and refrigerate. The taste of coconut juice and coconut kefir is somewhat medicinal. Some people can’t stand it, but others love it. Many swear by it as a key factor in recovering health.
Ginger ale:
We provide a recipe for fermented ginger ale that uses a kefir culture (for recipe). This is a really delightful way to take your lacto-fermented beverage—ginger tastes great and also is good for the digestion.
Kombucha:
This extremely healthy fermented drink, made by adding a culture from the kombucha mushroom to sweetened tea, is from Russia. The culture transforms the sugar into many beneficial acids that aid digestion and actually help the liver detoxify. You can either make your own (for recipe) or purchase ready-made kombucha (see Resources).