Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook That Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and The... (63 page)

To peel tomatoes, see
Kitchen Tips and Hints
. Saute onions and celery gently in butter until tender. Add tomatoes and stock, bring to a boil and skim. Add crushed peppercorns. Simmer about 15 minutes.

Puree soup with a handheld blender. Thin soup with a little water, if necessary, and season to taste. Stir in the dill. Simmer gently about 5 minutes, ladle into heated bowls and serve with cultured cream.

Primary prevention trials which have shown that the lowering of serum cholesterol concentrations in middle-aged subjects by diet, drugs, or both leads to a decrease in coronary heart disease have also reported an increase in deaths due to suicide or violence. . .published work [describes] a physiological mechanism that might account for this curious finding. One of the functions of serotonin in the central nervous system is the suppression of harmful behavioral impulses. When mouse brain synaptosomal membrane cholesterol is increased there is a pronounced increase in the number of serotonin receptors. Low membrane cholesterol decreases the number of serotonin receptors. Since membrane cholesterol exchanges freely with cholesterol in the surrounding medium, a lowered serum cholesterol concentration may contribute to a decrease in brain serotonin, with poorer suppression of aggressive behavior. Hyman Engelberg, MD
The Lancet

BEET SOUP

Serves 6

6 medium beets

4 tablespoons butter

1 quart filtered water

sea salt or fish sauce (
Fermented Fish Sauce
) and pepper

2 tablespoons finely chopped chives

piima cream
or
creme fraiche

This easy soup brings out the exquisite sweet flavor of beets. Use water, not stock.

Peel beets, chop coarsely and saute very gently in butter for ½ hour or until tender. Add water, bring to a boil and skim. Simmer about 15 minutes. Puree soup with handheld blender. Season to taste, ladle into heated bowls and serve with cultured cream and chives.

CARROT SOUP

Serves 6

2 medium onions, peeled and chopped

1 pound carrots, peeled and sliced

4 tablespoons butter

2 teaspoons curry powder

1½ quarts
chicken stock

½ teaspoon freshly grated lemon rind

½ teaspoon freshly grated ginger

sea salt or fish sauce (
Fermented Fish Sauce
) and pepper

piima cream
or
creme fraiche

Saute onions and carrots very gently in butter about 45 minutes or until tender. Add curry powder and stir around until well amalgamated. Add stock, bring to a boil and skim. Add lemon rind and ginger. Simmer, covered, about 15 minutes. Puree soup with a handheld blender. Season to taste. Ladle into heated bowls and serve with cultured cream.

The traditional medical school teaches that alcoholism is primarily a mental disease, a personality disorder or a weakness from which the person is trying to escape. The medical community fully recognizes that an alcoholic is generally malnourished, but the idea that alcoholism might be caused by lack of nourishment to the brain cells has received very little consideration. Dr. Roger J. Williams, former Director of the Clayton Foundation Biochemical Institute and first elected President of American Chemical Society, claims that it is quite possible that malnutrition develops as a forerunner of alcoholism, and that it is only when malnutrition of the brain cells becomes severe that true alcoholism appears. "Furthermore," he states, "I will herewith positively assert that no one who follows good nutritional practices will ever become an alcoholic." Lynn Sorenson
Health Freedom News

The black hat that butter has worn for the past generation may not be entirely warranted. Nor is the white hat worn by corn oil.

At least this is the indication from research conducted at Oregon Health Sciences University. Although butter does raise blood cholesterol in some individuals, the Oregon scientists found that rats given a diet rich in butterfat showed lower blood pressure than those given corn oil as their sole dietary fat. James F. Scheer
Health Freedom News

SQUASH AND SUN DRIED TOMATO SOUP

Serves 6

1 butternut squash

2 medium onions, peeled and chopped

3 tablespoons butter

1 cup sun dried tomatoes, packed in oil

1 quart
chicken stock

¼ teaspoon red chile flakes

2 tablespoons finely chopped basil

sea salt or fish sauce (
Fermented Fish Sauce
) and pepper

piima cream
or
creme fraiche

Cut squash in half lengthwise and place, cut sides down, in a glass baking pan with about ½ inch of water. Bake at 350 degrees until tender, about 1 hour. Meanwhile, saute onions gently in butter until tender. Add tomatoes, stock and chile flakes. Bring to a boil and skim. Scoop cooked squash out of skin and add to soup. Simmer about ½ hour. Puree soup with a handheld blender. Thin with water if necessary. Add basil and season to taste. Simmer gently about 5 minutes, ladle into heated bowls and serve with cultured cream.

Weston A Price did more than travel and practice dentistry. He also worked daily in his lab, usually testing vitamin A and D content in butter samples sent to him from throughout the country. Vitamin content typically peaked in June when the grass was growing most rapidly. They then declined throughout the summer, but rose again slightly in October. They were at least 50 percent lower during the winter months.

In the late 1920's Dr. Price gathered mortality statistics for heart disease for the entire United States and plotted them on the same graph as vitamin levels in butter. The graphs were a mirror image of each other. In other words, when levels of vitamin A and D were high, deaths from heart disease were low and when levels of vitamin A and D were low, deaths from heart disease were high.

It was after Dr. Price's death, when Americans abandoned butter completely in favor of hydrogenated vegetable oils, that deaths from heart disease soared. Price's neglected study indicates that the answer to this crisis is not, as we've been told, lowfat, but
better
fat. SWF