Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook That Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and The... (70 page)

Mann and co-workers studied these tribes exhaustively. They found remarkably little heart disease, consistently normal blood pressure, no obesity, and a complete absence of rheumatoid arthritis, degenerative arthritis, and gout. What about cholesterol? The average African child had a cholesterol value of 138. The average American child, 202. With increase in age, the native cholesterol values went
down
and the American values went
up
. Beyond the age of fifty-five, the mean cholesterol value of the African natives was 122. The American mean cholesterol for men was 234. William Campbell Douglass, MD
The Milk Book

MARINATED SALMON PLATE

Serves 8

24 slices
marinated salmon

24
round croutons

½ cup
pickled daikon radish

parsley sprigs

Arrange 4 slices marinated salmon and 4 croutons on each plate. Garnish each plate with a teaspoon of daikon radish and parsley sprigs.

Bresaola is one of several air cured or fermented meats found throughout the Mediterranean region. It can be purchased at Italian delicatessens. Similar fermented meats include pemmican of the North American Indians (made from venison, buffalo or fish, bear fat or buffalo fat, maple syrup and berries), air dried mutton from the Faeroe Islands (valued by the natives for its strengthening properties) and cured dry sausages from France. SWF

BRESAOLA AND MELON

Serves 4

4-6 ounces thinly sliced bresaola (air cured beef), available in Italian markets

1 ripe cantaloupe

cracked pepper

edible flowers for garnish (optional)

Slice melon, remove rind and seeds and arrange artistically on four plates with slices of bresaola. Sprinkle with cracked pepper and garnish with optional edible flowers.

The available evidence indicates that Orientals on a high-carbohydrate cooked diet, essentially rice, display a pancreas approximately 50 per cent relatively heavier than that of Americans. The salivary glands of Orientals are also larger. Organ weight studies on experimental animals show that when a group of rats. . .is placed upon a heat-treated, high-carbohydrate diet and sacrificed after a period of feeding, the average weight of the pancreas and salivary glands shows a marked increase over a similar control group of animals on a mixed diet. This indicates that the pancreas and salivary glands are forced to undergo considerable hypertrophy to furnish the additional enzymes required. . .. It is a singular circumstance that whereas cattle and sheep, ingesting a full quota of food enzymes, consummate the digestion of a comparatively high-carbohydrate raw diet with only a small pancreas and without help from the salivary glands, human beings on a heat-treated mixed diet, lacking food enzymes, require a large pancreas and active salivary glands to digest a smaller amount of carbohydrate. And, furthermore, a high-carbohydrate, heat-treated diet engenders still greater enlargement of the pancreas and salivary glands in humans and animals. Edward Howell, MD
Food Enzymes for Health and Longevity

COLD POACHED TROUT WITH MAYONNAISE

Serves 6

6 small whole trout, cleaned

2-3 cups
fish stock

1 cup
herbed
or
Creole mayonnaise

parsley sprigs for garnish

Place trout in a buttered pyrex dish. Bring stock to a boil and pour over fish. Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes or until fish is tender.

Carefully remove fish and chill well. To serve, remove skin but leave head and tail intact. Arrange on individual plates with parsley sprigs and a ramekin of homemade mayonnaise.

In nature fatty acids assume what is called the
cis
form. These
cis
fatty acids are naturally curved and biochemically suited for human nutrition because of the curvature of their shape and how electrons form around them. A
trans
fatty acid has the curve straightened out by placing a hydrogen atom (hydrogenation) in the wrong place—especially the wrong place for use by human metabolism. The
trans
molecule simply doesn't fit in—it's the wrong shape and, even more importantly, it has the wrong electrochemistry. However, and this is the dangerous part,
trans
fats do get taken up in the human metabolism and become part of the various functions required by fat in the human body, especially the making of cell membranes. Tom Valentine
Facts on Fats & Oils

FISH TERRINE WITH WATERCRESS SAUCE

Serves 8-10

1½ pound filet of sole or flounder

¾ pound salmon

½ cup dry white wine or vermouth

¼ cup tarragon vinegar

1 small onion, finely chopped

several sprigs fresh tarragon

1 cup
piima cream
or
creme fraiche

1 stick butter, melted

1 egg

2 egg whites

sea salt and pepper

2 cups
watercress sauce

Cut the filets and the salmon into small pieces, keeping the two fish separate. Place wine, vinegar, onion and tarragon in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Boil vigorously until reduced to about 3 tablespoons. Strain liquid and stir in the butter and the cream.

Butter a 1-quart terrine. Place half the white fish in the food processor along with
¹
/
₃
of the liquid and 1 egg white. Process until smooth. Season generously to taste. Pour into the terrine and level with a knife. Process the salmon with another
¹
/
₃
of the liquid and the whole egg. Season generously to taste. Pour this over the first layer. Finally, process the remaining filets with the remaining liquid, 1 egg white and seasonings and pour this into the terrine. Cover with a piece of waxed paper, or buttered parchment paper (See
Sources
), and a lid. Set in a pan of hot water and bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes. Chill well before serving.

To serve, ladle several spoonfuls of sauce onto individual plates and place a slice of terrine on top of the sauce.

Variation:

Use
4 cups thin
red pepper sauce
in place of watercress sauce.

The only hope of keeping up a low-carbohydrate diet and achieving the desired success is to replace the missing carbohydrates with fat. Man cannot live on protein alone. In Central American states, feeding political opponents with lean meat was an elegant way of getting rid of them without resorting to stronger measures. After a few months diarrhoea develops and death soon follows. Stefansson reported something similar in Canadian Eskimos if they had to live on lean caribou meat for longer periods of time and were unable to catch fish. Wolfgang Lutz
Dismantling a Myth: The Role of Fat and Carbohydrates in our Diet

SALMON MOUSSE WITH CREAMY DILL SAUCE

Serves 12-18

1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons gelatin (See
Sources
)

½ cup cold water

1 cup boiling water

4 cups cooked salmon, flaked

2 tablespoons grated onion

1 cup
mayonnaise

2 tablespoons lemon juice

½ teaspoon tabasco sauce

½ teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon sea salt

2 tablespoon small capers, rinsed, drained, dried with paper towels and chopped

2 tablespoons snipped dill

1 cup
piima cream
or
creme fraiche

about 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1 egg white, unbeaten

2 cups
creamy dill sauce

Soften gelatin in cold water, add boiling water and stir until well mixed. Add mayonnaise, lemon juice, onion, tabasco sauce, paprika, salt and dill. Mix well and chill to obtain a consistency of unbeaten egg white. Stir in the salmon, capers and cultured cream. Brush a 3-quart mold or individual molds with olive oil and then with unbeaten egg white. Pour in mousse and chill well.

To serve, dip mold or molds briefly into hot water and invert onto a plate. Serve with creamy dill sauce.

In the treatment of feverish and acute infectious diseases, it is evident that gelatin plays a double role. In the first place, the nutritive qualities of gelatin, its ready absorption and colloidal properties, make it ideally suited for inclusion in the diet both during the height of the fever and during convalescence. Bayley emphasized this factor from a nurse's viewpoint, observing that gelatin acts as a base for the preparation of many dainty, pleasing dishes which appeal to the patient with poor appetite, thus providing much needed nourishment. N. R. Gotthoffer
Gelatin in Nutrition and Medicine

Scientists say they have the first direct evidence that viruses can mutate and become deadly because of nutritional deficiencies in the hosts they infect. In their experiments, researchers found that a human virus normally harmless to mice mutated and became a heart-damaging agent in mice suffering from a nutritional deficiency. Once changed, they said, the virus was also able to infect and damage the hearts of nutritionally well-balanced mice.

This is the first time that a nutritional deficiency in a host has been shown to alter viruses to make them permanently more virulent, the scientists said in a report published in today's issue of the journal
Nature Medicine.
Warren E. Leary
NY Times News Service

SALMON QUENELLES WITH DILL SAUCE

Serves 6-8

1½ pounds skinless salmon

1½ tablespoons softened butter

5 slices whole grain bread, crusts removed, processed into crumbs

²
/
₃
cup heavy cream

1 large egg, lightly beaten

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon sea salt

1 teaspoon pepper

3 cups
fish stock

1 cup
piima cream
or
creme fraiche

1 tablespoon
shrimp butter
, optional

1 tablespoon fresh dill, chopped