Tips for Using Nourishing Traditions

My well-loved copy

I'm going to let you in on some of my health secrets today.  Nourishing Traditions, by Sally Fallon is my nutrition bible.  It has been for about 10 years.  It is what inspired me to teach people about nutrition and to go to school to get my health coaching certification.  I have attended several of Sally Fallon's workshops and lectures, and met her a couple of times.  In person, she is lovely, sweet and mild mannered.  I draw most of my inspiration for the Traditional Foods Tele seminar Series from Nourishing Traditions.

I want to share some tips for using this phenomenally popular text:

1. 1f you have it but have merely skimmed it and kept it on the shelf, I encourage you to study it - especially the first 50 pages.  
2. Sally Fallon is the founding president of the Weston A. Price Organization.  A major goal of the organization is universal access to clean raw milk.  I agree that all people should have access to clean raw milk.  I also think people should have a right to grow and process their own food, right to clean air, and right to clean water. (I'm sure Sally Fallon would agree, especially since her other project is the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund.)
3. That being said, you don't need to have access to raw milk to be able to follow the principles of a Traditional Foods diet, described by Weston A. Price, and Sally Fallon.
4. You do not need whey in order to soak grains or in order to prepare lacto-fermented vegetables.  This is a great thing to do if you are a cheese maker and have an abundance of whey to use up, but you do not need to obtain raw milk to carry out the principles of a traditional foods diet.  
5. This way of eating does not advocate eating huge amounts of animal protein.  It advocates using all parts of the animal, including the fat, bones, cartilage, organ meats, and some muscle meat, as traditional peoples did.  
6. If you have pre-existing health problems, you may not get well following a hodgepodge of the many recipes or principles outlined in Nourishing Traditions.  For example, if you have an abundance of Candida albicans, you may gravitate toward a lot of properly prepared dairy and grains, which may exacerbate your condition by feeding this yeast.  Most likely, one single food (even raw milk) is not the silver bullet to solving complex health conditions.  You will need to choose foods that help your specific condition, and most likely seek the help of a holistic health practitioner.   
7. You do not have to cook elaborate meals each day to stay on a traditional foods diet.  Just follow the main dietary guidelines.  Use saturated fats, buy the best quality free-range eggs you can afford, use Celtic sea salt, avoid commercially processed grains, soak grains overnight (in water with a splash of vinegar or lemon) before cooking, save your bones for bone broth, eat several types of fermented foods, eat organ meats, source grass-fed meat, eat plenty of vegetables, especially green ones.  You're going to need a source of vitamin K2 so incorporate raw egg yolks, raw organ meat,  raw grass-fed butter, natto or high-quality cod liver oil into your diet.  Or eat insects :) 
8. My Traditional Foods Teleseminar series is like a study group/support group for this way of eating.