QuestionI have been reading everything I can get my hands on lately regarding healthful diets. It all started with "Sugar Blues", and cutting all simple carbs from our diet. After losing 20 lbs. (despite not being overweight), we realized something was not right. I started investigating raw dairy and have incorporated it into our diet. I have also read "Nourishing Traditions" (The Weston Price Foundation Cookbook), "We want to Live" by Aajonus Vonderplanitz and "Enzyme Nutrition" by Edward Howell and have become more interested in incorporating more raw food into our diet. I am hampered less by societal pressure than by the fact that I am a gourmet cook and really love my cooking! I'm working on that.
So what is my question, you are asking. Well, I have 4 children ages 5, 3 1/2, 2, and 7 months. I have the baby on the "baby formula recipe" from the Nourishing Traditions cookbook (it is also available on the Weston A. Price Foundation website), but the lady who supplies my raw milk, a Primal Diet adherent, tells me that is a big mistake; that just milk, cream and raw honey is what I should be giving him. Besides not being 100% comfortable with giving a baby that young honey, I don't see how people over the centuries would have gone to great pains to find a wet nurse for their babies if cow's milk were really a great supply of everything a baby needs. So I am seeking your advice on that topic.
But my other question regards diet in general for both us and the children. I was raised on the "4,4,3 and 2" (food pyramid) mentality, which obviously refers to cooked food. How does this change with raw foods? How much of a raw food diet should be composed of meat, how much of vegetables, dairy, etc? I want to provide a balanced diet for my children and am lost. Can you provide some guidance (or good sources for guidance) in navigating this "new world"?
Thanks for your time!
Lisa B.
AnswerHello Lisa,
You're absolutely right in stating that (raw)mother' milk is way better than raw cows' milk. Mothers' milk contains certain essential amino acids, such as taurine, as well as essential fatty acids essential for brain growth which are not present in cows' milk. Generally speaking, cows' milk is a food designed to primarily help calves to grow to adult size within a very short time - it is not a complete food that humans can subsist on alone for a long time(and the opioids can cause fatigue). That said, the baby formula, recommended by Weston Price, which I've just found on the Internet, seems to have all sorts of artificial, processed supplements with it, all of which have been variously processed and/or heated to make them either toxic or at best worthless:- cod liver oil,gelatin, yeast flakes, sunflower oil etc., artificial enzymes etc.
(NB:-I ought to make clear at this point that I'm somewhat biased against raw dairy as I, like a large number of other Raw Palaeolithic Dieters who I've talked to, have turned out to have had a lifelong food intolerance(lactose/casein etc.) towards both raw and pasteurised dairy(not surprising as, like grain, it's a non-Palaeolithic food). I experienced over the years common long-term symptoms of food-intolerance first from pasteurisd dairy and then from raw dairy consumption(ie:-cows/goats etc.) such as anxiety, constantly runny nose, extreme chronic fatigue, severe pains in the joints, constipation, severe bowel problems etc. etc. The possibility that raw dairy(raw cows') can be almost as harmful as pasteurised dairy to a sizeable proportion of RPDers has been largely ignored by both the Weston-Price foundation as well as Aajonus).
I realise that you are in a rather difficult position,as you pesumably cannot breast-feed your youngest child at this time, or have another woman wet-nurse either. Perhaps you could try raw goats' or ewes' milk instead as it's recommended more for infants, due to its being closer in composition to human milk - less casein etc.. See this website for raw goat dairy sources etc. within each US state(and worldwide):- http://www.realmilk.com/where1.html
Your concern about raw honey is understandable. It's a perfectly good food for a baby, but presumably it's far too sticky a substance and can lodge in the throat etc.
I wouldn't really bother with Aajonus' first book "We Want To Live" if I were you- like a number of people on the Yahoo! diet groups I've found that the first book is not too informative. His 2nd book "The Recipe for Living Without Disease" has literally tons of recipes, with some specifically aimed at babies, and is a more useful read. It also explains the need for a high-raw-meat diet and, more importantly, backs up his statements with references to several scientific studies(some of which I've read about in New Scientist magazine). In this book, he also clearly explains the reason why processed supplements never work.
There is still a wide variety of opinion in Raw-Palaeolithic diet circles as to what the ideal food-pyramid should be. I've corresponded with a number of long-term RPDers some of whom have beeen on the diet for more than 9 years. The general concensus among them seems to be that a 100% raw diet works better than a partially-raw one, long-term, and that you need to be at least 85%+ raw to experience the major benefits. Also, that a diet high in raw animal foods is better - most long-term RPDers complain that excessive amounts of raw carbohydrates(honey/fruit/(juiced) veg) leads to fatigue.Raw animal foods from wild animals(wild oysters/wild venison/wild hare) are seen as far more healthy than organic equivalents which are in turn much healthier than factory-farmed meat. I've also found that a large number of long-term RPDers have, like myself, either reduced raw dairy consumption drastically over the years or removed it altogether(though by no means all).
Aajonus' recommendation is to eat mainly (preferably organic) lean muscle-meats and depend on raw dairy for fats and raw juiced veg for cleansing the blood. Most long-term RPDers disagree with this idea and have strongly recommended the eating of raw(organic) organ-meats instead of muscle-meats. Organ-meats are far more nutrient-dense than muscle-meat, are tastier, and contain vital esential fatty acids - indeed it's well-known that dominant pack animals in zoos(eg:- wolves) take first pick of the innards, as they contain important trace-elements not present in muscle-meats. I should also mention that early American colonists would often die in the winter from "rabbit starvation" which is a condition that occurs when you do not have enough fat in the diet- fat is needed to fully process protein - The neighbouring Indians would eat the whole animal and have no health problems.By organ-meats I mean of course:- brain, bone-marrow, liver, kidney, tongue, heart, glands(adrenal/thymus, pancreas) - other innards such as lung tend to be an acquired taste to say the least. (You might like to have a look at this website for a 3-part article by Vilhjalmur Stefansson( http://www.biblelife.org/stefansson1.htm) - the article does not advocate a fully-raw diet but it does have interesting info on organ-meats etc.)
As regards juiced veg, a lot of people have noticed symptoms such as fatigue and diarrhea if they drink the vast amount of juiced veg that Aajonus recommends(25% of the diet!!). Needless to say, most people anyway don't have the time to prepare so many drinks per day, so they usually reduce consumption to a few glasses a week.Also, most people avoid eating the large number of frequent meals a day which Ajonus recommends, and invariably cut down on the amounts after a while.
Also, Weston A. Price found that those primitive tribes which ate a lot of raw shellfish were the healthiest, especially in terms of bone-structure. A lot of high-fat deep-sea fish such as swordfish, are also a good idea as part of the diet.
Aajonus' usual recommendation(according to his 2nd book)
) would be:-
5% or less of the diet consisting of raw organic fruit; raw meat/fish/fowl should be 25%-30% of the diet; raw fat(eg:- raw eggs/raw dairy(apart from raw milk), avocado and other raw vegetable oils) should be 25% of the diet; juiced raw veg should be 25-30% of the diet; and raw milk should be 10-20% of the diet. He doesn't mention raw honey in this guideline on page 39, but recommends it highly elsewhere in the book.
I ought to mention that some people who've seen him at various consultations since, he wrote this 2nd book,
have said that he's heavily reduced the large quantities he recommended in the past for honey/juiced veg and dairy due to various concerns.
My own diet by comparison would be:-
About 10% of my diet consists of raw carbohydrates such as raw organic fruit, juiced veg and raw honeycomb. I tend to have 1 to 3 glasses of juiced veg a week, and only eat honeycomb occasionally as it gives me fatigue if I eat too much of it regularly.
30% of my diet consists of (non-farmed)seafood. I variously eat:- wild oysters/giant prawns,sea-urchin eggs,limpets, scallops, mussels,raw crab/raw lobter sashimi, as well as fatty fish such as tuna, swordfish, mackerel etc.
60% of my diet consists of (mainly)high-fat innards from various land animals when in season:- (eg:- wild boar innards, wild venison innards, free-range duck/pheasant/goose eggs,wild mallard, wild hare, organic ox and pig innards, free-range turkey breast-fillets, horsemeat etc. etc.).
Obviously I am not in the best position to advise you re feeding a young family as I'm still a young man. There are quite a number of families who've started their children on a RawPalaeo Diet from birth(well, after weaning anyway), and several of these can be found on the 2 Yahoo! Diet lists, and would be happy to answer your queries. The livefood Yahoo! group caters for RawPalaeoDieters such as followers of Weston Price/Sally Fallon/Instincto as well as the Primal Diet, and you can join by clicking the relevant button on its main webpage:- http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/live-food/ . Make sure to check your member profile and select to receive incoming e-mails or you may not get a response from livefoodists to your questions.
You can also join the Primal Diet Yahoo! group as well but it's a closed membership, and does not permit discussion of other diets. To join, you have to send an e-mail to Jon C Fox at
[email protected] stating that you've read at least 1 of Aajonus' 2 books and are familiar with the Primal Diet(I think he may have a 3rd one out now). It might also be a good idea to attend any of the various Primal Potlucks held in California and other States on a regular basis(they are regularly mentioned on the Primal Diet list). Meeting other families at these Potlucks, who've already been through the same experience as you, would be very useful.
Hope This Helps
Geoff Purcell
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