Photos of recipes from the new book Tender Grassfed Barbecue
Photos of recipes from the cookbook Tender Grassfed Meat
The Real Guidelines for a Healthy Diet
By Stanley A. Fishman, author of Tender Grassfed Meat
Beautiful, pastured eggs like these could be restricted under the USDA's proposed dietary guidelines.
The United States Department of Agriculture’s proposed 2010 Dietary Guidelines are an absolute disgrace. These proposed guidelines perpetuate and intensify every mistake made in the previous guidelines, demonizing and banning the very foods we all need to be healthy.
These proposed guidelines completely ignore the research of Dr. Weston A. Price, who discovered what a healthy diet was in the 1930s, and ignore recent research that proved the previous guidelines were not based on science, but marketing. In fact, these proposed guidelines are even more restrictive and oppressive than the previous guidelines, and would make our people even sicker. They would, however, greatly increase the profits of Big Agriculture, who would sell the carb-heavy processed foods, and the medical profession and drug companies, who would have an ever increasing supply of sick people as customers.
Fortunately, some excellent testimony was given in opposition to these proposed guidelines. Some of the very best testimony was given by Sally Fallon Morell, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation. The Weston A. Price Foundation has drawn up its own guidelines, which would restore health to our nation if followed. While we cannot impose these healthy guidelines on the nation, we can use them to restore health to ourselves and our families.
The Old Guidelines Were a Disaster, the Proposed Guidelines Are Worse
The United States Government mandated dietary guidelines in 1994. These guidelines demonized eggs, butter, every animal fat, meat, organ meats, whole milk cheese, cholesterol, and every food containing saturated animal fats. These guidelines advocated a low-fat, high-carb diet, based largely on processed grains, fruits, and vegetables.
These guidelines were imposed on every school lunch program that receives federal money, and on every government food giveaway program for the poor, and were followed by many other institutions.
These guidelines were a complete and total failure. The health of the nation crashed as this diet was followed, especially in the children who had it forced on them through the school lunch program. Obesity, diabetes, asthma, Attention Deficit Disorder, severe allergies, and a host of other chronic illnesses became epidemics, especially among children.
Now, in 2010, the federal government decided to revise the nutritional guidelines. These revised dietary guidelines were presented to the public for comment.
The proposed guidelines demonize eggs, butter, every animal fat, meat, organ meats, whole milk, whole milk cheese, cholesterol, and every food containing saturated animal fats. The proposed guidelines advocate a low-fat, high-carb diet, based largely on processed grains, fruits, and vegetables.
How are they different? They are worse. Under the proposed guidelines, eating even a single egg yolk in a day would be prohibited. The healthy animal fats that are absolutely necessary for proper nutrition are even more restricted. There is now so much solid research showing the benefits of natural saturated animal fats that the USDA Guidelines Committee was unable to demonize them on their own. Instead, the committee lumped these life-giving and absolutely necessary fats together with artificial, unhealthy trans fats under the label “Solid Fats.†“Solid Fats†are practically prohibited.
People, especially children and pregnant women, would be unable to get the nutrients they need from their food, because many of these nutrients are only present in high-fat foods like eggs and butter.
The proposed guidelines also greatly restrict salt intake. Salt is necessary for life as well as flavor, but this move will greatly increase the profits of the artificial flavor industry, including the MSG industry.
Most troubling of all, these proposed guidelines recommend that the government find ways to ensure compliance. This opens the door for the government to tax or even prohibit vital foods like butter and eggs, forcing the American people to eat the factory foods made by Big Agriculture.
The Research of Dr. Price
Dr. Weston A. Price spent 10 years travelling around the world to study the diet of healthy peoples. He found a number of peoples who had no chronic illnesses, as long as they ate their traditional diets. These peoples were free of heart disease, cancer, tooth decay, asthma, allergies, birth defects, tuberculosis, arthritis, and all of the chronic diseases that plague modern humanity. All of these peoples ate huge amounts of foods high in animal and fish fats, such as butter, eggs, fish eggs, fatty meats, organ meats, whole milk, whole milk cheese—the very foods demonized by the proposed guidelines.
The Real Dietary Guidelines for a Healthy Nation
The guidelines drawn up by the Weston A. Price Foundation are based on the traditional wisdom discovered by Dr, Price and will improve the natural functions of almost everybody who follows them. Here they are:
Healthy 4 Life Dietary Guidelines
Every day, eat high quality, whole foods to provide an abundance of nutrients, chosen from each of the following four groups:
- Animal foods: meat and organ meats, poultry, and eggs from pastured animals; fish and shellfish; whole raw cheese, milk and other dairy products from pastured animals; and broth made from animal bones.
- Grains, legumes and nuts: whole-grain baked goods, breakfast porridges, whole grain rice; beans and lentils; peanuts, cashews and nuts, properly prepared to improve digestibility.
- Fruits and Vegetables: preferably fresh or frozen, preferably locally grown, either raw, cooked or in soups and stews, and also as lacto-fermented condiments.
- Fats and Oils: unrefined saturated and monounsaturated fats including butter, lard, tallow and other animal fats; palm oil and coconut oil; olive oil; cod liver oil for vitamins A and D.
Avoid: foods containing refined sweeteners such as candies, sodas, cookies, cakes etc.; white flour products such as pasta and white bread; processed foods; modern soy foods; polyunsaturated and partially hydrogenated vegetable oils and fried foods.
The Weston A. Price Foundation recommends that the foods actually eaten be of high quality through pasture-based feeding and organic, pesticide-free production methods.
Everybody I know who has followed these dietary recommendations has seen the functioning of their body and its systems improve greatly. This is the way that human beings were meant to eat, according to nature’s laws. Dr. Price said that “Life in all its fullness is nature’s laws obeyed.†I have obeyed the laws of nature by following the dietary recommendations of the Weston A. Price Foundation and seen a huge and continuing improvement in all of the functions of my body. These are the recommendations to follow, not the industry-based recommendations of the USDA.
Here is a link to a complete transcript of the testimony by Sally Fallon Morell: Oral Testimony to the USDA Dietary Guidelines Committee by Sally Fallon Morell
Here is a link to an excellent article by noted blogger Jimmy Moore, who also testified before the committee, presenting a healthy low-carb viewpoint: Having My Say at the USDA about the 2010 Dietary Guidelines to be Released in December
Here is a link to a superb article about the testimony before the USDA commitee by noted blogger Kimberly Hartke: Publicist Notes on the USDA Dietary Guidelines Project
Here is a link to an article where musician Kathryne Pirtle, author of Performance Without Pain, describes her testimony before the USDA committee: Kathryne Pirtle to Testify Today at USDA
Here is a link to the testimony of Dr. John Salerno, MD: Medical Doctor Questions Wisdom of USDA Dietary Guidelines
This post is part of Real Food Wednesday Blog Carnival at Kelly the Kitchen Kop.
This post is part of Fight Back Friday Blog Carnival at Food Renegade.
Related Posts
Understanding Dr. Weston A. Price
Who Was Weston A. Price?
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