The Green Parent

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Blog / December 2011

Dec 21 2011

Natural Nutrition

I am fascinated by nutrition and as well as having a seasonal appointment with a NatNut trained nutritionist, I also like to read anything I can get my hands on, attend lectures and experiment with different ideas in the kitchen.

The most enduring for me is the work of Barbara Wren, who I had the pleasure of meeting this spring, whilst on a retreat with the inspirational Kirsten Chick and Hayley North.

I discovered Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon a few years ago and unearthed a whole new way of thinking about food. It is a very traditional approach based in part on research done by Weston Price at the beginning of last century. He was a dentist who travelled the world in the 1930s and observed peoples untouched by civilisation, living solely on local foodstuffs. Most of these tribespeople ate seafood and animal proteins, including organ meats. They saw animal fat as vital to good health. Everything that they ate was in it’s natural unrefined state. The one thing that was noticeable about these groups was that they were free from degenerative disease, dental decay and mental illness.

Sally Fallon started the Weston Price Foundation in 1999 in the United States and wrote Nourishing Traditions (a recipe book literally packed with recipes for traditional foods) to bring his work to a wider audience. I use the recipes from this book regularly, although we’ve yet to cross over to the meat eating side (we enjoy raw dairy and eggs from our chickens instead). I really like her ideas for providing nutritious food for your family on a budget.
- DON’T BUY BOXED COLD BREAKFAST CEREALS, even those made of whole grains. They are very expensive, poor in nutrients and difficult to digest. A serving of the best quality oatmeal costs half the amount of the average boxed breakfast cereal and is infinitely more nutritious. For optimum nourishment, you need to think ahead and soak your oatmeal overnight.
- MAKE YOUR OWN SALAD DRESSING. You can make your own dressing using the finest ingredients for about the same cost as the average bottled dressings, most of which contain rancid vegetable oils, trans fatty acids and numerous additives. With practice, it takes no more than a minute to produce a delicious dressing for your salad.
- ALWAYS BUY BUTTER. Margarine may cost less but it is a false economy, one that leads to numerous impoverishing diseases. If the cost of butter is prohibitive, use lard.
- MAKE STOCK AT LEAST ONCE A WEEK.
- IT’S BETTER TO PUT YOUR MONEY INTO WHOLE FOODS THAN VITAMINS. However, most benefit from a daily teaspoonful of cod liver oil. Lacto fermented beet kvass contains a large array of nutrients in easily assimilated form.
- GOOD QUALITY DAIRY PRODUCTS ARE WORTH THE PRICE.
- THE LESS EXPENSIVE VEG INCLUDE SOME OF THE MOST NOURISHING. Potatoes, cabbage, carrots, courgette, onions, broccoli, chard, beets and kale are all easy to prepare. Always prepare or serve veg with butter for best assimilation of the minerals they contain.
- DON’T FORGET EGGS AS A LOW COST PROTEIN. It pays to buy the best quality.
- MAKE SOUPS PART OF YOUR REPERTOIRE. Blended soups can be put together in very little time and are very nourishing.
- MAKE KOMBUCHA! The taste is better than the most expensive soft drink, beer or wine.
TRY NOT TO OVERECONOMISE ON FOOD. Instead cut out all the junk food, prepared cookies and cakes, soft drinks, frozen foods, fast foods etc. – and use the savings to buy good quality whole foods. Above all use good quality fats – they keep you healthy during times of stress.

Posted by Melissa Corkhill at 13:34 | 0 comments
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Welcome to the new blog from the Green Parent office. Here we'll talk about what's going on in the small and quite leafy headquarters of the UK's leading green lifestyle magazine. We'll share news that interests us and talk about green issues and natural parenting. We'll share advice and information from our own experiences of living a green lifestyle. And we'll even tell you what we are reading, eating, drinking and thinking. Hope you get plenty of food for thought here.