Fair Hills Farm
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Getting Started Serving Nourishing Foods
Christine Read
If you are like me and grew up not really learning how to
cook, and find yourself confused about what is healthy these
days and what is not, then let me give you some simple
encouragement. I will start by sharing how I and my family
have come to discover simple, delicious and traditionally
nourishing foods. I will recommend to you some excellent
books and websites that will broaden your learning and
inspire you to renew your commitment to prepare and serve
nourishing food to your family. Be advised that I am not in
the business of rendering professional medical advice to the
reader.
The recipes, resources, ideas, suggestions and nutritional
information found on this website are not intended as a
substitute for consulting with your physician. This is an
informational website only, and is meant to be a means to
share educational and practical information with the reader.
Each reader is encouraged to use the information found
herein as he or she sees fit, assuming full responsibility for
the care of his or her family.
A few years ago I first read two books that literally changed
my way of thinking about food, disease and health. The first
was Nutrition And Physical Degeneration by Weston A. Price,
D.D.S. I recommend you get this book. It is lengthy and
scholarly, but you will be astounded at the information in it.
The second book I recommend you get is Nourishing
Traditions, by Sally Fallon with Mary G. Enig, PhD.
Nourishing Traditions is full of practical information and
implements many of the recommendations and ideas of Dr.
Price. Sally Fallon is the founder of the Weston A. Price
foundation and has a superb website for that organization at
www.westonaprice.org. I actually think you need both books
to properly absorb and understand the concepts of traditional
nourishing diets and the impact such diets have on ensuring
good health.
In a nutshell, Dr. Price, a dentist from Ohio in the early part of
the 1900’s, noticed that he was seeing more and more
patients in his practice with crowded teeth and dental decay.
He began traveling all over the world in the 1930’s, studying
populations of people who were untouched by civilization,
living entirely on food found or grown locally. What he found
was that although these groups of people varied in their
foods he found certain factors were in common.
To quote from the preface of Nourishing Traditions:”…Almost
without exception, the groups he studied ate liberally of
seafood or other animal proteins and fats in the form of
organ meats and dairy products: they valued animal fats as
absolutely necessary to good health; and they ate fats,
meats, fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, seeds and whole
grains in their whole, unrefined state. All primitive diets
contained some raw foods, of both animal and vegetable
origin.
Dr. Price found fourteen groups – from isolated Irish and
Swiss, from Eskimos to Africans- in which almost every
member of the tribe or village enjoyed superb health. They
were free of chronic disease, dental decay and mental
illness; they were strong, sturdy and attractive; and they
produced healthy children with ease, generation after
generation.”
When I read the above words, a light bulb went on in my
head. I have a bachelor of science in nursing, and I have
worked in a large, world renowned teaching hospital. I was
always taught that good nutrition was a nice thing to have,
but certainly would not cure any disease or really prevent it
necessarily. It didn’t have much of a place in medicine or in a
doctor’s practice. Nutrition was for the nutritionists to work
with. Medicine and procedures were for the doctors and
dentists. I was also taught that vitamins were to be used
sparingly. One could take water-soluble vitamins like the B
vitamins and vitamin C, because the body would flush them
out. But the fat soluble vitamins like vitamins A and D and E
we were to stay away from because they would build up in
one’s fat tissues and could easily become toxic. It is true that
synthetic vitamins, especially the fat soluble ones, can cause
toxicity at high levels. But when consumed in food that has
not been adulterated, they are life-giving and disease-
preventing.
The thing that struck me when reading Dr. Price’s book was
that the people who ate their traditional diet were healthy and
their children were healthy. But as they began to be
introduced to “civilized” food such as white flour, white sugar
and denatured canned goods, they began to suffer from
disease and dental problems, and their children were born
with more problems. I began to realize that through utter
ignorance, I and probably a whole host of other people, had
been consuming de-vitalized food for years, and feeding it to
my family, and thinking I was doing OK. I had never learned
how to gather, prepare, cook and serve real food that would
truly nourish my family.
The reason what I was reading in these two very important
books resonated so much to me was that as a Christian, I
always believed that God had provided everything we
needed as a people to live and thrive. I had always
understood that death and disease were natural
consequences of sin. But then healing is also present
throughout the Bible, and always connected with blessing.
Good health and absence of disease is also connected with
blessing.
So why, I wondered, did there seem to be such rampant
disease and ill health in this day and age, in this modern
technologically superior nation, and why was it accepted as
commonplace or normal? Why also were there so many
crooked teeth and so much dental decay, in spite of so many
“advances” in technology? Did God create us all to have
naturally crooked teeth that would need braces to be fixed,
and holes in our teeth to be filled? Why also is there so
much infertility, miscarriages and pre-mature births?
I think that as a society we have strayed from a nourishing
diet and that is the biggest culprit. We need to re-learn how
to cook like our great-grandmothers, and discover the lost art
of cooking. I want to thank Weston A. Price for his
contributions and Sally Fallon and Dr. Mary Enig for taking up
the task of teaching us this lost art. I want to spread the
information as much as I can, and help others get started. In
the next part of this article I will give ideas of how to prepare
more traditionally nourishing meals, especially if you are not
used to making food from scratch. You have to take one
step at a time, but soon you will be on your way and reaping
the benefits of a healthier family.
Christine Read
If you are like me and grew up not really learning how to
cook, and find yourself confused about what is healthy these
days and what is not, then let me give you some simple
encouragement. I will start by sharing how I and my family
have come to discover simple, delicious and traditionally
nourishing foods. I will recommend to you some excellent
books and websites that will broaden your learning and
inspire you to renew your commitment to prepare and serve
nourishing food to your family. Be advised that I am not in
the business of rendering professional medical advice to the
reader.
The recipes, resources, ideas, suggestions and nutritional
information found on this website are not intended as a
substitute for consulting with your physician. This is an
informational website only, and is meant to be a means to
share educational and practical information with the reader.
Each reader is encouraged to use the information found
herein as he or she sees fit, assuming full responsibility for
the care of his or her family.
A few years ago I first read two books that literally changed
my way of thinking about food, disease and health. The first
was Nutrition And Physical Degeneration by Weston A. Price,
D.D.S. I recommend you get this book. It is lengthy and
scholarly, but you will be astounded at the information in it.
The second book I recommend you get is Nourishing
Traditions, by Sally Fallon with Mary G. Enig, PhD.
Nourishing Traditions is full of practical information and
implements many of the recommendations and ideas of Dr.
Price. Sally Fallon is the founder of the Weston A. Price
foundation and has a superb website for that organization at
www.westonaprice.org. I actually think you need both books
to properly absorb and understand the concepts of traditional
nourishing diets and the impact such diets have on ensuring
good health.
In a nutshell, Dr. Price, a dentist from Ohio in the early part of
the 1900’s, noticed that he was seeing more and more
patients in his practice with crowded teeth and dental decay.
He began traveling all over the world in the 1930’s, studying
populations of people who were untouched by civilization,
living entirely on food found or grown locally. What he found
was that although these groups of people varied in their
foods he found certain factors were in common.
To quote from the preface of Nourishing Traditions:”…Almost
without exception, the groups he studied ate liberally of
seafood or other animal proteins and fats in the form of
organ meats and dairy products: they valued animal fats as
absolutely necessary to good health; and they ate fats,
meats, fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, seeds and whole
grains in their whole, unrefined state. All primitive diets
contained some raw foods, of both animal and vegetable
origin.
Dr. Price found fourteen groups – from isolated Irish and
Swiss, from Eskimos to Africans- in which almost every
member of the tribe or village enjoyed superb health. They
were free of chronic disease, dental decay and mental
illness; they were strong, sturdy and attractive; and they
produced healthy children with ease, generation after
generation.”
When I read the above words, a light bulb went on in my
head. I have a bachelor of science in nursing, and I have
worked in a large, world renowned teaching hospital. I was
always taught that good nutrition was a nice thing to have,
but certainly would not cure any disease or really prevent it
necessarily. It didn’t have much of a place in medicine or in a
doctor’s practice. Nutrition was for the nutritionists to work
with. Medicine and procedures were for the doctors and
dentists. I was also taught that vitamins were to be used
sparingly. One could take water-soluble vitamins like the B
vitamins and vitamin C, because the body would flush them
out. But the fat soluble vitamins like vitamins A and D and E
we were to stay away from because they would build up in
one’s fat tissues and could easily become toxic. It is true that
synthetic vitamins, especially the fat soluble ones, can cause
toxicity at high levels. But when consumed in food that has
not been adulterated, they are life-giving and disease-
preventing.
The thing that struck me when reading Dr. Price’s book was
that the people who ate their traditional diet were healthy and
their children were healthy. But as they began to be
introduced to “civilized” food such as white flour, white sugar
and denatured canned goods, they began to suffer from
disease and dental problems, and their children were born
with more problems. I began to realize that through utter
ignorance, I and probably a whole host of other people, had
been consuming de-vitalized food for years, and feeding it to
my family, and thinking I was doing OK. I had never learned
how to gather, prepare, cook and serve real food that would
truly nourish my family.
The reason what I was reading in these two very important
books resonated so much to me was that as a Christian, I
always believed that God had provided everything we
needed as a people to live and thrive. I had always
understood that death and disease were natural
consequences of sin. But then healing is also present
throughout the Bible, and always connected with blessing.
Good health and absence of disease is also connected with
blessing.
So why, I wondered, did there seem to be such rampant
disease and ill health in this day and age, in this modern
technologically superior nation, and why was it accepted as
commonplace or normal? Why also were there so many
crooked teeth and so much dental decay, in spite of so many
“advances” in technology? Did God create us all to have
naturally crooked teeth that would need braces to be fixed,
and holes in our teeth to be filled? Why also is there so
much infertility, miscarriages and pre-mature births?
I think that as a society we have strayed from a nourishing
diet and that is the biggest culprit. We need to re-learn how
to cook like our great-grandmothers, and discover the lost art
of cooking. I want to thank Weston A. Price for his
contributions and Sally Fallon and Dr. Mary Enig for taking up
the task of teaching us this lost art. I want to spread the
information as much as I can, and help others get started. In
the next part of this article I will give ideas of how to prepare
more traditionally nourishing meals, especially if you are not
used to making food from scratch. You have to take one
step at a time, but soon you will be on your way and reaping
the benefits of a healthier family.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Getting Started Serving Nourishing Foods Part II
~ How We Got Started
Christine Read
12 years ago my parents gave us Kitchen Specialties Whole Grain Flour Mill
from The Urban Homemaker as a Christmas present. I began to experiment
with grinding wheat into fresh flour and learned how to make whole wheat
bread that didn't come out like a cement brick! I found the white winter wheat
was lighter in texture and taste and was quite delicious fresh out of the oven
with creamy butter.
At about the same time we began to eat brown rice instead of white rice. At
first, I mixed white rice in with the brown in order to "ease" us into accepting
the brown rice taste. I found a rice cooker to be indispensable here, because
some how the rice stainless cooker makes it just right. I used a stainless steel
one from The Urban Homemaker.
We all prefer brown rice now. Some of my children love Amanda's Italian
dressing sprinkled on it, but it is delicious with butter and some sea salt. If
you want a special rice, make some brown rice in the rice cooker or on the
stove, and add 2 teaspoons of turmeric to the water. When the rice is
finished, add butter and salt to taste. Guests won't even know it is brown
rice! It is a wonderful yellow color.
Along with learning to grind my own flour and make brown rice instead of
white, we began to make an effort to eat fresh fruit like bananas and apples,
and a raw vegetable like carrots or lettuce in a salad, and at least one cooked
vegetable with suppers.
We didn't do anything big and drastic, but little by little made improvements to
eating more whole, unadulterated foods, which ended up tasting more
statisfying.
Butter is such a wonderful food. Of course, the best butter is from healthy,
grass-fed cows that spend lots of time on pasture in the fresh air and
sunshine. We put butter on bread, on rice, on noodles, on cooked
vegetables and in desserts. For more information on the health benefits of
good butter, go to the Weston A. Price website. Butter actually helps the
body absorb the nutrients in cooked vegetables, so that is a good reason to
go ahead and add butter to your veggies!
Some of our favorite breakfasts at Fair Hills Farm are pancakes or waffles
and maple syrup and sausage on the side, grits and fried eggs or freshly
ground oatmeal soaked overnight in lemon juice and water, and cooked up
with apples and cinnamon. Oatmeal is actually easy and fast on busy
mornings, and is very nourishing.
Another quick breakfast is toast from homemade bread with jam or sprinkled
cinnamon and sucanat with honey. We use Savannah Gold dehydrated can
juice and honey crystals (formally known as sucanat with honey) from The
Bread Beckers. We have replaces white sugar with the Savannah Gold
crystals. I use it to sweeten our iced tea, coffee and baked goods. It tastes
pretty much like the "sugar in the raw" products. It does not have a strong
taste at all.
Sometimes I make blueberry muffins or biscuits. The Bread Beckers have a
great little recipe book available on their website. I use the muffin recipe in
that book and have adapted it some to suit our tastes.
We began to make our own salad dressing a few years ago when I noticed
one of my daughters broke out around her lips when she ate store-bought
Ranch dressing. So I took plain sour cream (like the Daisy brand) and added
dried minced onion, chives, garlic salt and some dill or celery salt. I added
some milk to thin out the mixture a little. It is easy, cheap and tastes great.
This is good on salad and for dipping carrots in.
{Visit The Kitchen page on our site for more on recipes}
~ How We Got Started
Christine Read
12 years ago my parents gave us Kitchen Specialties Whole Grain Flour Mill
from The Urban Homemaker as a Christmas present. I began to experiment
with grinding wheat into fresh flour and learned how to make whole wheat
bread that didn't come out like a cement brick! I found the white winter wheat
was lighter in texture and taste and was quite delicious fresh out of the oven
with creamy butter.
At about the same time we began to eat brown rice instead of white rice. At
first, I mixed white rice in with the brown in order to "ease" us into accepting
the brown rice taste. I found a rice cooker to be indispensable here, because
some how the rice stainless cooker makes it just right. I used a stainless steel
one from The Urban Homemaker.
We all prefer brown rice now. Some of my children love Amanda's Italian
dressing sprinkled on it, but it is delicious with butter and some sea salt. If
you want a special rice, make some brown rice in the rice cooker or on the
stove, and add 2 teaspoons of turmeric to the water. When the rice is
finished, add butter and salt to taste. Guests won't even know it is brown
rice! It is a wonderful yellow color.
Along with learning to grind my own flour and make brown rice instead of
white, we began to make an effort to eat fresh fruit like bananas and apples,
and a raw vegetable like carrots or lettuce in a salad, and at least one cooked
vegetable with suppers.
We didn't do anything big and drastic, but little by little made improvements to
eating more whole, unadulterated foods, which ended up tasting more
statisfying.
Butter is such a wonderful food. Of course, the best butter is from healthy,
grass-fed cows that spend lots of time on pasture in the fresh air and
sunshine. We put butter on bread, on rice, on noodles, on cooked
vegetables and in desserts. For more information on the health benefits of
good butter, go to the Weston A. Price website. Butter actually helps the
body absorb the nutrients in cooked vegetables, so that is a good reason to
go ahead and add butter to your veggies!
Some of our favorite breakfasts at Fair Hills Farm are pancakes or waffles
and maple syrup and sausage on the side, grits and fried eggs or freshly
ground oatmeal soaked overnight in lemon juice and water, and cooked up
with apples and cinnamon. Oatmeal is actually easy and fast on busy
mornings, and is very nourishing.
Another quick breakfast is toast from homemade bread with jam or sprinkled
cinnamon and sucanat with honey. We use Savannah Gold dehydrated can
juice and honey crystals (formally known as sucanat with honey) from The
Bread Beckers. We have replaces white sugar with the Savannah Gold
crystals. I use it to sweeten our iced tea, coffee and baked goods. It tastes
pretty much like the "sugar in the raw" products. It does not have a strong
taste at all.
Sometimes I make blueberry muffins or biscuits. The Bread Beckers have a
great little recipe book available on their website. I use the muffin recipe in
that book and have adapted it some to suit our tastes.
We began to make our own salad dressing a few years ago when I noticed
one of my daughters broke out around her lips when she ate store-bought
Ranch dressing. So I took plain sour cream (like the Daisy brand) and added
dried minced onion, chives, garlic salt and some dill or celery salt. I added
some milk to thin out the mixture a little. It is easy, cheap and tastes great.
This is good on salad and for dipping carrots in.
{Visit The Kitchen page on our site for more on recipes}
Visit the "Begin Here" page for an easy start! →