Nourishing Children

I have recently come across this website Nourishing Children maintained by the Weston A. Price Foundation. I think this is a really great resource for parents in assisting them to raise healthy children. This information empowers parents and gives us the ability to overcome the health crisis of today.

They say we live in the information age. It is easy to become lost in this information age; we are overloaded with too much information. Much of this information is conflicting. On one hand we have the American Academy of Pediatrics recommending that young children drink whole milk*- as we know young children need certain fats and cholesterol for brain development. On the other side you have the American Heart Association suggesting limited fat intake for children.

I grew up in the 80's. Those were the days when butter and eggs were "out" and margarine was "in". Now, it seems, that eggs are back "in" but I still hear people suggesting limited eggs or foods with egg whites only. Guess they didn't get the memo.

This is our world, conflicting health advice coming from every side, including professional advice. I felt confused until I had a significant spiritual experience. I read Nurturing Traditions by Sally Fallon. It is filled with recipes and advice for healthy living. The greatest part is that it is filled with scientific studies backing it's proclamation. As I read this book, my mind was filled with peace. I believe that our spirits will recognize truth and that as we seek truth our spirits guide us. We have to search for truth, ponder the things we find and pray about them. This is how I accepted the traditional foods way of life. Now, I use it as a guide for making dietary and health-related choices for our family.

* "When the cream is taken out of the milk to make it lower in fat content, something has to be put back in to give it the creamy consistency people expect. Usually it is dry milk powder. Here’s the irony: dry milk powder contains oxidized cholesterol which causes your “bad cholesterol”/LDL to go up. So when you drink low-fat milk to supposedly protect your heart health, you’re actually harming your heart even more! Wikipedia.org (online encyclopedia) explained it this way: “Compared to fresh milk, powdered milk (and powdered eggs) are stated to be exceptionally high in oxysterols (oxidized cholesterol).[1] The free radicals have been stated to have atherogenic (”causing atherosclerosis“)[2] and carcinogenic (”causing cancer“) properties.[3] Powdered milk is frequently added to 1-2% pasteurized milk to give it more body.”[4]" taken from KellytheKitchenKop.com. For more information on Real Milk and it's benefits see her Raw milk benefits series here.

** "Unfortunately, the constant urge to lower the fat content of foods has worsened the taste and consistency of many other Finnish dairy products. As fat is reduced in yogurts, cream cheeses and various cooking cream products — most of which have a very low fat content already to start with — additives like emulsifying and thickening agents or hydrogenated vegetable fats are added to them to give them a suitably thick consistency. Lacking the natural creaminess and full flavour provided by milk fat, these products taste bland and artificial." taken from the Nordic Recipe Archive. Check out the link for more information on types of dairy products such as villi and kefir.