With Nutrient Dense Foods This Summer
By Teri Clayton
Summer holidays enable us to spend quality time with our children. Whether going away for a week of sun, sea and sand, or remaining on home turf, it’s a time to treasure the time we have available with one another.
The holiday period also offers us the perfect opportunity to ensure our families eat the best quality nutrition. We can load up their stores of fat soluble vitamins and nutrients, whilst we have a little more say about what they eat.
Many parents dread the sudden extra workload of children being out of school for an extended period. However – with the right mindset and approach – it can be reframed as an opportunity to invest in a healthy and happy future for the family.
Yes it might involve proactive planning and a decent amount of extra work, but the long term rewards will definitely be worth it. This kind of work travels down through generations.
Your family will still benefit from the nourishment you put into them long after you have gone.
Disclaimer: This article is intended to support personal education and offer individuals the opportunity to research a range of approaches to achieving wellbeing. A Primal living or ancestral approach to wellbeing is a path that some people choose for themselves and is in no way intended to replace professional medical, healthcare, dietary or wellbeing advice. Consult your healthcare professional before making any changes to your diet or lifestyle, especially if you take prescribed medications.
Building Upon the Good
Dr Natasha Campbell-McBride MD reinvigorated forgotten cultural knowledge in the world of nutrition after permanently reversing her son’s autistic symptoms through diet.
Now considered a leading light in reviving a truly rooted and wise approach to diet, Dr Campbell-McBride has written several books, dedicated to empowering people to heal naturally through nutrient dense foods, gut health and supporting a healthy gut microbiome.
Her latest book ‘Gut and Physiology Syndrome’ (GAPS), is a refresh and re-titled version of her previous revolutionary book – ‘Gut and Psychology Syndrome’.
GAPS offers a natural treatment approach for auto-immune illnesses, allergies, arthritis, fatigue, gut problems, hormonal issues and neurological disease, (including ADHD and autism).
To have good health we need to eat foods created by Mother Nature, not man. Mother Nature took billions of years to design our bodies, while at the same time designing all the foods suitable for our bodies to use. How arrogant it is for humans to think that they know better than Mother Nature after having tinkered in their laboratories for a few decades!’
Dr Natasha Campbell-McBride MD, MMedSci (Neurology), MMedSci (Nutrition)
Dr Campbell-McBride’s approach focuses on feeding children nutrient dense foods, grown by loving farmers taking good care of their soil and animals, prepared in time honoured ways that maximally enhance their digestibility. Through this approach Dr Campbell-McBride has helped many families turn the tide on severe chronic illness and restored children back to a picture of health.
Dr Campbell-McBride’s work should have been making headlines, given that it offers hope for reversing what Dr Martin Blaser terms the ‘Modern Plagues’ in his brilliant book ‘Missing Microbes’.
‘Man is the only species clever enough to make his own food and the only one stupid enough to eat it’
Zoe Harcombe
These modern plagues according to Dr Blaser are the result of something going terribly wrong within the past few decades. Despite the medical advances, we appear to be getting sicker. He goes on to say that the incidence of autism continues to soar. The disorder was first described in 1943 by Dr Leo Kanner and was uncommon, but according to Dr Blaser, in his book published in 2014, the incidence of autism underwent a three to fourfold increase since the 1960s. This many in part be due to a growing awareness and change in diagnostic criteria.
Dr Campbell-McBride has been reversing these ‘modern plagues’ yet many parents are still enduring the torment of witnessing their children suffering from them.
It seems that we have lots of profitable solutions available to us for suppressing the symptoms of disease that do not address root causes. Why are natural, non profitable solutions – rooted in optimal nourishment – being ignored?
‘There are many theories attempting to explain the cause of this increase in autism cases, including toxins in food, water and air; exposure to chemicals and pesticides during pregnancy; and particular characteristics of fathers. But no-one knows’.
Martin Blaser, Missing Microbes.
Creating a Better Future
A groundswell of parents can be the ones to turn the tide on the destruction of children’s health…..not scientists, or healthcare professionals, or experts.
Parents do not have to wait for ways forward to be decided in the lab, or through statistical analysis on paper, when their children are suffering and need them urgently…NOW. At least, not when the solutions can be simple, time tested and rooted in real food from healthy soil.
There are parents all over the globe who are learning how to restore their children’s health, inspired by those who have been courageous enough to break away from the mainstream train, now veering way off track. Following on from healing her own child, Dr Natasha Campbell-McBride left her career as a neurosurgeon behind and has now become a regenerative farmer alongside working to expand the reach of the GAPS approach.
There comes a point when adhering to outdated beliefs becomes more destructive than stabilising – and that’s where we are right now, when it comes to dealing with chronic disease.
The evidence for the health restoring power of nutrient dense foods and wise traditions is now mounting up behind a dam that WILL inevitably burst. The word incurable will be forced to shrink back to its appropriate size, as it has no place being attached to many of the man made ‘modern plagues’ we are experiencing today.
Introducing Hilary Boynton
Hilary Boynton is a parent that is leading the way, inspired by such people as Dr Campbell-McBride, Sally Fallon Morrell, Dr Weston A Price, Dr Thomas Cowan and pioneering scientist Elaine Gottschall. Hilary is a mother of five who refused to accept chronic ill health in her own children and the continuation of poor nutrition in schools.
Upon healing her family using the GAPS diet, Hilary went on to publish a cookbook with Mary G Brackett entitled ‘The Heal your Gut Cookbook – Nutrient Dense Recipes for Intestinal Health Using the GAPS diet’.
Hilary became the ‘Lunch Lady’ in her local school, transforming the nutrition of hundreds of children and has now founded the School of Lunch (SOL), with a mission to:
‘joyfully give the ancestral knowledge, wisdom and nourishing benefits of our culinary and lifestyle philosophies to the maximum number of human beings possible’.
Hilary has joined the ranks of those who have gone beyond the current paradigm. Having learned and experienced for herself how the right food, grown and prepared in the right way has the power to restore wellbeing and vitality to our children.
Find out what Hilary has been doing in schools, here:
https://www.schooloflunch.com/education
Hilary will be joining us in our private social platform – Primal Web, introducing her work to restore children’s health through real food and taking part in live webinars where you get the chance to ask your own questions.
To attend and participate in the conversations, webinars and events join HERE
So how can we nourish our children and find out more about the return of traditional food wisdom?
First and foremost we do not need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to feeding our children. This would be foolish and ignorant, given the experiential wisdom our ancestors have already amassed.
We do however need to draw forward forgotten nourishing traditions and build upon them, with our own real life learnings. When it comes to offering our families the deepest nourishment, the best knowledge we have is that which has endured the harshest of all tests…time.
Only that which is useful, valuable and has real substance endures the test of time and becomes embedded as a tradition, anything surplus is thankfully discarded by the wayside.
Sandeep Agarwal in conversation with Hilary Boynton about valuable traditional knowledge remarks:
‘Before we learn from each other, we learn from traditions’
Sandeep is the fifth generation to take on his family business creating traditional foods using time tested wisdom. Sandeep remarked that his mother used to say that ‘no knowledge is lost’, that knowledge is like sunlight. Knowledge is there, just as sunlight is there. You only need an open mind to receive it.
There are no shortage of way showers to hold the hands of worried parents as they embark on a journey back towards solid nutritional ground once more. As the months and years go by, there will be many more walking this path together, connected by their mutual desire to offer their children truly nourishing food.
There are others too, leaving their mark upon the path less travelled. Perhaps one of the most significant contributions is from Sally Fallon Morrell. One of her books; Nourishing Traditions – The cookbook that challenges politically correct nutrition and the diet dictocrats – is truly a life saving and changing book. A book that has surely earned its place on every parent’s books shelves through bringing nourishing traditions back into our homes.
Remarkable Forgotten Discoveries
Many people reading this will perhaps have already heard about the remarkable work of Weston A Price, a dentist who travelled the world with an open, curious mind, attempting to uncover the secrets to good dental health. As is always the case with profound discoveries, what he ‘noticed’ took him well beyond his initial line of enquiry.
He noticed that what led to good dental health, also held the key to impeccable overall health and longevity. All the populations that experienced immaculate dental health, also appeared to enjoy perfect physical health.
The common thread that ran through Dr Weston A Price’s observations was the decline in dental and overall health after processed western foods were introduced to the diet.
Very quickly – within one generation – of consuming processed foods, children developed overcrowded teeth, their nostrils became more pinched (making breathing more difficult) and their skeletal and sinus structures began to degenerate into lesser functional forms.
Of course, there are many factors at play, including ones that led to western foods being available and chosen in the first place, but the correlation is certainly an interesting one. These findings open us up to many more questions and discoveries.
What is truly astounding is that most dentists today are not even aware of the life’s work of Dr Weston A Price. Dr Steven Lin, a disenchanted dentist experiencing somewhat of a crisis of meaning in his career, discovered the work of Dr Weston A Price by chance whilst travelling.
The ah-ha moments triggered by Weston A Price’s work led to Dr Steven Linn writing his ground-breaking book ‘The Dental Diet’.
This book – filled with a revival of ancestral wisdom – offers parents hope for ensuring their children can enjoy great lifelong dental health, instead of expecting dental degeneration with age.
So how (practically speaking) can we use this knowledge to better nourish our children this summer?
According to the holistic dentist – Dr Steven Lin – we should not be focused on the right amounts of food, but the right kinds of food that are rich in the nutrients your body needs most. He explains that every meal should contain sources of fat soluble vitamins A, D and K2 as well as the support elements that work alongside them in the body including magnesium, zinc and dietary fat
He lists the following foods that are a source of these fat soluble vitamins:
- Whole, full fat animal products, including the skin: beef, chicken, lamb and duck
- Organ meats
- Whole fish and shellfish
- Milk, butter, yoghurt and cheese
- Eggs
- Natto
- Colourful vegetables and salads cooked or dressed in fat.
The bottom line is that a healthy diet necessarily includes animal products with gelatin rich skin, bone marrow, collagenous joints and slow cooked stocks and broths.
Dr Steven Lin
Dr Lin’s summarised guidance is a really helpful place to start when planning meals that are truly nourishing for our children.
When it comes to taking practical action to better nourish your children this summer, start with the simplest most impactful next steps. Without a doubt the quickest win here is through incorporating one of the most nourishing foods available into your child’s diet – bone broths.
Bone Broth
Nutrient dense staple
Bone broth can be consumed as a meal in its own right, but it can also be served as a starter, or used as a base for other dishes or sauces (like stir fry or gravy) to enhance the nutritional profile of various meals .
In its simplest form bone broth can be consumed as a cup-a-soup to top up hungry bellies.
Although the summer holidays may be full of fresh vibrant salads, fruits and BBQs, to truly optimise nourishment, the slow cooker should still be in action on a regular basis!
Why start with Bone broths?
Benefits of Bone Broth
- High in collagen which turns to gelatin when dissolved
- Potential source of bio-available minerals complexes
- Source of anti-inflammatory amino acids arginine and glutamine
- May support the health of the gut lining
- High levels of collagen may have an anti-aging effect and support healthy skin, hair and nails
- Great post workout recovery drink to support muscle repair
For those who want to try bone broths, but haven’t got the time to make it. Why not try our ready made broths.
If you would like to attend our live webinars with Hilary and other inspiring advocates for nourishing traditions and nutrient dense foods, then join our Primal Web platform HERE
Meet and train with Hilary:
For those who want to meet and learn from Hilary in person and have enough passion to travel to California, you can book a space on her SOL training academy here: https://www.schooloflunch.com/TrainingAcademy
Sample recipe from Hilary and Mary’s ‘The Heal Your Gut Cookbook, Nutrient-Dense Recipes for Intestinal Health Using the GAPS Diet’
Scrumptious Chicken in a Crock-Pot
Ingredients:
2 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon dried thyme
½ teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon curry powder
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried sage
¼ teaspoon black pepper
2 onions
1 whole chicken
Animal fat or ghee
Combine the dried spices in a small bowl. Place the onions in the bottom of the slow cooker. Remove any giblets from the chicken, wash it and pat it dry. Rub the spice mixture all over it. Pop some spices under the skin and in the cavity if you can manage it. Rub some fat over the chicken. Put the chicken on top of the onions in the slow cooker, breast-side down, cover it and turn it on high. There is no need to add any liquid. Cook for 3-4hours on high or 6-8hours on low (for a 3-4lb chicken) or until the meat is falling off the bone.
Further reading/listening:
Ancestral cooking for schools
Hilary Boynton: How to Feed Your Family with Real Food
https://boldjourney.com/meet-hilary-boynton/
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