Category Archives: Healing and Building Health with Nutrient-Dense Foods

Optimal Health/Optimal Nutrition via a Healing Diet of Nutrient Dense Traditional Foods

At the Mercury Symposium last year I had the opportunity to listen to leading scientists who have dedicated their life to the study of how mercury in silver fillings drastically affects health. Soon there will be a World Summit to end the use of these poisonous substances in dentistry permanently. The use of mercury amalgams has been a disastrous experiment that has affected the health of people far too long.

Dr. Hal Huggins, a leading dentist and scientist in the field mercury toxicity showed many relationships between trends in toxic dentistry and illness. In 1975, there were approximately 8,800 cases of MS reported by the Center for Disease Control (CDC). In 1976, a new amalgam filling material was introduced that contained high amounts of copper along with mercury. In 1976, 126,000 cases of MS were reported! Adding copper to amalgams increases the toxicity of mercury.

The notable rise in MS between 1975 and 1976 is just one of the many increases we have seen in chronic illness due to mercury amalgams. Hopefully, very soon mercury amalgams will be banned worldwide. To learn more about this subject, read the book It’s All in Your Head, by Dr. Hal Huggins.

Best in Health,

Kathryne Pirtle

Children's Health, Cholesterol, Traditional Fats and Your Health, Healing and Building Health with Nutrient-Dense Foods, Mood Disorders and Diet

Mood Disorders in Children and Diet

February 25, 2010 Kathryne Pirtle1 Comment

This is an interesting article on how important traditional fats are to mental health in our children.

‘We’re Not Eating What We Should Eat’

By Agnes Blum

Eat fat, be healthy.

It’s not nutritional advice that one hears every day, but it was the message at the Northern Virginia Whole Food Nutrition Meetup on Saturday Jan. 30. About 40 people braved the impending snowstorm and met at the restaurant Food Matters in Cameron Station to discuss how food can affect mood and health.

Paula Bass, Ph.D., a licensed clinical psychologist, spoke to the crowd as they ate a breakfast of local foods. Bass, who has been practicing in Northern Virginia for 30 years, fuses a traditional psychotherapeutic approach with nutritional wisdom.

Drawing on experiences with her patients and her own battles with health problems, she told the audience how a change in diet could dramatically alter health. One theme emerged over and over: we need saturated fat, the kind you get from animals.

“When you take the fat out, you’re taking out all the good nutrients,” Bass said, explaining how saturated fat helps keep the brain chemically balanced. “Without it, symptoms can mimic a psychiatric illness and then you do have a psychiatric illness, because that’s the way you’re feeling every day.”

One little girl, for example, had always excelled in school but had begun having breakdowns and lashing out at friends and family. It turned out this second-grader had, up until recently, been eating a whole-foods breakfast with plenty of fat — pancakes, eggs, bacon — and was now eating sugar-cereal and skim milk because of the morning rush at home. Bass recommended to her parents that they ensure she eat a breakfast full of protein and animal fats. They did, and her problems disappeared.

“Food can directly influence a child’s brain,” Bass said. Many people who suffer from mood disorders today — everything from depression to ADD — can trace their problems to a diet lacking in nutrients and fats, she said.

“The only vegetable I saw growing up was canned string beans,” Bass joked. She traced her own turnaround in health to when she began to follow the principles of the Weston A. Price Foundation, which uses education, research and activism to promote healthy living. Their guidelines are: eat pastured meat, probiotics such as yogurt, organic fruits and vegetables and strictly avoid sugar, vegetable oils, white flour, soy and additives such as MSG. “We’re not eating what we should eat,” Bass said. “And what we are eating damages the manufacture of healthy cells.”

A nutrient-dense, traditional foods diet will go a long way in protecting our children’s physical and mental health. For more information on building health and healing with nutrient-dense foods see Performance without Pain and our new e-book on healing acid reflux.

Best in health,

Kathryne Pirtle

Breast Health and Cancer Prevention, Digestive Disorders and Healing Diet, Healing and Building Health with Nutrient-Dense Foods, Inflammation and Healing Diet, Performing Artist's Health

The Relationship of the Dietary Prevention of Inflammation and Digestive Disorders as a Protection Against Degenerative Disease

February 12, 2010 Kathryne Pirtle1 Comment

There is mounting evidence that as more people are experiencing healing from inflammation and digestive illness with nutrient-dense foods, that this factor is in itself a protection from degenerative disease. In articles from the Wise Traditions Journal—A Holistic Approach to Cancer:The Disease of Civilization, by Tom Cowan, MD and The Pilot Research Study, Live Blood Analysis of Adults Comparing The Weston A. Price Foundation Diet and the Conventional Modern Diet, by Beverly Rubick, PhD–we can see this relationship.

Dr. Cowan notes that “civilization is the cause of cancer….The hunter-gatherer indigenous populations that were dependent upon animals feeding on perennial grass-based environments lived free of cancer for literally thousands and thousands of years. Organic agriculture turned the soil nearly into a desert, and brought cancer to people who had no cancer. Weston Price got in at the tail end of this inquiry in the 1930s and documented the health of these people from the standpoint of their teeth. But again, whenever we look at the health of non-industrialized people we see the same thing: these people are without cancer, and also without heart disease.”

Cowan discusses how a diet high in hard-to-digest carbohydrates–including hard-to-digest raw vegetables–can cause dysbiosis, intestinal damage and leaky gut, which puts the body in a constant state of inflammation. This state of inflammation is what leads to degenerative illness like cancer and heart disease. It is by returning to the hunter-gatherer diet that we can correct this disease state. This is the same diet that Dr. Weston Price found in immune cultures and that is reversing chronic illness in so many ill people who follow this approach today.

I love Cowan’s statements in response to the question, Is the hunter-gatherer diet “square with human anatomy?” He says, “I am not against changing certain patterns of the diet based on what a person can tolerate. But when someone says that their blood type needs to be a herbivore, a vegan, I think to myself well, yes, that would be fine if they had rumen. Let me tell you, the first cancer patients that come in with rumen, I’m putting them on a vegetarian diet. If they have very long intestines and a rumen with bacteria to ferment cellulose, I’d put them on a vegetarian diet.”

Cowan uses a nutrient-dense diet in his work with cancer patients. This diet eliminates all disaccharides–sugars in grains, lactose in fluid milk (even raw) and starchy vegetables. It emphasizes lots of healthy fats–butter, ghee, and coconut oil–grass-fed meats and organ meats, wild seafood, fermented raw dairy, low-starch vegetables, some fruit, bone broth soups and cod-liver oil. This is exactly the same diet that saved my life and that I have written about extensively for the last eight years. This is how I overcame 25 years of chronic inflammation and a severe digestive disorder. IT WORKS!

A new exciting study, The Pilot Research Study, Live Blood Analysis of Adults Comparing The Weston A. Price Foundation Diet and the Conventional Modern Diet, by Beverly Rubick, PhD, compares the blood from two groups of men of three age groups–one eating the Weston A. Price diet and the other a conventional diet.” The blood of the subjects on the WAPF diet showed reduced blood coagulation and clotting within forty-five minutes compared to those on conventional modern diets. Blood coagulation and clotting in fresh blood draws are generally associated with increased inflammation.” Here again, in the prevention of inflammation, a traditional, nutrient-dense diet is showing great promise.

As we see more people healing and being protected from inflammation, digestive disorders and degenerative illness with nutrient-dense diets, and even more research pointing to the support of this powerful traditional dietary approach, we will hopefully move our society in the direction of seeking true solutions for our ever-increasing modern health epidemics. As more people also seek the foods produced by traditional small-farm agriculture to accomplish this goal, we can reform our food supply to improve the health of future generations.

Best in health,

Kathryne Pirtle

For more information on building health and healing with nutrient-dense foods see Performance without Pain and our new e-book on healing acid reflux.

Children's Health, Digestive Disorders and Healing Diet, Healing and Building Health with Nutrient-Dense Foods, Mood Disorders and Diet

A Serious Look at the Trends of Children’s Physical and Mental Health Today

February 7, 2010 Kathryne Pirtle1 Comment

When considering the disturbing rise in the percentage of degenerative diseases, brain disorders and mental health issues in children today, intuition would suggest that these statistics will not improve without drastic changes in the trends that have lead us to this looming catastrophe. In the book, The Truth about Children’s Health: The Comprehensive Guide to Understanding, Preventing, and Reversing Disease, by Robert Bernardini, MS (PRI Publishing, 2003), Bernardini points to the fact that children are far less healthy today than in the 1950s—that we have forgotten what a healthy child is—that diseases have become so common, that we think this trend is not unusual.

Another book, Is Your Child’s Brain Starving?, by Dr. Michael R. Lyon, MD and Dr. Christine Laurell, PhD (Mind Publishing, 2002) makes these profound statements:

ADHD, Autism, OCD, Oppositional Defiant Disorder and depression have become rampant in today’s kids. What happens when these children grow up? Without real solutions to these conditions, the future of our world is in jeopardy.
Think of this: a very subtle downturn in the overall intelligence of our population would have a profound effect on society. If the average IQ decreased by only 5 points, the number of individuals officially considered to be mentally retarded/disabled would increase by 50%, while the number of individuals officially labeled as “intellectually gifted” would decrease by 50% (www.igc.org/psr) The whole course of history could change if such a shift were to take place on a global scale.
Although the brain is built to survive and perform under adverse conditions, optimal brain performance requires optimal nutrition. Brain cells are the most sophisticated cells in the body. They need a wide array of nutrients.
Junk food, contaminants like pesticides and heavy metals, and a decrease in dietary nutrition cause a deadly combination against the brain.

In a review of Bernardini’s book by Janice M. Curtin, she explains:

Beginning with a report on the status of children in America today, Bernardini asks the question I have raised many times. “If you’re an adult reading this who is older than about 40 years of age, I’d like you to think back to your childhood. How many kids did you know who had leukemia, asthma, diabetes, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), arthritis, multiple sclerosis, cancer, autism or were obese? Chances are, you may have known a few. Perhaps the kid down the street had asthma. Maybe there was a distant relative who had juvenile diabetes. Or you heard on the news about some rare child with leukemia. Now, it seems like everywhere you turn, you read or hear about a child with a serious health problem. How many kids do you know of who are on Ritalin or were diagnosed with a learning disability? There are whole hospitals devoted to children’s cancer. Asthma and diabetes are now considered epidemics.”

Bernadini points out that “we live in a universe of laws. These laws that don’t care if you’re black or white, Japanese or Mexican, 90 years old or still a fetus. These laws are fundamental in the nature of matter and energy and determine how life progresses. If we live in harmony with these laws, we will as consequence live in harmony. If we break the laws, we will become discordant. Enough of this discord will create sickness, disease, and aberrant behavior.” Dr. Price expressed this fact in a similar manner as “Life in all its fullness is Mother Nature obeyed.”

Bernadini explains that whenever a health problem occurs, we must determine what the problem really is and determine the cause of the symptoms. Then we must apply our knowledge and technology in a way that works with nature, not against it, in order to get our children well. A good example of this might be the treatment of ADHD. Bernardini recommends removing the heavy metal toxicity from a child’s tissues and giving him a good diet instead of giving him Ritalin. If you do not remove the cause you never truly get rid of the problem. It may, however, seem to disappear but then surface in a new way.

Bernardini also addresses mental and emotional health and the growth of violence in our schools. “According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the years between 1985 and 1995 saw a 249 percent increase in gun-related murders committed by juveniles.” Bernardini says our kids are going crazy because “they’re not happy. And they’re not happy because they’re not healthy.”

Furthermore, “People are getting sicker younger and younger–physically, mentally and emotionally. And it’s not by chance –it’s because our bodies are not being treated and cared for the way nature intended.” Our children are exposed to environmental toxins which their small bodies cannot handle and they are stressed out and poorly fed.

Bernardini stresses that the diet of pregnant mothers and infants during the first few years of life is critical to their health and happiness later on. He quotes Susan B. Robbers, Ph.D, professor of nutrition at Tufts University School of Nutrition Science and Policy in Boston, who says, “As a nutrition researcher, I have spent 20 years studying the importance of healthy food at all stages of life. . . Studies from my own laboratory and others around the world have taught me that the foods my daughter eats during the first months and years of life have long-lasting–and in some cases–permanent effects. Foods make an important difference in virtually everything–from mental and physical developments to vitality, personality and health from childhood through old age.” Bernardini provides extensive information on the foods and nutrients your baby needs, what these nutrients do, and how to get them.

Bernardini’s dietary advice is in line with that of Dr. Price. Characteristic of the entire book, Bernardini is not afraid to tell us that it is important for your growing child to get enough fat in the diet. “Newborns must derive 50 percent of the calories they consume from dietary fat. Fat is essential for normal growth from infancy on, since fats provide fatty acids, the building block children need for critical metabolic programming of brain growth and development.” Bernardini gives specific advice on how to feed your child. He includes our recipes for homemade baby formula and recommends cod liver oil, egg yolks, raw whole milk and liver.

Dr. Bernardini fearlessly addresses an array of controversial topics including birth defects, infertility, baby food and formula, soy, vaccines, and SIDS. He gives extensive advice on what to avoid but also has plenty of support and resources on ways to deal with any problems your child may be experiencing already.

Bernardini does a good job of empowering us to be proactive. He is particularly concerned that we take back responsibility for our own and our children’s health. He gives good advice when he says: “You must scrutinize closely the information you receive from the government and the mass media. Policy decisions, guidelines and laws are oftentimes made not so much for the preservation of our health, but for the preservation of profits. Big money can do big things, including influencing our government. A 1980 study showed that almost half of the leading officials at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had at one time worked for organizations the agency is mandated to regulate. Similarly, many FDA officials quit to go work for a company in the field they were once regulating. . . . Do some research and ask some questions. Don’t necessarily believe somebody just because he or she is on the nightly news, in the papers or is a so-called ‘expert.’ Make yourself the expert. Learn to seek answers, not just accept what is foisted upon you–for the truth is often quiet and the truth is often hidden. Truth is not in it for the money, it just is. Truth doesn’t advertise.” He reminds us to be wary of the advertisers and be watchful that we do not become brainwashed. We must constantly be aware of the fact that we could lose our health freedoms if we are not educated, aware and vigilant about protecting them.

Although the problems we are seeing today may seem overwhelming in their scope, it is the responsibility of an alerted society to protect future generations of children from the suffering caused by the obvious mistakes and profit-driven decisions that have given birth to a wildly untamed massive power structure and authority that we cannot afford to blindly support. As statistics are showing seriously unfavorable trends in wide areas of health, we have no time to waste in correcting this path, for our children’s ability to thrive depends on our courage to help change this misguided direction of history.

The enlightened work of the Weston A. Price Foundation and the expansive healing information it is providing, which is helping to reverse these trends, must be communicated in exponential proportion to every person by those who understand and have experienced its power. Through understanding the root cause of our mistakes and the proven answers to these problems, we can steer a sinking ship from disaster to great hope for a brighter future for upcoming generations.

Best in health,

Kathryne Pirtle

For more information on building health and healing with nutrient-dense foods see Performance without Pain and our new e-book on healing acid reflux.

Dogs and Cats and a Nutrient-Dense Diet, Healing and Building Health with Nutrient-Dense Foods

Dogs and Cats Thrive on Nutrient-Dense Diets Too!

February 3, 2010 Kathryne PirtleLeave a comment

Once you study the work of Dr. Weston Price–Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, and Dr. Francis Pottenger–Dr. Pottenger’s Cats–you will never be the same! We took in a beautiful 4 year old dog from the shelter about 5 years ago. Her name is Lexi. She is a cute, medium-sized blond-colored sweetie. She looks like a mix of Beagle and Shar Pei–with her wrinkly skin.

When Lexi came to us she was nervous and skittish. I knew I was going to feed her a diet based on the work of Weston A. Price and Dr. Pottenger–a species-appropriate raw diet. I found a fantastic book called Switching to Raw and got busy. What I realized after reading the book is that Lexi would be eating a lot like me–except I don’t do the raw bones and I don’t eat raw meat exclusively–but do bone broth soups and lightly cooked meats–sometimes raw. I alternate her diet between one day of raw chicken necks and backs from the farm, which I cut in smaller pieces, with raw meat or liver mixed with raw egg yolks, cod liver oil and butter oil the next day. She always has a little bowl of raw milk kefir to drink alongside her water.

As you might imagine, Lexi at 9 years old has never been sick, she is no longer skittish and her coat is drop-dead gorgeous! She went from a shy dog to being a dog who is happy, playful–yet calm–and a friend to all. What a beautiful miracle she is and her exceptional health is a joy to observe.

Although I do not have a cat, I know if I did, I would follow Dr. Pottenger’s recipe for cat health. Raw meat, raw milk, raw egg yolks, cod liver oil and butter oil and learn if ground-up raw bones is also recommended.

When you feed your pets nutrient-dense foods, they can recover from illness and develop a high-level of health and hopefully, many more years of life.

Best in health,

Kathryne Pirtle

For more information on building health and healing with nutrient-dense foods see Performance without Pain and our new e-book on healing acid reflux.

Healing and Building Health with Nutrient-Dense Foods, Personal Rights and Food Freedom, Sustainable Farming, Health, Soil and Environment, USDA Dietary Guidelines, Nutrient Deficiencies and Degenerative Illness

Whole Foods–Please Don’t Change to a Vegan Approach!

February 1, 2010 Kathryne Pirtle12 Comments

Whole Foods is an awesome store for finding many of the nutrient-dense, pastured and wild-caught foods we need to build optimal health through the principles of the Weston A. Price Foundation. They are carrying pastured butter, meats and yogurt. They also carry high quality eggs, a wide array of wild-caught seafood and traditionally fermented vegetables and drinks. In fact, Whole Foods is helping to save the lives of thousands of seriously ill people who are desperately trying to find a source of these foods–Whole Foods is their only source.

I just received a disturbing letter from a dedicated reader who is concerned that Whole Foods may be turning into a vegan store:

“I have been shopping more frequently at Whole Foods and I notice they have a selection of health books that are all based on being a vegan or low fat vegetarian. Then when I was checking out, I was offered a pamphlet by the young man bagging my groceries. The pamphlet told me to implement the following: low fat, plants mostly, and to cut way back, or completely eliminate all animal foods. It encourages nutrient dense foods but seems to say that these come from plants only. Even a look at the books they promote now seem to be mostly along the lines of vegan, vegetarian, and low fat. Since when did Whole Foods get into the business of telling people how to eat? Makes me think they will do away with their seafood and meat departments at some point!”

For years before becoming deathly ill, my diet consisted of large amounts of organic salads, vegetables and fruits, grains, a little meat and eggs and no animal fat. I had chronic pain for 25 years on this diet, then acid reflux, then a serious inflammation in my spine followed by chronic diarrhea. Without learning about the work of Dr. Weston A. Price and the Weston A. Price Foundation–not only would I have lost my national career as a performing artist–I would have died at 45 years old!!! I am not alone in this story of ill health from this kind of diet–it simply will not provide a person with enough nutrients to be healthy over their entire life.

Now at 52, I have healed my digestive tract, been pain-free and have vibrant health from eating a nutrient-dense diet for the last 8 years. Whole Foods has been one of my partners in achieving this level of health. In my seminars across the United States, I recommend Whole Foods over and over.

We need Whole Foods to continue to be a partner to people of all dietary needs–not just veganism–because veganism may be a choice for some people, but it is not the answer for the majority. If this is an environmental issue for Whole Foods, please remember that sustainable agriculture based on traditional pasture farming is the ONLY way we will build our exhausted, nutrient-poor soils, as animals on pasture that provide nutrient-dense foods and build soil fertility are our sole vehicle to this means.

For more information on building health and healing with nutrient-dense foods see Performance without Pain and our new e-book on healing acid reflux.

Best in health,

Kathryne Pirtle

Healing and Building Health with Nutrient-Dense Foods, Recipes for Traditional Foods

New Blog Covering the 773 Recipes in Sally Fallon’s Book, Nourishing Traditions, a la Julia & Julia Style

January 31, 2010 Kathryne PirtleLeave a comment

There is no cookbook in the world that can match the best-selling book by the legendary Sally Fallon, the co-author of my book, Performance without Pain and the founder of the Weston A. Price Foundation. Besides teaching people how to cook fantastic nutrient-dense, traditional foods from all over the world, this book has literally saved the lives of thousands of people through educating them on building health with REAL FOOD based on the infallible work of Dr. Weston A. Price. It is packed with information about nutrition that is so magnetic that you cannot put the book down! When you start reading it, you find yourself still reading at 1:00 AM thinking–this is a cookbook! But this cookbook helped to save my life.

Nourishing Traditions and the real food movement that has grown from it, in itself has begun to turn around the terrible incorrect modern high-fiber/low-fat dictates that have plagued our society since the dawn of industrial farming and the processed food industry. It is helping to change a food supply that has become so corrupted that it is causing epidemics of dietary-caused illnesses in people that have never been seen before. It is the basis of what needs to happen to bring an end to a broken, profit-driven food industry that has no true regard for your health.

In celebration of Sally’s work, Kim Knoch, a mom of teenage twin girls and wife to a picky eater husband, is going to cook all 773 recipes in Sally’s book before 12/31/2011! She states in her note to Weston A. Price chapter leaders that “I am having some challenges switching my family over to the ‘real food,’ Weston A. Price Foundation lifestyle, but we are doing it one step at a time. My blog is about the ‘real face’ of switching over to real food and replacing bad habits with good ones.

Her blog is called The Nourishing Cook. Please share in the celebration of the best cookbook ever written by following this blog.

Best in health,

Kathryne Pirtle

For more information on building health and healing with nutrient-dense foods see Performance without Pain and our new e-book on healing acid reflux.

Cholesterol, Traditional Fats and Your Health, Healing and Building Health with Nutrient-Dense Foods, Inflammation and Healing Diet, Mood Disorders and Diet, Recipes for Traditional Foods

Interesting Article on Butter

January 30, 2010 Kathryne Pirtle1 Comment

As you know from my blog by now–raw butter from grass-fed cows is an amazing nutrient-dense food. It is one of the foods that saved my life. It helped to heal my gut and gave me the important saturated fat I needed to be able to absorb the nutrients in my food. Dr. Weston A. Price found that healthy cultures ate plenty of traditional saturated fats–raw butter being extremely common, especially for the people in the Swiss Alps. In fact, raw butter in the spring time was considered a sacred food! Below is an interesting article I received about butter.

Pass The Butter … Please.

This is interesting …

Margarine was originally manufactured to fatten turkeys. When it killed the turkeys, the people who had put all the money into the research wanted a payback so they put their heads together to figure out what to do with this product to get their money back. It was a white substance with no food appeal so they added the yellow colouring and sold it to people to use in place of butter. How do you like it? They have come out with some clever new flavourings….

DO YOU KNOW.. The difference between margarine and butter?

Both have the same amount of calories.
Butter is slightly higher in saturated fats at 8 grams; compared to 5 grams for margarine.
Eating margarine can increase heart disease in women by 53% over eating the same amount of butter, according to a recent Harvard Medical Study.
Eating butter increases the absorption of many other nutrients in other foods.
Butter has many nutritional benefits where margarine has a few and
only because they are added!
Butter tastes much better than margarine and it can enhance the flavours of other foods.
Butter has been around for centuries where margarine has been around for less than 100 years .

And now, for Margarine..

Very High in Trans fatty acids.
Triples risk of coronary heart disease …
Increases total cholesterol and LDL (this is the bad cholesterol) and lowers HDL cholesterol, (the good cholesterol)
Increases the risk of cancers up to five times..
Lowers quality of breast milk.
Decreases immune response.
Decreases insulin response.

And here’s the most disturbing fact….

Margarine is but ONE MOLECULE away from being PLASTIC… and shares 27 ingredients with PAINT
These facts alone should have you avoiding margarine for life and anything else that is hydrogenated (this means hydrogen is added, changing the molecular structure of the substance).

You can try this yourself:

Purchase a tub of margarine and leave it open in your garage or shaded area. Within a couple of days you will notice a couple of things:

no flies, not even those pesky fruit flies will go near it (that should tell you something)
it does not rot or smell differently because it has no nutritional value ; nothing will grow on it. Even those teeny weeny microorganisms will not a find a home to grow. Why? Because it is nearly plastic . Would you melt your Tupperware and spread that on your toast?

Share This With Your Friends…..(If you want to “butter them up”)!

For more information on building health and healing with nutrient-dense foods see Performance without Pain and our new e-book on healing acid reflux.

Best in health,

Kathryne Pirtle

Healing and Building Health with Nutrient-Dense Foods, Personal Rights and Food Freedom, Sustainable Farming, Health, Soil and Environment

How Cows (Grass-Fed Only) Could Save the Planet: Time Magazine

January 21, 2010 Kathryne Pirtle2 Comments

Sustainable farming finally made Time Magazine! People are beginning to catch on all over the country that sustainable farming is the only farming that will build the soil, produce nutrient-dense foods and bring health back to our lands, environment, livestock and people. Spread the word! Support sustainable farming! Vote with your pocketbook!

For more information on building health and healing with nutrient-dense foods see Performance without Pain and our new e-book on healing acid reflux.

Best in health,

Kathryne Pirtle

By Lisa Abend Monday, Jan. 25, 2010

On a farm in coastal Maine, a barn is going up. Right now it’s little more than a concrete slab and some wooden beams, but when it’s finished, the barn will provide winter shelter for up to six cows and a few head of sheep. None of this would be remarkable if it weren’t for the fact that the people building the barn are two of the most highly regarded organic-vegetable farmers in the country: Eliot Coleman wrote the bible of organic farming, The New Organic Grower, and Barbara Damrosch is the Washington Post’s gardening columnist. At a time when a growing number of environmental activists are calling for an end to eating meat, this veggie-centric power couple is beginning to raise it. “Why?” asks Coleman, tromping through the mud on his way toward a greenhouse bursting with December turnips. “Because I care about the fate of the planet.”

Ever since the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization released a 2006 report that attributed 18% of the world’s man-made greenhouse-gas emissions to livestock — more, the report noted, than what’s produced by transportation — livestock has taken an increasingly hard rap. At first, it was just vegetarian groups that used the U.N.’s findings as evidence for the superiority of an all-plant diet. But since then, a broader range of environmentalists has taken up the cause. At a recent European Parliament hearing titled “Global Warming and Food Policy: Less Meat = Less Heat,” Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, argued that reducing meat consumption is a “simple, effective and short-term delivery measure in which everybody could contribute” to emissions reductions. (See the top 10 green ideas of 2009.)

And of all the animals that humans eat, none are held more responsible for climate change than the ones that moo. Cows not only consume more energy-intensive feed than other livestock; they also produce more methane — a powerful greenhouse gas — than other animals do. “If your primary concern is to curb emissions, you shouldn’t be eating beef,” says Nathan Pelletier, an ecological economist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, N.S., noting that cows produce 13 to 30 lb. of carbon dioxide per pound of meat. (See where cows eat and what it means for the environment.)

So how can Coleman and Damrosch believe that adding livestock to their farm will help the planet? Cattleman Ridge Shinn has the answer. On a wintry Saturday at his farm in Hardwick, Mass., he is out in his pastures encouraging a herd of plump Devon cows to move to a grassy new paddock. Over the course of a year, his 100 cattle will rotate across 175 acres four or five times. “Conventional cattle raising is like mining,” he says. “It’s unsustainable, because you’re just taking without putting anything back. But when you rotate cattle on grass, you change the equation. You put back more than you take.” (See the top 10 scientific discoveries of 2009.)

It works like this: grass is a perennial. Rotate cattle and other ruminants across pastures full of it, and the animals’ grazing will cut the blades — which spurs new growth — while their trampling helps work manure and other decaying organic matter into the soil, turning it into rich humus. The plant’s roots also help maintain soil health by retaining water and microbes. And healthy soil keeps carbon dioxide underground and out of the atmosphere.

Compare that with the estimated 99% of U.S. beef cattle that live out their last months on feedlots, where they are stuffed with corn and soybeans. In the past few decades, the growth of these concentrated animal-feeding operations has resulted in millions of acres of grassland being abandoned or converted — along with vast swaths of forest — into profitable cropland for livestock feed. “Much of the carbon footprint of beef comes from growing grain to feed the animals, which requires fossil-fuel-based fertilizers, pesticides, transportation,” says Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma. “Grass-fed beef has a much lighter carbon footprint.” Indeed, although grass-fed cattle may produce more methane than conventional ones (high-fiber plants are harder to digest than cereals, as anyone who has felt the gastric effects of eating broccoli or cabbage can attest), their net emissions are lower because they help the soil sequester carbon.

Healing and Building Health with Nutrient-Dense Foods, Sustainable Farming, Health, Soil and Environment

Commercial beef from the grocery stores is killing even vultures!

January 7, 2010 Kathryne PirtleLeave a comment

Buying food from good sources–organic farms that pasture their animals–is essential to the future health of our population, animal kingdom and planet. Below is a shocking letter by Al Sears, MD from Florida to one of his patients.

The drugs in the commercial beef you buy at your local supermarket are getting so bad, even the vultures are dying. I just read a report that millions of vultures died in South Asia after eating cattle carcasses tainted with two drugs used to treat livestock. As scavengers, vultures have an iron-clad digestive system. Look at their diet – the birds eat nothing but putrid meat day in and day out. Yet their numbers have decreased – almost to extinction in some cases – because of the deadly effect of drugs we inject into cattle.

Imagine for a moment what would have happened had the meat made its way into your refrigerator. For millions of years, beef has been a healthy part of our ancestors’ diet. But our ancestors never had to deal with the commercial farming practices of today. I want to stress the importance of making certain the meat you eat is not commercially raised. My two biggest concerns are antibiotics and hormones…

Commercially raised cattle are force-fed grain laced with antibiotics – not because they’re sick, but to:

Increase daily body-weight gain

Improve food-to-weight gain ratio

Increase the voluntary intake of food

Did you know that 70% of all antibiotics in the U.S. are used – not in people – but in “healthy” livestock animals? This is a major crisis for us, because antibiotics create drug-resistant strains of bacteria that live in the food we eat. Because of this, many life-threatening diseases – such as E.coli, Salmonella, and Campylobacter – are almost impossible to treat.

The other major issue is hormones. Most beef in the U.S. is injected with synthetic hormones that are transferred to people. They are dangerous to children, dangerous to adults, and also cause cancer. It’s such a health concern that there’s been a ban on hormone-treated U.S. meat throughout the European nations since 1989.

It’s a sad commentary. I was lucky enough to grow up eating grass-fed beef. My mom and dad made sure we had locally grown, healthy, grazing beef from neighboring farms. They simply didn’t trust the commercial beef industry; my dad said they kept too many secrets. But they did trust what they could see in our neighbors’ fields and farms.

Finding quality grass-fed beef is tricky sometimes. Grocery stores often label meat as grass-fed because at one time in their life, a cow grazed on grass, but later was put on a grain diet. So it’s important to investigate.

By Al Sears, MD

Please know the source of your foods! Your health depends on it. The Weston A. Price website has a listing of co-ops throughout our country that have grass-fed, organic meats, poultry and dairy.

For more information on building health and healing with nutrient-dense foods see Performance without Pain and our new e-book on healing acid reflux.

Best in health,

Kathryne Pirtle