Just last week. when my college attending daughter and son were visiting on semester break from BYU-I, along with my mother-in-law, a question came up about food. I knew the answer was in the book Nourishing Traditions, pictured above. So I dug up my copy and found the quote, feeling satisfied that I could answer their question. I know this is totally a first world problem, but that book is so stuffed with amazingly juicy tidbits about the dark side of the manufactured food and nutrition industry, not to mention gems about the history of traditional food, that it would be so awesome to be able to have a more portable copy that is digitally searchable. It would have made it easier to find the answer to the question if I could have been able to search for it using a digital copy on my phone.

It is as if God heard my silent wish, and granted my request before I even voiced it here on this blog! I am sooooo thrilled to find out that you can get a Kindle version of Nourishing Traditions for free if you are an Amazon Prime member! Now I can easily search for terms in this book in the palm of my hand and find answers from the book even quicker. So…go get your copy today! After you sign into your Amazon account, if you have a Prime membership, you will see that the description for the book says that it is free for Amazon Prime members. Even if you aren’t a Prime member, I encourage you to get a Kindle copy.

This digital copy might be just a loan, I am not sure. From my understanding, you can “check out” one Kindle book a month for free if you are an Amazon Prime member.  I think that this Nourishing Traditions format falls under that. If anybody knows differently, please let me know. Here is what one web site says, “You can borrow one book a month by going to the ‘Kindle Owners’ Lending Library’ in the Kindle Store on your Kindle device. Books with the Prime icon can be borrowed for free for the month (as long as you’re a Prime member). Correction: There are no due dates, but you can only have one book out at a time.” (http://lifehacker.com/5856052/borrow-kindle-books-for-free-from-amazon–if-you-have-prime-membership)

Anyway, just knowing that this book has been released in Kindle format is so exciting!!!! Nourishing Traditions is the Cadillac of nutrition/cookbooks. It is a hefty 674 pages, a true Bible of nutrition. This is the book that influenced Serene Allison of Trim Healthy Mama fame to stop being a vegan, and introduce animal products back into her diet. After she did, she noticed that her health improved as well as the health of the babies she conceived after going on a WAPF foundation. She lost her stomach pooch and her babies had stronger teeth. (See the THM book, p. 544 (the original big thick one that has the plan and the recipes combined, to read the story.) If you are a vegan or vegetarian, I urge you to read Nourishing Traditions. It will most likely help you to resolve any health problems you have. Then after following the principles, if you still have a weight problem after switching to unprocessed foods, read the THM books.

The work of Weston A. Price, which this book is based on, is also what convinced Diane Hopkins of lovetolearn.net and hearttoheartwithdiane.com. to stop being vegan. It is also what got me to change from being vegan and vegetarian as well. I have noticed that I am healthier and feel more vigorous when I have some animal products in my life. I get sick a lot less often for sure! I used to get at least one or two colds or the flu a year. Now, I don’t get any. I am thinking it’s probably the Vitamins A and D from meat, cultured dairy I eat (yogurt). and the cod liver pills that make a difference. As a Word of Wisdom follower, I still eat meat “sparingly.” I don’t eat it at every meal, and I am learning to like more than just the muscle part of meat. I take my liver pills every day and make bone broth out of bones. I’m still working on learning to actually cook with liver. 🙂

Here is a great quote from a fan of the book, copied from the Amazon page:

I found this book through the book “The Maker’s Diet” which was given to me when I was 18 and sat on a shelf to be picked up 2 years later after the birth of my first child. I was struggling to breastfeed after having a major loss of blood (OBGYN’s mistake led to this and a major birth trauma). I had virtually no milk supply. Tried everything! Persevered for 6 horrible long exhausting weeks before I finally gave up. I did not even become engorged upon stopping, that’s how low my supply was. Looking back now i was very malnourished from a terrible diet of fast food and soda during pregnancy, plus the major loss of blood after birth- there’s no way my body could produce anything. My teeth were crumbling, horrible cavities everywhere. I was very much against infant formula but I had no other choice, so i started my son of Enfamil. He was colicky, constipated, constant projectile spit up, not sleeping well, and I was DEPRESSED. I was even having to use infant suppositories for him. This is NOT NORMAL!! No matter how common it is, it’s not normal…
I began reading a lot to try and help keep my mind off of the deep depression I was experiencing (Lack of sleep, stress of being a young new wife and mother, no family in the area, plus my very unhealthy and hormone depleted body). Then, one day I came across the book that I had placed on a shelf two years prior (The Maker’s Diet- a great book). When I started reading through some of the recipes, I noticed many of them were referencing this book called “Nourishing Traditions”. I went to Barnes and Noble and bought this book the same week. Instantly saw how informative it was and how packed with recipes! I love it!! It opened my life to a completely new way of thinking/eating/ living. One of the first recipes i came across was the infant formula recipe. I thanked God because I knew he led me there, as I had PRAYED and cried out to God to help me find some way to feed my baby, and in the midst of feeling like such a massive failure for not being able to nurse my son, I realized that God had used my dad to give me The Maker’s Diet, which I would pick up two years later out of desperation, which would in turn lead me to Nourishing Traditions… Long story short, I used the website provided in the book to scout out a source of raw milk locally, and within that week I found a raw milk cow share and signed up, and ordered all of the ingredients that I needed and started making my son’s formula. From the first feeding, he was a much happier baby! He stopped fussing so much, he started SLEEPING through the night, AND he was NEVER AGAIN constipated! His bowel movements turned to mustard yellow, seedy, soft just as they were when I was nursing him.
Fast forward to two years later and having completely embraced the Nourishing Traditions lifestyle, my husband and I decided to try for a second child. This pregnancy went much differently. I took care of myself, the nourishing traditions way. I drank superfood green smoothies every single day with home made raw milk kefir, ate healthy (not 100%, but I tried to give my body everything it needed!), plenty of butter and coconut oil and eggs, took whole food supplements and herbs instead of synthetic pharmaceutical prenatals, and never once saw a doctor- only my midwives who I had a home birth with. Gave birth to my 9lb 4oz 23″ long baby girl, ELEVEN days late (hey, she knew when she was ready!), at home with no medication, in an inflatable birthing pool. It was awesome. My milk came in within 2 days (holy heck did it come in!!), she never lost weight, she slept much better, was very alert and nursed very well, had no digestion issues and has always been SO HEALTHY! My son is very healthy too (thanks to being able to start making his formula at 6/7 weeks of age), but he did catch and still does tend to catch more illnesses than she ever has. I really do attribute this to the type of diet i ate while pregnant with her, versus the SAD (standard american diet) i ate while pregnant with him, as well as the first 6 weeks of powdered formula and the drug exposure he had during birth in the hospital….
ONE THING I have noticed that is astounding to me is the difference in their facial structures and teeth/jaw formation. After reading Weston Price’s “Nutrition and Physical Degeneration”, as well as Francis Pottenger’s “Pottenger’s Cats”, it makes sense to me why this is so. My little girl has such a beautiful and wide jaw, with perfectly straight and spaced teeth which i know will allow for her permanents to grow in without crowding, while my son has very crowded teeth and a more narrow jaw and has already had cavities while my daughter has had ZERO. (SEE PICS!)
It really does make a difference what you eat before conception, during pregnancy, and what you feed your child.. (Btw, I supplemented with WAP homemade formula and eventually switched her to it completely when I decided to quit nursing- don’t judge me)
I’m not saying everything in this book is completely 100% for everyone, but it worked for me and my babies. All of the information also led me into a completely different life as far as nutrition and eating. I try to stay away from grains completely these days as I have some long standing digestive issues, but if I do have them I believe they are best soaked or sprouted like this book says. Also, try sprouted nuts- SO DELICIOUS and so much better for you than roasted or even raw. Lots of good recipes in the book, and you’ll get a ton of practice in the cooking and preparing of different foos. If nothing else, get it for the baby formula recipe and information pertaining to childhood nutrition. My favorite and most used part of the recipes in this book are the fermented foods and dairy.