CALLOUS DISREGARD
I am alarmed by the callous disregard shown by some in the media and the general public toward parents who choose to opt out of vaccines. A few years ago, on behalf of the Weston A. Price Foundation, I attended a Canary Party conference and met numerous parents of vaccine-injured children. It was very eye opening. Compelling evidence was presented at the conference of the link between vaccine injury and the onset of autism by Mark Blaxill and Dan Olmsted, the authors of The Age of Autism. These two researchers, one whose child is autistic, have also discovered the role that pesticides are playing in the ill health of our nation’s children (see ageofautism.com).
My husband and I have no children. Yet meeting these parents who saw their children literally descend into autism after receiving their shots put me firmly in the camp of the vaccine-wary. I support wholeheartedly any parent’s or adult’s decision to shun vaccines and seek other ways to build immunity. Some may choose to slow down the vaccine schedule or be more selective among vaccine choices. We must respect the patient’s wishes.
I have since learned that even some adult vaccines have toxins and dangerous ingredients like mercury, and I will read the package inserts in the future. The derision of “anti-vaxxers” shows incredible insensitivity on the part of those hurling the insults. Many such parents have already experienced an adverse reaction to shots and have good reason to resist further harm.
We are a nation where a baby who falls into a well creates a national uproar and garners our collective kindness until the child is rescued and safe. Yet, in the case of vaccines, we are saddling some families with unbelievable sorrows for the “greater good,” and then insulting anyone smart enough not to blindly submit.
Kimberly Hartke, Publicist
The Weston A. Price Foundation
Reston, Virginia
BRILLIANT ISSUE
This latest issue of Wise Traditions was even more brilliant than usual. No one is speaking about the vaccine issue in the way that WAPF is. Dr. Malcolm Kendrick noted in his latest book, Doctoring Data, there are two topics that no one dares talk about. One is the idea that vaccines may harm and the other is that HIV may not lead to AIDS.
Are there any plans to put some of the information on open view so that I can tweet it/send people there? If not, please, would it be possible to buy additional back issues as I would like to send Malcolm one and also a TV producer I know who is interested in the vaccine taboo?
Zoe Harcombe
Gwent, UK
Editors’ Response: All the articles from the vaccine issue are now posted at westonaprice.org/vaccinations/, along with a great video on vaccination dangers. Copies of the vaccination issue can be ordered from our Order Page, or by calling (202) 363-4395.
PARENS PATRAE?
The Summer 2015 article on parens patriae is the first article to appear in Wise Traditions that is not a credit to the WAPF.
I first encountered the strawman theory about twenty years ago in conjunction with the redemption movement. It has no legal standing and cannot possibly serve the best interests of parents seeking to protect their children from vaccinations. The idea of serving a vaccination notice on a school administrator requiring they assume liability for injury or illness arising from vaccination is interesting, but perhaps pointless. No school employee or any public official would be allowed to sign such a notice. Birth certificates are not a device of conspiracy.
The point that public health departments, the CDC, and the state are all corporations is an element of legal theory which differentiates between natural persons (human beings) and corporate (or juridical) persons (organizations). This distinction is a part of common law that is now found in virtually every legal system. The distinction has no relevance to parental refusal to vaccinate.
The article claims that “vaccine requestors intentionally withhold the vaccine package insert thus denying . . . real information about the health risks.” This seems to imply such a package insert would be accurate and that a parent would be able to refuse vaccination based on the documented risk. Both are unlikely. The whole point of parens patriae is that the state can decide that the actual risk of vaccination to the individual is outweighed by the imagined risk of non-vaccination to the state. This is the only useful message in the entire article.
Ultimately, the article is a mishmash of theories presented as facts and facts presented as conspiracies. I find no logical argument. My thumb is down.
Susan J. Dorey
Sonoma, California
PARENS PATRIAE RESPONSE
Thanks for sharing the really important information we put together about parens patriae with your readers (Summer 2015). It is time we take a close look at vaccine mandates and requirements and question the authority of the state to force these toxic substances on us and/or our sons and daughters.
Regarding the above letter, I must say that I disagree. I have no clue what information the responder received twenty years ago about the strawman. We’ve posted nothing about the “redemption movement,” nor do we promote it. Those who wish to research the history of the creation of the strawman, can read Proof That There is a Strawman (anticorruptionsociety.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/strawman.pdf). They can also read attorney Melvin Stamper’s book Fruit from a Poisonous Tree or read The UCC and You. (anticorruptionsociety.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/ucc-and-you.pdf).
I personally recommend the fabulous documentary, Strawman: The Nature of the Cage (2015) (youtube.com/watch?v=7sArXw6ajNg).
The Vaccination Notice (information about the notice can be viewed here: parentsagainstmandatoryvaccinesdotnet.wordpress.com/the-vaccinationnotice/) does not require (nor request) a signature. It is merely a notice from the mother or father to the school district. It essentially represents conditional compliance and notifies the school’s attorney that neither the mother nor the father is consenting to accept the liability for harm or injury to their progeny the vaccine might cause. No institution can force any man or woman to accept the liability for an unwarranted pharmaceutical product.
As for birth certificates, who said anything about conspiracy? Birth certificates are created by and owned by the state. The birth certificate is the state’s possession, our sons and daughters are not. See Who owns our children (parentsagainstmandatoryvaccinesdotnet.wordpress.com/2015/07/30/who-owns-our-children/).
Regarding the premise that the law distinguishes between persons and corporations, this is an element of commercial (UCC) law, not common law. It is true that the Uniform Commercial Code has constituted all our state laws since the 1960s.
The state of California’s SB 277 (regarding the discontinuance of vaccination exemptions) says verbatim: “Existing law prohibits the governing authority of a school or other institution from unconditionally admitting any person as a pupil . . .” The state of California’s statutory code defines “person”: “Person” includes any person, firm, association, organization, partnership, limited liability company, business trust, corporation, or company.” See for yourself: leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=gov&group=00001-01000&file=1-26).
The distinction has everything to do with mothers and fathers complying with vaccine mandates. Hopefully everyone can see that rules for nonliving legal constructs (fictions) cannot be applied to living humans . . . unless we are fooled into consenting. Surely it is obvious that small boys and girls are not the same as a “firm, association, organization, partnership, limited liability company, business trust, corporation, or company.”
This practice goes on across the country on a daily basis, according to my husband, a retired family practitioner. The refusal to vaccinate form now being deployed is more evidence that mothers and fathers are intentionally being deceived. See: parentsagainstmandatoryvaccinesdotnet.wordpress.com/2015/08/18/do-not-sign-the-refusal-to-vaccinate-form/.
Without the package insert the mother, father or employee is forced to rely on the CDC information sheet, which is nothing more than a sales pitch. Without the package insert there is no informed consent and the mother, father or employee is presumed to have consented and to have been willing to accept the liability. Therefore his or her objection must be stated in writing—for the record—to nullify this presumption. Again, unless you “refuse the liability” it is “presumed that you accept it.”
What is the legal definition of “individual”—individual what? The state is merely a corporate construct (like the “person”) and as such has no authority to require men, women and their progeny to do anything . . . without their consent, which we are tricked into giving. The notice is designed to put our denial of consent in writing—for the record. Without it our consent is presumed.
The author of this letter is entitled to her uninformed opinion. The bottom line: mandatory vaccination statutes only apply to legal fictions, not to flesh and blood men and women and their sons and daughters . . . unless we consent!
AL Whitney, Editor and Founder
Parents Against Mandatory Vaccines
JUST A LITTLE PINCH
I am a member and respect your organization. I have a seven-month-old daughter, and my husband and I are not giving her any vaccinations. I received a postcard from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Rhode Island (where we live) that disturbed me. I wanted to see if you knew that they send these notices to parents. The language it used was clearly misleading and targeted at parents with little education or understanding of the risks involved with vaccines.
It read: “It may be time for your child’s next checkup. At this checkup (called a well visit), your baby will receive important shots called vaccinations. These vaccinations are just a little pinch—and they can help protect your baby from serious diseases. Children need to get these shots at certain ages for the vaccines to work best. Talk to your child’s doctor to make sure your baby receives all his or her shots” (italics added).
Can we do something about this? Parents should be receiving something much less biased! And without manipulation and fear tactics involved. Thank you for all the work you do,
Kate Roberts
North Kingstown, Rhode Island
ONE FAMILY’S EXPERIENCE
I would like to write about my family´s experience with vaccination. The story begins in 1931. My grandparents had six children, born between 1925 and 1937. During a vaccination drive in 1931 my grandmother voiced concern, because my aunt, then three years old, had a bad cold. Up to that point she was a normal beautiful young girl. The doctor dismissed my grandmother’s concern and vaccinated anyway.
The very next day my aunt started clenching her right arm to her chest, the vaccinated one. She would hold it close to her chest until her death at age seventy-eight. Unfortunately that was not all. She soon started favoring her leg on that side as well. My grandparents were very concerned. They took her to the doctor who had vaccinated her who immediately told them it had nothing to do with the vaccination and it would probably pass.
Alas, my poor aunt became a hemiplegic, with her right side crippled. She never had full use of her hand, she needed special shoes, and unfortunately she was brain damaged as well. She could never learn to read or write or tell time.
No doctor could help her. My grandparents looked after her and after they passed, my parents took on the task of caring for her. To this day I´m still appalled how harm is done with impunity and without remorse.
I´m more appalled that my parents allowed us to be vaccinated, since I unfortunately became encephalitic after a vaccination and am very lucky to have recovered, due to my grandfather’s quick reaction when I uncharacteristically lay down in the middle of the day and started rolling my eyes to the back of my head.
I´m still appalled at myself for getting vaccinated for tetanus as an adult, only because my doctor suggested it. That was thirteen years ago. No more vaccinations for me and mine. They are far too dangerous, and if you´re one of the unlucky ones to suffer serious side effects all the burden is on you and yours, for life. And it can be a very long life. The responsible party has impunity and no remorse.
Anita Reusch, chapter leader
Eifel, Germany
VITAMIN D LEVELS
I wanted to respond to people not having their serum vitamin D raised by fermented cod liver oil. A blog post suggests that this may be due to a fat absorption issue.
According to the blog, “I can say the same for myself and my husband—low D levels, even though we were also taking 5000 IUs of vitamin D along with the fermented cod liver oil. This caused me to question, was it the FCLO-vitamin D, or was it my body’s inability to absorb it? So I added bile salts to help emulsify the fat to absorb better. Tested again in six months and my husband’s D went from nineteen to forty-nine and mine went from thirty-three to eighty-three.”
It seems like a general rule for many deficiency diseases like tooth decay and gum disease that before the body really starts breaking down, the person loses his ability to digest and metabolize food well. Think also of Dr. Kelly’s cancer treatments that use enzymes. Another example is that one historical gum disease remedy was thyroid glandular supplement and ox bile.
Rami Nagiel
Montpelier, Vermont
Editor’s Response: Rami is the author of Cure Tooth Decay and Cure Gum Disease (reviewed on page 86).
NIGHTSHADE INTOLERANCE
I have recently turned forty. Since my late teens I have experienced almost daily headaches, mental fogginess, fatigue, back and neck pain, muscle soreness, joint stiffness, and joint cracking. I have generally put it down to back trouble, as it seems that when my back and neck are sore, I get headaches. Some days it’s bad and some days not so bad, but some days it becomes absolutely debilitating. As a result, I have tried virtually everything there is to remedy this—chiro, osteo, physio, Chinese medicine, massage, acupuncture, cupping, Bowen therapy, naturopathy, micro-current therapy, strength training, yoga—the list goes on. I knew that I couldn’t take painkillers all the time, and so generally limited myself to no more than three per week.
In 2014 I decided to focus on diet. I started with keeping a food-and-symptom diary, which narrowed down a list of foods that seemed to exacerbate my symptoms twenty-four to forty-eight hours later. I did a complete water fast for five days and then a strict reintroduction diet (mostly focusing on food allergies as I had never really considered, or heard of, nightshades). I eventually short-listed a number of foods that seemed to be the culprits—tomato, chili, capsicum, paprika, egg plant (aubergine), potato, chocolate, coffee. For eighteen months I stayed off these foods and my symptoms mostly went away—never fully, but enough that it completely changed my life. Sometimes though my love of chili won over my desire to be headache-free, and I’d give it a go. The headache came straight back.
So, research showed me that I had a nightshade intolerance. That seemed to be the answer that most fit the situation, but I wasn’t content with that. I had formerly been a big eater of the foods in this family, and I missed them a lot. I couldn’t accept the premise that there was just “no reason” for me being intolerant of these foods, so I kept digging. Eventually I stumbled across Garrett Smith’s article for WAPF on nightshades and, after having read about his “experiment,” I decided to try it on myself.
So it seems that solanine (alkaloid) is in the same family of chemicals as nicotine (I haven’t smoked since I was a teenager—it used to make me sick), theobromine (a chemical in chocolate known to trigger headaches in some people), and caffeine (also known to trigger headaches).
I had already gotten rid of my headaches by staying off the alkaloid-containing foods, but by taking vitamin K, I found that I can eat nightshades without any problem. I am theorizing at this point that there is a relationship between consumption of alkaloids, low vitamin K levels (causing excessive serum calcium), and calcification of the soft tissue (thereby causing pain in the muscles and joints). I have always spent a lot of time outdoors in the sun, and my vitamin D levels have always been in the healthy range. I have also always been a big consumer of dairy and leafy greens, and therefore have tested with normal calcium levels.
My assumption at this stage is that the calcium gets out of the bowel and into the blood (with adequate D), but cannot get from the blood to the bones (due to low vitamin K) and therefore accumulates in the soft tissues. Since adding vitamin K supplements (MK-7) I find that I can eat alkaloids without any issues. I still have an underlying muscular stiffness, but my theory is that somehow I need to get the excess calcium “out” of my muscles and back into my blood, so that it can be absorbed into my bones. I am planning on getting a massage (hey, it can’t hurt, right?), and dosing up on the vitamin K before and after to accelerate the calcium reabsorption into my bones, and hopefully keep it out of my soft tissue.
Ross Cameron
Melbourne, Australia
ECZEMA CURED
When my fourth child was two months old, he was plagued with severe eczema from head to toe. He spent two hours every night scratching. I had to pin him to my body to get him to stop scratching and go back to sleep. We tried everything you can imagine until we reluctantly put him on Zyrtec twice a day and steroid cream. The eczema was subdued for sure, but as soon as I did not put on the cream, or give him his meds, it flared.
It was not until my friend Kristin Canty said I should get him on raw milk that he got relief. We also gave him fermented cod liver oil and high-vitamin butter oil, and within months he was completely cured. He is almost nine years old now and not only living without eczema but also without the asthma and allergies that most of the docs told me he would have, as they run hand in hand with eczema.
Our entire family of five kids and two adults has been on raw milk and FCLO/HVBO pretty consistently for the past eight years, depending on the season. We tend to cut back when the sun is nice and strong and kids are outside.
I credit the Weston A. Price Foundation for changing the way we think about food and the health of our family. I feel blessed to have learned about such an organization, one constantly seeking to empower people to take control of their own health, support the farmers doing things right and prepare traditional foods that have been supporting thriving communities across the globe for thousands of years.
Hilary Boynton
Venice, California
GLARING OMISSION
We love the quarterly journal and very much look forward to reading it from cover to cover as soon as we receive it. They are such a wealth of great information, and we keep them as part of our health library.
While I always enjoy reading Sylvia Onusic’s articles, I have to make a comment about her article, “Great Pioneers in Nutrition in the Twentieth Century.” I thought the omission of Dr. Royal Lee was an incredibly glaring omission! Dr. Lee and Dr. Price were basically colleagues (both dentists) and knew and supported each other’s work. Dr. Lee was a genius and prolific inventor and nutritional pioneer. Anyone who loves his Vitamix machine can be thankful to him, because he invented the variable speed motor that powers them (one of just many inventions we benefit from today).
Like Dr. Price, Dr. Lee believed that good nutrition was the key to good health. He discovered protomorphogens and cytosol extracts. He “named” autoimmunity (didn’t call it that, but described it in its current definition) before it was formally recognized; for that he was written off as a quack. Dr. Lee endured horrific persecution at the hands of the FDA and other federal agencies. He was so far ahead of his time and like Dr. Price, his work is consistently validated with modern science.
He died in his late seventies and most believe he basically died of a broken heart from having to endure the ongoing stress of defending his work. I believe his wife, however, lived to be one hundred four. I realize he founded Standard Process and WAPF does not want to promote specific products, but he did so much more than that and his legacy is more than worthy of a big mention in an article such as this.
Julie Martin, RN, BSN, ACN
Henderson, Nevada
Editor’s Response: Thank you for taking us to task. We will put an article on Dr. Lee on our list for a future issue of Wise Traditions.
GMOs IN SOUTH AFRICA
I have been most involved with protests against GMO technologies and Monsanto in the last month or two here in Cape Town, South Africa.
Africa and South Africa are being targeted by these bio-tech companies as they are selling the people the fraudulent premise that they alone can feed Africa.
Fortunately, various influential people, including the South African Natural Health Alliance and the Traditional Healers Organization, who hold much sway amongst our government and black communities, have recently realized the dangers of GMO and are getting involved in our protests.
A new group to lead the struggle toward proper food sovereignty is now being formed here. . . and because of the speech I delivered at the protest many people are wanting me to take the lead as chairperson.
I know this is an international struggle and the WAPF are leaders in this. I want to know if it is possible to link with organizations like WAPF, the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, and Dr. Mercola, and if you all might offer us support in any way. You all have the experience and the know-how when it comes to this struggle. Your counsel could be invaluable to our African struggle and I feel there is no need to re-invent the wheel.
Pierre Morton
Cape Town, South Africa
FEEDLOT FILTH
My husband and I just returned from Santa Fe, New Mexico. We live in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area and drove to our destination. We have traveled this route many times previously but there is one section that has become progressively more difficult to travel through—Wilderado, Texas, home to the largest feedlot I have ever seen. The stench from the lot is experienced well in advance of seeing it, probably by at least a couple of miles.
The question that continues to run through my mind is how in the world can this possibly be legal? These animals are clearly standing on top of each other and in their feces and appear to be coated in it as well. Not a stitch of grass to be seen anywhere. I can’t shake the visual or stop wondering how awful this must be for the animals.
I am struggling with what I can possibly do to have a positive impact. I am not sure where to start or what to do, so for now I am just communicating my experience and thoughts. If you have any suggestions for what action I may be able to take I am all ears.
Karen McFarland, NTP
Mansfield, Texas
EARTHING FOR EMR SENSITIVITY
I was inspired to write after reading “How Dangerous and Expensive Became ‘Smart’: an Exposé of the ‘Smart Grid’” by Amy Worthington (Winter 2014). The story of the disastrous impact on Sandi Aders and her husband prompted me to offer some information that may help. A story of a man who developed debilitating sensitivity to EMR and how he recovered is included in a book called Earthing: The most important health discovery ever! by Clinton Ober, Stephen T. Sinatra, MD, and Martin Zucker. You can buy this book from barefoothealing.com.au and there are sure to be U.S. websites for this great stuff too. There is also plenty about protecting yourself from EMR by “earthing” on YouTube by David Wolfe and others.
Rebecca South
Darkan, Australia
OLD STYLE MEAT
This story goes back more than thirty-five years, to the dark ages before the Internet and online courses, when college students physically attended classes. My meat science instructor and the animal science instructors used to speak of the decrease in hang time for the meats so as to get them more quickly to the cutting room and out the door, cutting down on overhead. The instructors said some items were better when fresh, like liver. They compared the hang time of some old-style markets in the delivery of meats to the masses then and now. Faster was great for getting fresh meat to the table, but almost every one of the instructors talked about aging their own beef for twenty-one to thirty-six days. Some even hung it old style and let it get good and green before taking some of the cuts off beef, elk and bison. (Deer, sheep, and goats were not hung to age as long.) One of our professors liked his rabbits to age a week or so in the refrigerator before he consumed them. The poultry specialist talked of hanging the pheasants, turkeys, quail, and chicken so that they were consumed not only fresh but also aged.
Some of our instructors liked the old hens because they had more flavor. One teacher said chicken soup made from an older, aged chicken is better than a fresh young bird.
Two old professors from the poultry sciences departments made important discoveries showing that small things matter in feeds and feeding. They said people should eat not just young tender meat, but old aged meat as well. They were concerned because people had stopped eating old chewy meats after World War II, and because meat is no longer allowed to hang and age. They said some of the best meat was going into dog food: livers, pancreases, thalamus glands, hearts, kidneys, and meat of older animals. Older livestock have more connective tissue and more gristle, which are harder to chew and must be cooked so as to release the bonds and get the most out of the foods.
Therefore in our family we have tried to raise or purchase grass-fed meat with the option of eating corn, oats and or barley to finish—and nuts to finish the pork if we can find a source of shells and nut culls.
We always had stew cows that we canned or fermented, even ground into other batches of meats to add full flavor. This old meat gave flavor. The age of cattle going to market is no longer three to six years old, but twenty-two to thirty months. They allow lambs to get older by two to three months but two- to three-year-old wethers are tasty when cooked properly. Stew pots of old hens as well as cull roosters were once welcome sights to our home cooks.
Now the average cook has no idea what to do with a whole chicken, let alone an old tough bird.
My husband’s family came over only two generations ago from Portugal and the other side were from the southern Gulf states. Each of his grandparents cooked ducks, geese, and pheasants along with goats, deer, and other wildlife to stretch the beef or fresh chicken. We have largely lost access to meats allowed to hang for more than a few days or under gasses that make the meat relax quickly, or injected with sugar and salt to give the meat flavor. I think your research has not been on the age of the animal used or the length of time left to hang beyond corning the beef or special sausages. Dry aged at times is also a missing part of the healthy diet.
Robin Machado, BS, OSU
Lebanon, Oregon
FREE DEER BONES
I would like to share with you information on the free deer bones that can be used to make bone broth. I happened to learn about this bounty in 2014, and have made numerous delicious batches of deer bone broth that I have frozen. My family continues to enjoy the broth each day and we are immensely grateful for this resource.
Here is what I have learned: many hunters bring their kills to processing shops to be butchered. Only the meat is prized, so bones are routinely thrown away. I befriended several deer processors near where I live and asked for the bones before they go to the dumpster. To find locations and names of deer processors, I searched the web for the Department of Natural Resources and Environment Control – DNREC (different states might have different names).
In Delaware, there is a program called “Hunters Feed the Hungry” that the DNREC coordinates. Hunters who want to donate their harvest bring it to a deer processor to be butchered. The meat is packaged and donated to the needy. A non-profit, nationwide program exists called “Farmers, Hunters, Feed the Hungry,” whose mission is also to feed the hungry. On their website (fhfh.org), many chapters are listed under each state. I think one can find deer bones through either of these programs.
Practically all bones are tossed out. I have brought home huge bags of legs, ribs, heads, necks and feet. It was through WAPF that I have learned to appreciate all parts of the animal.
Different processing shops have different butchering procedures. At my favorite place, the processor skins the animal; the head is cut off and tossed out. I wanted the head, so I paid him a nominal fee to skin the head for me. So far I have cooked the whole head as is. Someday I will figure out how to get to the brain so I can cook it separately! The feet are also cut off at the ankle, with the cute little hooves still attached. I also paid a nominal fee to have the feet skinned. The neck is full of meat and bones, but it’s also targeted for the dumpster. I took the neck and made mock osso buco with it. The neck gave me an esophagus and trachea. Thus, with several trachea, I made trachea broth. Why not? Dr. Prudden cured many illnesses with bovine tracheal cartilage supplement.
I have brought the deer bones to an organization that feeds the homeless. Some of the staff understood the value of bones, but others outright refused to accept them. I am now looking for other ways to bring this nutritious food to the hungry. I am thinking of getting the bones to food banks that have a freezer to store bones.
The deer hunting season is from early September through January. My deer processing friend told me that at the beginning of the hunting season an average of six to seven deer come to his shop each day. I would love to see this resource nourish us rather than go to waste.
Minh-Nhat Tran
Wilmington, Delaware
LARD AND LONG LIFE
Greetings from Bogota where I am visiting relatives. Many people here have told me their grandpas lived to be one hundred and ate lard and other fatty animal products. But here in Bogota with a population of around eight million it is almost impossible to find lard in the markets. Very few people use it these days. Grocery stores look like stores in the U.S., with lots of processed foods made in Colombia or imported from the USA. Coconut oil is very rare, but I finally found a place that sells 450 grams for a whopping twenty-five dollars, yet there are many coconut palms all over Colombia.
Raw milk is gaining a few adepts north of Bogota where the dairy industry thrives. Small farms are selling small amounts of raw milk to peasants and a few city people who know its value. Here in Colombia most beef is pasture-fed so I take advantage of it.
In the Amazon nowadays many Indians are fat, eating modern oils instead of animal fats from tapirs, monkeys, etc. They also eat lots of rice, potatoes, yucca and pasta.
My grandpa died at one hundred four, eating twelve eggs a day and butter and lard. Today, Colombians shy away from fatty meats, yet they consume canola, corn, soy and many vegetable oils. Obesity and heart problems are going through the roof all over Latin America, and Mexico has surpassed the U.S. as the fattest country on earth. Doctors here in Colombia are as useless as conventional doctors in the U.S. They only know how to give prescription drugs.
I would love to see a meeting like the ones you have done in Europe here in Colombia someday. WAPF should go global and mainstream to complete Weston’s dream.
Andres Jara
Bogota, Colombia
VINEGAR FOR CHICKENS AND COWS
I want to share the information I got out of an awesome little book called Folk Medicine by Dr. D.C. Jarvis, which talks about his experiments with chickens on vinegar and milk cows on vinegar. I put my chickens on apple cider vinegar plus water and they grew really fast and got strong and feathered out well. They were less sensitive to the cold because they feathered out faster. They were laying by the time they were six months old. None of the other cages were even close to the maturity of my hens.
I have saved several hens and roosters by putting them on straight five percent apple cider vinegar. I had a rooster that got down. I secluded him and put him on straight five percent vinegar, even putting it down his throat with a medicine dropper. He came back very strong, ornery as ever.
Dr. Jarvis said that dairy cows would have little incidence of mastitis or milk fever if they are given vinegar every day. So when I got my cow, I immediately started giving her vinegar on her hay and feed. I’m going through a gallon of vinegar about every two days, but her milk is so sweet! And she had her calf very easily— carried him to full term and he was on his feet so quick and running and jumping. She never had a hint of milk fever or mastitis.
Anita Leonard
Meadville, Mississippi
DONKEY MILK
I would like to be added to your list of suppliers of donkey milk in the United States. We discovered donkey milk when we were battling our daughter’s autoimmune disease, PANDAS. She got strep throat and her immune system attacked her brain. Overnight, we “lost” her to this awful disease. It wasn’t until she started drinking donkey milk, months after the onset of the illness, that she said “I love you, Daddy” for the first time.
We have just started our herd of mammoth donkeys, and two are due to foal any day. We should have enough milk to sell as well as provide our daughter with what she needs to stay healthy, and hope to increase our herd. You can read our story with donkey milk for PANDAS autoimmune disease here: buttercupfarm.wordpress.com.
Thanks so much for your amazing website. We love our raw milk!
Saundra Traywick
Midwest City, Oklahoma
BONE BROTH FOR PETS
I was a trauma and couple therapist in private practice for over a decade and have in recent years become a career counselor specializing in people under thirty.
I know that what you are saying about real food and the wisdom of older generations is true, because I healed my elderly dog’s arthritis by giving her bone broth daily. After four days she was able to run, sit straight up on her haunches, jump up onto the couch or bed, etc. My very skeptical husband was amazed.
We had tried oral glucosamine, chondroitin and acupuncture. It was absolutely the broth that made the difference. I share this knowledge with everyone—when I am in line at the grocery store and people ask what I am doing with all those bones, when people tell me about their dog’s or their own arthritis, etc.
I am very moved and saddened by the photos of primitive youth versus Western diet youth. I wonder whether that is why “heroin chic” has become the look for fashion house ad campaigns—to make unhealthy appear normal and preferred.
I would love to inform my clients and listeners in general about how natural foods can improve health issues for people their age, such as ADD, fertility, heartburn, asthma, allergies, weight, PMS, diabetes, skin issues, depression and anxiety.
I am shocked by how many people, including young people, are medicated for things that could be improved or even eliminated with high quality food. My clients are not able to think or perform optimally and are even making employment and life decisions based upon health insurance and drug plans. It is sad to see them encumbered by health issues that should be reserved for much later in life, if ever.
My website address is YourUltimateGuidanceCounselor.com, and my podcast series is called, “Don’t be a Dogsbody.”
Thank you for your hard work and candid, thoroughly researched information.
Jenaya Van Horn, MA
Seattle, Washington
CALCIUM AND BREAST CANCER
I think there is a mistake in this article on liver detoxification, westonaprice.org/health-topics/health-issues/liver-detoxification-starve-or-nourish/. The gist of it is true: food sources are better than supplements. However, the idea that calcium prevents breast cancer is wrong. In fact, calcium inhibits iodine uptake, and iodine prevents breast cancer.
André Voisin found long ago that people eating food from areas with high calcium soil had more cancer, and this has been confirmed by more recent research.
According to the article: “The same ‘supplement charade’ is true of calcium. Calcium glucarate is helpful in the stage two part of the detoxification process, specifically, in the glucuronidation stage where toxins are bound to water substances such as bile so that they can be removed. Raw milk and raw milk products are our best sources of usable calcium.”
Articles on calcium glucarate show that it’s not the calcium that is active, but the glucarate. Here is an article on calcium-d-glucarate that explains: examine.com/supplements/Calcium-DGlucarate/.
So I thought you might want to edit that comment slightly so people don’t think getting lots of calcium in the diet will prevent cancer. It’s good to get lots of calcium, but important to get plenty of iodine, also. It’s a balance thing, like the fat soluble vitamins.
Thank you for your good work! The WAPF and the easy access it provides to the best nutritional information have saved my life and helped my grandchildren grow stronger every day.
Maria Minno
Gainesville, Florida
MAGNESIUM FOR MUSCLE STIFFNESS
In the letter from Niel G. Hilford, PhD, of New Zealand titled “Milk Problems?” (Spring 2015), Dr. Hilford stated that he suffered muscle soreness and stiffness following exercise when he was consuming over 700 ml of milk daily and supplementing with molasses. After reading “Death by Calcium,” Dr. Hilford abandoned the daily consumption of milk and molasses and his muscle stiffness disappeared.
In response to the letter, the editor suggested that Dr. Hilford may be among those unable to tolerate milk. While this certainly may be the case, there are two other possible explanations for the muscle soreness Dr. Hilford suffered: (1) magnesium deficiency resulting from consumption of a large quantity of milk, which is high in calcium and low in magnesium, (2) iron overload (and maybe sugar overload) from molasses.
The article “Magnificent Magnesium,” (Fall 2010), lists forty adverse effects of magnesium deficiency, including muscle cramping, weakness, fatigue, and arthritis. Katherine Czapp, the author, states: “Both calcium and magnesium are necessary for the healthy body— in proper balance to one another…. Considered biochemical antagonists, one cannot act without eliciting the opposite reaction of the other. Yet calcium and magnesium must both be present in balanced amounts for either one to function normally in the body. Some researchers suggest that the healthy ratio of calcium to magnesium in the diet should be 2:1.”
The calcium/magnesium ratio is about ten to one in milk and seventeen to one in cheese, so consuming a lot of milk or cheese results in a high dietary calcium-to-magnesium ratio. Magnesium (Mg) and calcium (Ca) antagonize each other in (re)absorption. The absorbed number of Ca or Mg depends on the dietary ratio of Ca to Mg intake. (PMID: 23430595) In other words, an increased calcium-to-magnesium ratio causes increased absorption of calcium and decreased absorption of magnesium, which results in an absorbed calcium-to-magnesium ratio that is greater than the dietary calcium-to-magnesium ratio. The 700 ml of milk consumed by Dr. Hilford contained about 900 mg calcium and 100 mg magnesium and was therefore “short” 350 mg of magnesium based on the suggested healthy calcium to magnesium ratio of 2:1. It is possible that the symptoms suffered by Dr. Hilford were caused by magnesium deficiency due to consuming a lot of calcium in milk without adequate magnesium.
The other possibility is iron overload from molasses: Molasses contains approximately equal amounts of calcium and magnesium and therefore improves the calcium-to-magnesium balance. However, molasses has a high iron content which can result in iron overload that may cause iron accumulation in joints which can be painful. The accumulation of iron with increasing age is a common problem for men in the Western world.
Jack Cameron
Fairhope, Alabama
LIFE COMPLETELY CHANGED
Thanks to WAPF, my husband and I not only changed our diet, we sold all our city properties and business, and bought a farm to produce the food we could not buy.
After careful planning and preparation, I now have a very healthy seven-month-old boy, Jasper. He has already advanced from crawling and now has started to stand, trying to walk. This strength is exceptional. During pregnancy, I drank ten pints of raw milk a week along with one dozen raw oysters per week plus eggs and bacon for breakfast and cod liver oil.
I have gently converted my family—there are eight children, all adults now. I have totally embraced the farm and sell my produce to friends and family. We have built a cellar (for food) and a special food prep shed to our one-acre small-scale organic market garden. This I am using to bring people in for preparing their food and preserving it via lacto-fermentation. I make lots of cheese and butter and hope to make salami and cured meats and lots and lots of bacon.
People get excited when I invite them to be a part of these food days because they are so disconnected from food that it’s almost a new thing. Brigid & John Kennedy
Kardella, VIC, Australia
THE PURPOSE OF MENOPAUSE
The article “Wise Choices, Healthy Bodies” (Winter, 2000), contains some very wise words about menopause: “. . . this is nature’s way of equipping the female sex for her new role as forager, worker and sage. Like the male youth of eighteen, she experiences hotbloodedness, signaled by hot flashes, as she prepares for a lustier life than the cloistered one she led as a mother of small children. If she falls for the promises of the estrogen-peddlers, she inhibits the forces that push her into the role of activist and extrovert and throws cold water on the fire that her hormones have set to pry her out of her nest and into the brave new world of adventure and challenge.”
“By conferring on women the gift of menopause, nature informs us that mothers of small children need help. They cannot do it all, not in primitive societies, much less in the modern age. The pressures for young women to be both wage-earner and mother can place enormous stress on our bodies at just the stage when our strength is needed for the production and care of healthy children. That stress often leads to disease.”
Holy cow, that is what I experienced and that is what I am doing! During the last few years I slowly started to turn into a social activist, but in the last year, in the final year of my periods, I turned into a work activist, which for me is an about-face after a lifetime of toeing the corporate line, in a highly hierarchical, stiff-upper-lip type of environment; and I provide help (and farm foods) to women and families with little children who have a hard time doing it themselves. I am acting out of character for me—and I love it! All of a sudden it feels like health, life and time are stretched out before me, as they never were before. Women I know who are on HRT are suffering a lot physically (and therefore mentally). Thank you for that insight.
Sushama Gokhale
Larkspur, California
UNPRECEDENTED DEMAND
Seems like Canadian farmers are dumping fluid skim milk. According to news reports, “The immediate crisis is triggered by unprecedented demand for butter and cream, inadequate dairy processing capacity and flat demand for fluid milk…” [italics added].
We live in Oakville, near Toronto, and have weekly raw milk delivery of the most superb Jersey milk and cream—totally illegal, but passionate people will always prevail. Meanwhile our crazy industry here imposes 300 percent tariffs on all imported dairy (but not milk “ingredients”). Accordingly, this has led to rampant cross-border cheese smuggling (if you can believe), with most pizza in the Niagara region being made with smuggled U.S. cheese.
Andrew Garde
Oakville, Canada
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