Blog
Doing your bit for the Environment?
by Georgia Wingfield-Hayes
Part 2 of a 2 part series
Is eating meat, as we are told, bad for the environment? The quick answer is, there is no quick answer. Farming systems differ vastly in terms of carbon, biodiversity and animal welfare. So, let’s see if we can unpack this issue in brief.
When it comes to the meat, less is more. As we learned in Part 1, replacing intensively reared and highly processed meat with high quality, nutrient dense meats, from regenerative, organic and nature-based farming systems, means we don’t need as much animal protein to fulfil our dietary requirements. This forms part of the equation of regenerative living. So, what are the arguments that tell us that eating meat is an environmental no no.
Argument No 1. Land Use
Beef and lamb production occupy large areas of land that could otherwise be used for growing crops or rewilded. This seems like good sense, we can feed more people off less land with crops and rewilding should restore biodiversity. However, not all land is suitable for cropping and rewilding is a young science making some serious mistakes in not understanding the herbivore’s role in ecosystem restoration.
Meanwhile, let’s not forget that a certain amount of animal protein is essential to good health. There are no examples of vegan diets in indigenous cultures.
A macro-issue here is the linear nature of western thinking. X hectares of land could produce x amount more food if we grew crops not meat. But that thinking doesn’t ask what does x piece of land want to be? Can we foster a healthy ecosystem and fit our food systems into that? This non-linear, holistic thinking requires a lot more head scratching and acceptance that we never have all the answers, in a life-long apprenticeship to nature.
Are the former great plains of the USA more suited to crops or rewilding? Or could we use regenerative livestock farming to restore the health of the prairies? All is possible, it depends on what our imagination allows. One thing is for sure, rewilding such semi-arid lands without a healthy population of wild buffalo, elk and wolves, will see it turn to desert.
Herbivores are essential disruptors. Wild herbivores in the presence of predators will keep an ecosystem dynamic and soils healthy. In the absence of predators, disruption becomes excessive and causes degradation of land. In regenerative farming we aim to mimic a healthy level of disruption in order to rapidly regenerate the soils carbon, life and depth; grassland plant diversity and root depth. All of which massively improves soil water retention and the diversity of invertebrate, insect, small mammals and birds.
Upland Britain is not viable for crop production and overpopulation by deer prevents forest regeneration. We can fence off areas, plant trees and allow rewilding to occur, as is already being successfully done by organisations like Reforesting Scotland, however, in the long term, this rewilding will not create optimal biodiversity without a healthy balance of herbivores and predators (wolves, lynx and bears), in the mix. Without these the result will be closed canopy forest, with little in the way of grassland and wildflowers for pollinators.
Is it possible for us to move beyond the siloed thinking of either-or, food or rewilding, and see an integration of the two? We believe it is, what’s more we see this as crucial. Insect populations have crashed alarmingly in recent years; 60% or more in 20 years to be precise. While the finger rightly gets pointed at the use of pesticides in agriculture, we must also acknowledge that 97% of the UK’s species rich meadows have disappeared in the last 100 years. Wildflower meadows are an essential part of our landscape and can only be engineered by herbivores. Dung from these herbivores, is another essential element of a complex ecosystem, providing food and shelter to dung beetles and other microfauna and mycorrhizal networks, which help building soil carbon.
In 2016 the UN estimated that we have only 60 harvests left in our farmed soils, if we continue with current practices. So, rewilding vs cropping isn’t the question? Farmers shifting to regenerative arable systems are discovering that they require livestock – grazing herbal leys, as part of their arable rotation, in order to build fertility. Animals are essential to chemical free farming.
Argument No 2. Methane: Burps, farts and manure
The UN estimates that 14.5% of global carbon emissions come from livestock production. Here we need to go back to feedlots vs 100% grass-fed as spoken about in part 1. Feedlots mean large amounts of land gets used to grow grain, in order to feed cattle. The manure from these animals then has to be dealt with: spread back on land, piled up to decompose or put through a bio-digester where at least methane and other gases are harvested as fuel for other uses. Run off from effluent pollutes rivers and ground water. But none of these things are an issue in systems where animals are 100% grass-fed.
Three important things are consistently overlooked in the overall analysis of meat production and climate change:
- The most carbon rich soils are grassland soils.
- There is no upper limit to how much carbon can be sequestered in well managed pastures.
- A soil’s water holding capacity is a direct function of soil carbon.
The soil water infiltration rate of Gabe Brown’s ranch, pre-regenerative farming was 1/2 inch an hour. The rest ran off the land. Today that has increased to 8+ inches an hour. That water, held by soil carbon is part of the climate change debate that is overlooked at our peril. If we are going to cool the planet, we need soils that hold water, and soils covered by plants. Bringing trees into these pastures improves this picture still further.
The argument that cows produce methane and therefore, let’s get rid of the cows, is a perfect example of linear thinking getting us into trouble. The prairies of North America were home to 30-60 million buffalo before Europeans embarked on their slaughter. In Europe our landscapes were once a mosaic of woodland and pasture expertly engineered by deer, horses and bison in the presence of predators. The methane output of cattle is a problematic partial picture, we need to look at complete carbon equations for whole farming systems, alongside biodiversity, water, etc.
Tilled soils, for example, have half the carbon of an average productive pasture. Regeneratively farmed pastures, however, keep on sequestering carbon. There has to date been a gross underestimation of the carbon sink potential of pastures, which outstrip forests. On the regenerative farm, White Oak Pastures in Georgia, USA, they have shown that not only does the sequestration of carbon into their regen-soils balance the methane output of livestock, but in fact negates 85% of the farms total emissions.
Summing Up
While the finger is being pointed at meat, we miss the point that the way most food is farmed is causing a climate, environment and biodiversity catastrophe. All farming needs to change drastically for the sake of human health and the planet; and we need to stop seeing these two things as separate and understand that the health of the biosphere and the human body are one and the same. Macrocosm – microcosm.
Herbivores are essential for the rapid rebuilding of carbon rich soils. They are our best tool in the regeneration of complex and complete ecosystems from the ground up. To us here at Primal Meats, it makes sense for this regeneration to include food production. Keeping people in relationship with land and food providence. A world where land is either intensively cropped or rewilded, while people eat lab-grown meat, will not only be deeply spiritually impoverished, but the chronic health problems we are facing today will only get worse.
One final note. Food waste is still a big issue in the UK and one of the best ways to get around food waste is to buy food whilst it is still in the field. This is exactly what we do with Primal Steaks Club. You buy part of an animal, so that when it goes to slaughter, every bit is already destined for a customer. All fresh and no waste!
Referencess
Study: White Oak Pastures Beef Reduces Atmospheric Carbon
https://blog.whiteoakpastures.com/blog/carbon-negative-grassfed-beef
Soil Carbon Cowboys
https://savory.global/science_library/soil-carbon-cowboys
What’s your Beef
http://kinnebrookfarm.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/whatsyourbeef.pdf
Is Grass-Fed Beef Really Better For The Planet? Here’s The Science
Restoring the climate through capture and storage of soil carbon through holistic planned grazing
https://savory.global/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/restoring-the-climate.pdf
Eating Meat Is Bad for Climate Change, and Here Are All the Studies That Prove It
The fight to save vanishing wildflower meadows
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-61869167
UK’s flying insects have declined by 60% in 20 years
Methane Madness
The last few weeks have seen a fascinating public response to Arla Foods’ – a farmer-owned dairy cooperative—announcement that it is trialling the methane-suppressing feed additive Bovaer on 30 UK supplier farms.
The public pushback has been astonishing, with a mass boycott of Arla food products and a sudden raising of awareness of the issues.
For several years, I have been discussing the limitations and risks of a climate response that is so narrowly focused on Carbon (Methane is part of this ‘carbon tunnel vision’ as the gas is measured in carbon equivalents in climate models/calculations). I covered my concerns in this article last year.
In the article, I explore the risks of oversimplifying complex systems, particularly in relation to the functioning of our living planet. I draw attention to the dangers of focusing exclusively on a limited aspect of the intricate dynamics that make up our climate, especially considering that our scientific understanding of these systems is still in its infancy.
We covered this in some detail in this series of articles a few years ago.
When this partial understanding of how the planet works is then baked into policy and backed up with a new economic system, we have a serious problem. As we have seen, corporations and entrepreneurs will scramble to get to market with the next ‘solution’ that could change the world. Unfortunately, they are right. It could change the world, but not for the better if it is based on a faulty premise. We don’t need any more solutioneering; we need to address the multiple root causes of this complex problem.
The pushback against Arla has been largely attributed to a bunch of conspiracy theorists pedalling ‘misinformation’ on X. This assumption is yet more evidence that the industry is not grasping the mood of the Nation and their growing instincts that ‘the science’ (that is essentially conducted by the companies who are bringing the products to market and regulated by organisations with questionable ties to the industry) is perhaps not as robust as we would like!
The facts and details of what people are sharing might be incorrect, but the assumption that companies are spinning the climate narrative to benefit themselves is bang on. People are not stupid; they can spot that ‘big food’, ‘big agriculture’, ‘big pharma’, and now ‘big climate’ are embarking on a gaslighting exercise of the highest order.
Conversely, and equally as worrying, is the general public’s seemingly blind ignorance about how our food and farming systems currently work. Perhaps it is because I have been ranting about the state of our food system for nearly three decades, but it is astonishing to me that most people think that their 95p a pint supermarket milk comes from happy cows grazing peacefully in flower-rich meadows and that this new methane additive is messing with a pure unadulterated natural product!
It doesn’t take much digging to find out that this is not how most dairy farms manage their cattle, and there are some serious concerns about the ethics and environmental impact of high-production dairy farms. For those of us who have been buying and promoting organic and pasture-for-life products for a long time, this is incredibly frustrating to watch as it unfolds.
I hope the boycott of Arla milk will highlight the fabulous dairy farmers who do indeed rear their cattle in high-welfare, organic, and extensive pasture systems. Instead, it seems to be mostly driving supermarket buyers to switch their brands to other cheap supermarket milk that is anything but Arla! Ironically, some fabulous Arla farmers who run pasture-based organic systems will probably suffer from this boycott, too.
Of course, some excellent dairy farmers will be found amongst the huge dairy supply chains of the major supermarket milk suppliers. There will, however, be quite a number of large-housed dairy units where the cattle never graze in a field. These systems generally use highly concentrated feeds grown from ecologically degenerative arable systems. Such systems often have questionable ethical practices, such as calf separation at birth, an overreliance on antibiotics and fertility hormones, and cows being treated like production machines where yield is prioritised over metabolic health and longevity. For these housed systems where the cow is decoupled from the methane-oxidising grassland environment, you can see why there is a case to be made for the use of methane inhibitors!
Methane inhibitors are a mechanistic response to the mechanisation and decoupling of what should be a natural system: cows eating diverse pasture and producing nutrient-dense milk. Caroline Grindrod
But a better response, of course, and one I have committed my life’s work to support, is to buy our meat and milk from pasture-based, organic, and ideally regenerative systems. In these situations, the methane emitted is simply a natural part of the carbon cycle.
Primal Meats does not and will never sell meat from animals that have been fed methane inhibitors. Instead, we dedicate our climate response to promoting and supporting farming methods that achieve net zero by redesigning their systems to ones with minimal inputs and managing their land to sequester carbon, improve water cycles, and naturally oxidise methane.
Pasture for Life has posted its stance on the website, which I encourage you to read
And you can find a list of Pasture for Life certified dairy https://www.pastureforlife.org/where-to-buy/where-to-buy-dairy/
Patrick Holden the CEO of the Sustainable Food Trust has also written an excellent response to the Arla debacle.
8 hour Lamb/Hogget/Mutton shoulder
Ingredients:
- Whole shoulder of lamb/hogget/mutton
- carrots diced
- onions/shallots whole/quartered
- celery diced
- beetroot/parsnip/turnip as optional vegetables
- Dash of white wine
- lamb/vegetable stock
- salt and pepper for seasoning
- garlic
- rosemary
Recipe
Prepare the shoulder of lamb by inserting slices/chunks of garlic into the meat, seasoning with salt and pepper and covering with sprigs of rosemary. Fry gently in a crock pot/slow cooker pan to brown the meat. Remove meat from the pan and brown the vegetables of your choice which will make the gravy. Return the meat to the pan, add a splash of white wine (optional) and some lamb/vegetable stock to cover the vegetables. Place in the oven at a low temperature for 8 hours, basting the meat occasionally, or place in slow cooker until tender. Remove the meat which should simply fall off the bone. Use the vegetables to make the gravy – remove any excess fat and mash the vegetables in to the remaining juices – add additional water from the kettle or any vegetables you are cooking to go with your meal. So easy and absolutely delicious.
Beef Casserole
Ingredients:
- Beef short ribs/chuck/stewing beef/brisket
- Celery – chopped in chunks
- Shallots/onions – whole or quartered
- Carrots – chopped in chunks
- Bottle of red wine/beef stock
- Flour
- Herbs, salt and pepper
- Turmeric (optional)
- Garlic (optional)
- Oil/butter for frying
Recipe:
Roll the meat of your choice in seasoned flour (plain flour, mixed herbs, turmeric, salt and pepper) and gently fry to brown in the slow-cooker/crock pot. Remove from pan and fry the chopped vegetables to brown then add in any remaining seasoned flour to cook out (this is to thicken the sauce). Add the meat back into the pot and cover with a bottle of red wine and/or beef stock. Make sure that the liquid covers the contents of the pan. Bring to the boil and then put the slow cooker on and leave for 8 hours or so or until the meat is tender. I find that this will do several meals. I tend to make a pie with suet crust pastry from the remaining meat, veg and juices once we have had our fill of stew with dumplings or mash. Enjoy – you can use any of your favourite vegetable to substitute for those in the recipe above. Trick is to cook it for a long time so that all of the connective tissues melt into the liquid and give you all the available nutrients and a deep rich flavour.
Norwegian Hen Fricassée
From Agnete Samdahl’s Norwegian Great Grand-Mother
Ingredients:
- Stewing Hen(s)
- Parsnip
- Celeriac
- Carrots
- Butter
- Flour
- Parsley
In a stock pot, cover the hen(s) in water and bring to boil. If the vegetables have their tops on, cut them off and tie together with string, put the bunch in with the hen(s) for added stock flavours. Gently simmer for at least two hours – longer if ‘tough old birds’.
Prepare vegetables and cut into bite-sized pieces. Anything goes but we have always used parsnip, celeriac and carrots. Add parsnip and celeriac into the pot when about 30 minutes cooking time left and the carrot about 10 minutes before.
Remove birds from water and skin them while still hot – otherwise the skin sticks(!). Discard the veg green tops if used and give the skin to a worthy dog. Pick the meat off the bones, keeping the pieces as large as you can (we always keep the legs unboned).
Make white sauce: melt butter and whisk the flour in. Add a little stock at a time while whisking to avoid lumps, until the sauce is fairly thin (usually use all the stock). Add meat and vegetables and to bring up to heat – it can stay on gentle heat until you’re ready to eat.
Add plenty finely chopped parsley, salt and pepper to taste before serving.
Serve with boiled potatoes. (I love to mash my tatties on the plate to absorb the maximum amount of sauce) .
Doing your bit for the NHS
by Georgia Wingfield-Hayes
Part 1 of a 2 part series
Have you ever tried eating only one of two types of foods, day after day? Your favourite food perhaps? Avocado on toast or chocolate? Soon you become so sick of those foods, that you can’t stand the sight of them. This is because our bodies are full of intelligent feedback mechanisms that tell us that we need something else, we need variety. If you’ve been overloading your liver with rich foods, for example, you will, if attuned, crave dark green leafy vegetables and other bitter foods that help the liver decongest.
Animals are exactly the same. Animals that grow up on a wild diet, learning what to forage from their mothers, are highly attuned to the foods in their environment and know what they require to maintain optimal health; they also self medicate with specific foods when necessary. Plants high in tannins like willow, for example, help combat intestinal worms.
Feedlots v 100% Grass-Fed
It is easy to assume that because we see cows and sheep in fields, that these animals spend their entire lives outside. But almost all cattle and sheep, unless certified 100% grass-fed, are fattened on grains before going to market. This change in diet might only be for a few months, but it dramatically changes the nutritional profile of the meat.
When herbivores (sheep, cattle, etc.) are fed 100% on wildflower rich meadows with access to hedge and tree fodder, their meat mirrors the complex nutrient profile of their forage. When we eat this meat we receive these nutrients, densely packed in muscle and organs.
Omega 3 and 6, for example, are two very important fats or lipids in the human diet. Omega 3 makes up around 35% of the human brain, a lack of which causes depression and impairs cognitive wellbeing. While both these omegas are essential to health, what is key is their ratio to each other. Too much omega 6 and not enough omega 3 leads to inflammation in the body – the precursor to chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease and all else that falls under the umbrella term – metabolic syndrome.
A healthy ratio of Omega 3 to 6 is deemed to be between 1:3 and 1:4. The same ratio is found in 100% grass-fed meat. Grain-fattened meat, on the other hand, contains a ratio of between 1:15 and 1:55. The higher ratios being seen in beef animals fattened on dried distillers grains.
Omega’s: the tip of the iceberg
A herbivore’s gut microbiome adjusts to its diet from an early age, so one can only imagine the shock that it, and the animal’s digestive system, liver, etc. receive when shifting from grass to grain. Animals lose their freedom of dietary choice, and movement both of which can cause a deterioration in the nutritional quality of the meat. Expert in ecological medicine, Dr Jenny Goodman is of the opinion that such animals will verge on pre-diabetes and be more prone to infection.
The problem in part, is that meat generally has never been considered much more than a source of protein, iron and vitamin B12. All meat still gets lumped together on our supermarket shelf and in our consciousness. But grass-fed beef and lamb take meat as a food, to a whole other level. Apart from omegas 3 and 6, there are much greater levels of the health-giving conjugated linoleic acid (CLA); long chain saturated fats; vitamins C, E, K, niacin, folate, and B12; and finally, phytonutrients.
Phytonutrients compose of a vast array of compounds that are directly acquired from plants and absorbed into the body. These have powerful anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties and are essential in preventing and fighting chronic diseases including: cancer, heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, all types of infections and neurological diseases. When we eat the meat of animals fed on a diverse, natural diet then we receive these health-giving properties in a highly absorbable form.
The 3 leading causes of death in the UK are: dementia, heart disease and stroke. All strongly linked to diet, in particular the omega 3:6 ratio and phytonutrients, both essential in preventing these diseases.
Joining up the Dots
Addressing our environmental crises; our society’s physical and mental health; the cost-of-living crises and the struggling NHS, requires us to join up the dots between these issues. Healthy eating is about enabling passionate small producers to reach customers, in order that people get back in touch with where food comes from, and the fantastic taste and quality of food produced in non-intensive farming systems. Health is a by-product of such a relationship.
Countries like Finland and Brazil see feeding their children a free school lunch made from wholesome produce every day, not as a cost, but an investment. Food habits, be they in humans or herbivores, are developed when we are young. Our microbiome is shaped to fit the foods it meets in its development. If those foods are highly processed and high in sugar, then that is what we will crave. Whole foods, made into delicious meals on the other hand, create a health-giving relationship between body, microbiome and food, and we will crave what we need, rather than what we have become addicted to.
The cost-of-living crisis and the NHS would be greatly alleviated if the British government made free, wholesome school meals a priority. What’s more, if they followed the Brazilian model, 30% of that food would be sourced from local small farms.
Alleviating the stress of the cost-of-living crisis might also help save the NHS on its current biggest cost – mental health and stress-related illness. Connecting small producers with consumers, creating more intimate relationships between land, food and people would do much to aid the epidemic of loneliness. Nearly 4 million people in the UK are reported to experience chronic loneliness. Social isolation, loneliness and poor social relationships are understood to create a 50% increase in the risk of developing dementia, a 29% increased risk of heart disease and a 32% increased risk of stroke. Add into this equation the nutritional quality of food, and it’s no wonder we have the health crises we see today.
While politicians might be slow to join up these dots, here at Primal Meats we are doing what we can to bring the super-nutritious grass-fed meats of passionate small producers to conscious consumers such as you. Please check out our individual farm pages to learn more about our producers and THANK YOU for your support!
References
Health-Promoting Phytonutrients Are Higher in Grass-Fed Meat and Milk
Nutritional Comparisons Between Grass-Fed Beef and Conventional Grain-Fed Beef
Effects of Omega-3 Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids on Brain Functions: A Systematic Review
Is Grassfed Meat and Dairy Better for Human and Environmental Health?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6434678
Loneliness and Social Isolation Linked to Serious Health Conditions
Facts and statistics about loneliness
Stress-related illness the biggest health expenditure in the UK
School Lunches in Brazil: From Local Farms to Children’s Plates
The Power of Muscle
Regenerative agriculture emerged from a paradigm of regeneration that applies to a range of other disciplines such as leadership, economics, business, design and, most importantly, how we live and behave as empowered citizens – regenerative living
Vaca Vieja
Regenerative agriculture emerged from a paradigm of regeneration that applies to a range of other disciplines such as leadership, economics, business, design and, most importantly, how we live and behave as empowered citizens – regenerative living
Real Changemakers
Regenerative agriculture emerged from a paradigm of regeneration that applies to a range of other disciplines such as leadership, economics, business, design and, most importantly, how we live and behave as empowered citizens – regenerative living
Regenerating Our Lives
Regenerative agriculture emerged from a paradigm of regeneration that applies to a range of other disciplines such as leadership, economics, business, design and, most importantly, how we live and behave as empowered citizens – regenerative living
Carbon Wash
Stop the carbon washing. We need to create viable, interdependent, complex and holistic solutions, instead of simply waging war on carbon.
Nourishing Our Children
With Nutrient Dense Foods This Summer
By Teri Clayton
Summer holidays enable us to spend quality time with our children. Whether going away for a week of sun, sea and sand, or remaining on home turf, it’s a time to treasure the time we have available with one another.
The holiday period also offers us the perfect opportunity to ensure our families eat the best quality nutrition. We can load up their stores of fat soluble vitamins and nutrients, whilst we have a little more say about what they eat.
Many parents dread the sudden extra workload of children being out of school for an extended period. However – with the right mindset and approach – it can be reframed as an opportunity to invest in a healthy and happy future for the family.
Yes it might involve proactive planning and a decent amount of extra work, but the long term rewards will definitely be worth it. This kind of work travels down through generations.
Your family will still benefit from the nourishment you put into them long after you have gone.
Disclaimer: This article is intended to support personal education and offer individuals the opportunity to research a range of approaches to achieving wellbeing. A Primal living or ancestral approach to wellbeing is a path that some people choose for themselves and is in no way intended to replace professional medical, healthcare, dietary or wellbeing advice. Consult your healthcare professional before making any changes to your diet or lifestyle, especially if you take prescribed medications.
Building Upon the Good
Dr Natasha Campbell-McBride MD reinvigorated forgotten cultural knowledge in the world of nutrition after permanently reversing her son’s autistic symptoms through diet.
Now considered a leading light in reviving a truly rooted and wise approach to diet, Dr Campbell-McBride has written several books, dedicated to empowering people to heal naturally through nutrient dense foods, gut health and supporting a healthy gut microbiome.
Her latest book ‘Gut and Physiology Syndrome’ (GAPS), is a refresh and re-titled version of her previous revolutionary book – ‘Gut and Psychology Syndrome’.
GAPS offers a natural treatment approach for auto-immune illnesses, allergies, arthritis, fatigue, gut problems, hormonal issues and neurological disease, (including ADHD and autism).
To have good health we need to eat foods created by Mother Nature, not man. Mother Nature took billions of years to design our bodies, while at the same time designing all the foods suitable for our bodies to use. How arrogant it is for humans to think that they know better than Mother Nature after having tinkered in their laboratories for a few decades!’
Dr Natasha Campbell-McBride MD, MMedSci (Neurology), MMedSci (Nutrition)
Dr Campbell-McBride’s approach focuses on feeding children nutrient dense foods, grown by loving farmers taking good care of their soil and animals, prepared in time honoured ways that maximally enhance their digestibility. Through this approach Dr Campbell-McBride has helped many families turn the tide on severe chronic illness and restored children back to a picture of health.
Dr Campbell-McBride’s work should have been making headlines, given that it offers hope for reversing what Dr Martin Blaser terms the ‘Modern Plagues’ in his brilliant book ‘Missing Microbes’.
‘Man is the only species clever enough to make his own food and the only one stupid enough to eat it’
Zoe Harcombe
These modern plagues according to Dr Blaser are the result of something going terribly wrong within the past few decades. Despite the medical advances, we appear to be getting sicker. He goes on to say that the incidence of autism continues to soar. The disorder was first described in 1943 by Dr Leo Kanner and was uncommon, but according to Dr Blaser, in his book published in 2014, the incidence of autism underwent a three to fourfold increase since the 1960s. This many in part be due to a growing awareness and change in diagnostic criteria.
Dr Campbell-McBride has been reversing these ‘modern plagues’ yet many parents are still enduring the torment of witnessing their children suffering from them.
It seems that we have lots of profitable solutions available to us for suppressing the symptoms of disease that do not address root causes. Why are natural, non profitable solutions – rooted in optimal nourishment – being ignored?
‘There are many theories attempting to explain the cause of this increase in autism cases, including toxins in food, water and air; exposure to chemicals and pesticides during pregnancy; and particular characteristics of fathers. But no-one knows’.
Martin Blaser, Missing Microbes.
Creating a Better Future
A groundswell of parents can be the ones to turn the tide on the destruction of children’s health…..not scientists, or healthcare professionals, or experts.
Parents do not have to wait for ways forward to be decided in the lab, or through statistical analysis on paper, when their children are suffering and need them urgently…NOW. At least, not when the solutions can be simple, time tested and rooted in real food from healthy soil.
There are parents all over the globe who are learning how to restore their children’s health, inspired by those who have been courageous enough to break away from the mainstream train, now veering way off track. Following on from healing her own child, Dr Natasha Campbell-McBride left her career as a neurosurgeon behind and has now become a regenerative farmer alongside working to expand the reach of the GAPS approach.
There comes a point when adhering to outdated beliefs becomes more destructive than stabilising – and that’s where we are right now, when it comes to dealing with chronic disease.
The evidence for the health restoring power of nutrient dense foods and wise traditions is now mounting up behind a dam that WILL inevitably burst. The word incurable will be forced to shrink back to its appropriate size, as it has no place being attached to many of the man made ‘modern plagues’ we are experiencing today.
Introducing Hilary Boynton
Hilary Boynton is a parent that is leading the way, inspired by such people as Dr Campbell-McBride, Sally Fallon Morrell, Dr Weston A Price, Dr Thomas Cowan and pioneering scientist Elaine Gottschall. Hilary is a mother of five who refused to accept chronic ill health in her own children and the continuation of poor nutrition in schools.
Upon healing her family using the GAPS diet, Hilary went on to publish a cookbook with Mary G Brackett entitled ‘The Heal your Gut Cookbook – Nutrient Dense Recipes for Intestinal Health Using the GAPS diet’.
Hilary became the ‘Lunch Lady’ in her local school, transforming the nutrition of hundreds of children and has now founded the School of Lunch (SOL), with a mission to:
‘joyfully give the ancestral knowledge, wisdom and nourishing benefits of our culinary and lifestyle philosophies to the maximum number of human beings possible’.
Hilary has joined the ranks of those who have gone beyond the current paradigm. Having learned and experienced for herself how the right food, grown and prepared in the right way has the power to restore wellbeing and vitality to our children.
Find out what Hilary has been doing in schools, here:
https://www.schooloflunch.com/education
Hilary will be joining us in our private social platform – Primal Web, introducing her work to restore children’s health through real food and taking part in live webinars where you get the chance to ask your own questions.
To attend and participate in the conversations, webinars and events join HERE
So how can we nourish our children and find out more about the return of traditional food wisdom?
First and foremost we do not need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to feeding our children. This would be foolish and ignorant, given the experiential wisdom our ancestors have already amassed.
We do however need to draw forward forgotten nourishing traditions and build upon them, with our own real life learnings. When it comes to offering our families the deepest nourishment, the best knowledge we have is that which has endured the harshest of all tests…time.
Only that which is useful, valuable and has real substance endures the test of time and becomes embedded as a tradition, anything surplus is thankfully discarded by the wayside.
Sandeep Agarwal in conversation with Hilary Boynton about valuable traditional knowledge remarks:
‘Before we learn from each other, we learn from traditions’
Sandeep is the fifth generation to take on his family business creating traditional foods using time tested wisdom. Sandeep remarked that his mother used to say that ‘no knowledge is lost’, that knowledge is like sunlight. Knowledge is there, just as sunlight is there. You only need an open mind to receive it.
There are no shortage of way showers to hold the hands of worried parents as they embark on a journey back towards solid nutritional ground once more. As the months and years go by, there will be many more walking this path together, connected by their mutual desire to offer their children truly nourishing food.
There are others too, leaving their mark upon the path less travelled. Perhaps one of the most significant contributions is from Sally Fallon Morrell. One of her books; Nourishing Traditions – The cookbook that challenges politically correct nutrition and the diet dictocrats – is truly a life saving and changing book. A book that has surely earned its place on every parent’s books shelves through bringing nourishing traditions back into our homes.
Remarkable Forgotten Discoveries
Many people reading this will perhaps have already heard about the remarkable work of Weston A Price, a dentist who travelled the world with an open, curious mind, attempting to uncover the secrets to good dental health. As is always the case with profound discoveries, what he ‘noticed’ took him well beyond his initial line of enquiry.
He noticed that what led to good dental health, also held the key to impeccable overall health and longevity. All the populations that experienced immaculate dental health, also appeared to enjoy perfect physical health.
The common thread that ran through Dr Weston A Price’s observations was the decline in dental and overall health after processed western foods were introduced to the diet.
Very quickly – within one generation – of consuming processed foods, children developed overcrowded teeth, their nostrils became more pinched (making breathing more difficult) and their skeletal and sinus structures began to degenerate into lesser functional forms.
Of course, there are many factors at play, including ones that led to western foods being available and chosen in the first place, but the correlation is certainly an interesting one. These findings open us up to many more questions and discoveries.
What is truly astounding is that most dentists today are not even aware of the life’s work of Dr Weston A Price. Dr Steven Lin, a disenchanted dentist experiencing somewhat of a crisis of meaning in his career, discovered the work of Dr Weston A Price by chance whilst travelling.
The ah-ha moments triggered by Weston A Price’s work led to Dr Steven Linn writing his ground-breaking book ‘The Dental Diet’.
This book – filled with a revival of ancestral wisdom – offers parents hope for ensuring their children can enjoy great lifelong dental health, instead of expecting dental degeneration with age.
So how (practically speaking) can we use this knowledge to better nourish our children this summer?
According to the holistic dentist – Dr Steven Lin – we should not be focused on the right amounts of food, but the right kinds of food that are rich in the nutrients your body needs most. He explains that every meal should contain sources of fat soluble vitamins A, D and K2 as well as the support elements that work alongside them in the body including magnesium, zinc and dietary fat
He lists the following foods that are a source of these fat soluble vitamins:
- Whole, full fat animal products, including the skin: beef, chicken, lamb and duck
- Organ meats
- Whole fish and shellfish
- Milk, butter, yoghurt and cheese
- Eggs
- Natto
- Colourful vegetables and salads cooked or dressed in fat.
The bottom line is that a healthy diet necessarily includes animal products with gelatin rich skin, bone marrow, collagenous joints and slow cooked stocks and broths.
Dr Steven Lin
Dr Lin’s summarised guidance is a really helpful place to start when planning meals that are truly nourishing for our children.
When it comes to taking practical action to better nourish your children this summer, start with the simplest most impactful next steps. Without a doubt the quickest win here is through incorporating one of the most nourishing foods available into your child’s diet – bone broths.
Bone Broth
Nutrient dense staple
Bone broth can be consumed as a meal in its own right, but it can also be served as a starter, or used as a base for other dishes or sauces (like stir fry or gravy) to enhance the nutritional profile of various meals .
In its simplest form bone broth can be consumed as a cup-a-soup to top up hungry bellies.
Although the summer holidays may be full of fresh vibrant salads, fruits and BBQs, to truly optimise nourishment, the slow cooker should still be in action on a regular basis!
Why start with Bone broths?
Benefits of Bone Broth
- High in collagen which turns to gelatin when dissolved
- Potential source of bio-available minerals complexes
- Source of anti-inflammatory amino acids arginine and glutamine
- May support the health of the gut lining
- High levels of collagen may have an anti-aging effect and support healthy skin, hair and nails
- Great post workout recovery drink to support muscle repair
For those who want to try bone broths, but haven’t got the time to make it. Why not try our ready made broths.
If you would like to attend our live webinars with Hilary and other inspiring advocates for nourishing traditions and nutrient dense foods, then join our Primal Web platform HERE
Meet and train with Hilary:
For those who want to meet and learn from Hilary in person and have enough passion to travel to California, you can book a space on her SOL training academy here: https://www.schooloflunch.com/TrainingAcademy
Sample recipe from Hilary and Mary’s ‘The Heal Your Gut Cookbook, Nutrient-Dense Recipes for Intestinal Health Using the GAPS Diet’
Scrumptious Chicken in a Crock-Pot
Ingredients:
2 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon dried thyme
½ teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon curry powder
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried sage
¼ teaspoon black pepper
2 onions
1 whole chicken
Animal fat or ghee
Combine the dried spices in a small bowl. Place the onions in the bottom of the slow cooker. Remove any giblets from the chicken, wash it and pat it dry. Rub the spice mixture all over it. Pop some spices under the skin and in the cavity if you can manage it. Rub some fat over the chicken. Put the chicken on top of the onions in the slow cooker, breast-side down, cover it and turn it on high. There is no need to add any liquid. Cook for 3-4hours on high or 6-8hours on low (for a 3-4lb chicken) or until the meat is falling off the bone.
Further reading/listening:
Ancestral cooking for schools
Hilary Boynton: How to Feed Your Family with Real Food
https://boldjourney.com/meet-hilary-boynton/
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