Natural Pregnancy and Parenting by Rami Nagel - HTML preview

 

Caption: Left Page: “Note the magnificent dental arches and beautiful teeth of these primitives. Tooth decay was almost unknown in many districts.”

 

Caption: Right Page: “Wherever the primitive Aborigines have been placed in reservation and fed on the white man’s foods of commerce dental caries has become rampant… Note the contrast between the primitive woman in the upper right and the three modernized women.” Source: Weston Price, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, Page 172, 173

 

Images Copyright Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation http://www.price- pottenger.org

 

Please note, these white man’s foods where the same foods that white people in Australia regularly ate at the time, and so the modernized Aborigines had a similar incidence of tooth decay and other diseases as the white population versus the disease and decay resistant Aborigines on their natural diet.

 

 

Left: [Fijians] The development of the facial bones determines the size and shape of the palate and the size of the nasal passages. Note the strength of the neck of the men above and the well-proportioned faces of the girls below. Such faces are usually associated with properly proportioned bodies. Tooth decay is rare in these mouths so long as they use an adequate selection of native foods.

 

Right: These natives of the Fiji Islands illustrate the effect of changing from the native food to the imported foods of commerce. Tooth decay becomes rampant and with it is lost the ability to properly masticate the food. Growing children and child bearing mothers suffer most severely from dental caries.

 

Source: Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, Weston Price

Images Copyright Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation http://www.price- pottenger.org

 

Nutrient Deficiency

Table 3A.--Nutrient intakes: Percentages of individuals with diets below selected levels of the (RDAs), by sex and age, 2-day average [intakes], 1994-

96

 

 

 

What this means is for example that on average, 73.8% of Women ages 20-29 are below meeting the level of the US RDA requirements for health. 24.2% of all Women in the US ages 20-29 do not eat meet half of the US RDA requirements for minimum nutrition related to vitamin E. Imagine how this affects pregnancy?

 

Table 3B.--

 

Percentage of Women who begin to near the level of Nutrients of Indigenous

Peoples (In other words, the amount of nutrients our bodies really need)

 

 

Source: Supplementary Data Tables, USDA, 1994-1996

http://www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/Place/12355000/pdf/Supp.PDF

 

Diet Overview Guildlines

“Dr. Weston Price’s studies revealed that these foods – including organ meats, fish heads, fish eggs, shell fish, insects and animal fats – were rich in fat soluble vitamins A and D as well as macro- and trace minerals. Couples planning to have children should eat liberally of organic liver and other organ meats, fish eggs and other seafood, eggs, and the best quality butter, cream and fermented milk products they can obtain for at least six months before conception.”

Source: Nourishing Traditions, page 598

 

Indigenous People go to great lengths to create Healthy Babies

“Indigenous People’s from around the world carried out special programs to produce physically excellent babies. ‘Costal Residents of the Eskimos, South Sea Islands, North Australia, Gaelic and Peruvian Indians used Fish Eggs. Cattle tribes in African and in the Swiss alps, Asia and Northern India, used very high quality of dairy products. “Among the primitive Masai in certain districts of Africa, the girls were required to wait for marriage until the time of the year when the cows were on the rapidly growing young grass and to use the milk from these cows for a certain number of months before they could be married.” In several agricultural tribes in Africa, the girls were fed on special foods for six months before marriage.’“

Source: Weston Price, From Nourishing Traditions, Page 315

 

Key Nutrient: Activator X

“Discovered by Weston Price, this fat-soluble nutrient is a potent catalyst to mineral absorption. It is found in certain n fatty parts of animals that feed on young green growing plants or microorganisms, such as organ meats, fish and shellfish, fish eggs and butter from cows eating rapidly growing green grass of spring and fall pasturage. Largely absent today, the Price Factor was present in all traditional diets.”

Source: Nourishing Traditions page 39

 

Key Vitamin for Health and Body Building: Vitamin A

Weston Price discovered that healthy indigenous peoples especially valued vitamin A rich foods for growing children and pregnant mothers. Good sources are natural butter and cod liver oil. “Vitamin A is stored in the liver and other organs. Pregnancy and lactation can deplete vitamin A stores.”

Source: Sally Fallon, Nourishing Traditions, Page 560

 

Key Vitamin for Women: Vitamin E

“The evidence indicates that a very important factor in the lowering of reproductive efficiency of womanhood is directly related to the removal of vitamin E in the processing of wheat. The germ of wheat is our most readily available source of that vitamin.”

Source: Weston Price, Sited in Nourishing Traditions, Page 480

 

Essentially the only way to obtain healthy wheat products (or other grains) is to buy organic whole grains and to grind the grains at home. The grains are then soaked overnight in an acidic medium. This destroys nutrient blocking phyic acid which is in the outer layer of the grain. Recipes for cooking in this manner are available in Nourishing Traditions, by Sally Fallon. I believe vitamins from properly prepared grains to be essential for health and happiness. Organic Wheat Germ oil is an alternative way to get some vitamin E intake. When we make wheat products at home, with the freshly ground grains, we get a natural high from eating them because they contain thyroid boosting vitamins. Foods such as blueberry pancakes and buttermilk biscuits lathered in butter.

“Soaking allows enzymes, lactobacilli and other helpful organism to break down and neutralize phytic acid.”

Source: Nourishing Traditions, Page 452

 

Specialty Foods

Fish Eggs - “Fish eggs are valued by traditional peoples throughout the world for their ability to prevent problems of the thyroid gland, promote fertility, and nourish pregnant women and growing children.” Nourishing Traditions, Page 162

 

Wild Salmon – High Activator X, High Vitamin D, High Omega-3 fatty acids like EPA and DHA. Source: Summarized from Nourishing Traditions Page 418

 

Raw Butter and Cream from Pastured Cows – “Butter can be an especially rich source of Activator X when it comes from cows eating rapidly growing grass in the Spring and Fall seasons. It disappears in cows fed cottonseed meal or high protein soy-based feeds.”

Source: http://www.realmilk.com/price.html

 

High Vitamin Cod Liver Oil – “This marvelous golden oil contains large amounts of elongated omega-3 fatty acids, preformed vitamin A and the sunlight vitamin D, essential nutrients that are hard to obtain in sufficient amounts in the modern diet. [It] may also naturally contain small amounts of the important bone- and blood-maintainer vitamin K.” (Make sure no synthetic vitamins are added)

Source: http://www.westonaprice.org/basicnutrition/codliveroil.html

 

Millet & Quinoa: Special soaked grain preparations of high mineral content-- particularly millet and quinoa--were fed to lactating women to increase milk supply. Source: http://www.westonaprice.org/traditional_diets/ancient_dietary_wisdom.html

 

Dark Leafy Greens - “rich in folic acid, which is necessary for the prevention of birth defects.” Source: Nourishing Traditions page 598

 

Red Raspberry Leaf Tea – To make, pour boiling water over the herb and let steep for 15-20 minutes covered. Drink Three or more cups per day during Pregnancy. “One of the most famous and widely used female tonic herbs; especially valued as a tonic during pregnancy. Contains fragarine, an alkaloid that tones and nourishes the uterus and pelvic region. A rich source of vitamins and minerals, including calcium, iron, phosphorus, potassium and vitamins B, C, and E.” Source: Rosemary Gladstar’s Family Herbal, Page 205

 

Food Synergy Combinations

“Many delicious traditional dishes provide a synergistic combination of fatty acids. These combine well with cream cheese and other cheese for a synergistic combination of fatty acids of the omega-3 family with fatty acids of the omega-6 family and saturated fatty acids – lox and cream cheese, caviar and sour cream, liver and bacon, salmon and Béarnaise sauce, dark green vegetables with butter, cream cheese and flax oil.”

Source: Tripping Lightly Down the Prostaglandin Pathways, from Nourishing Traditions, page 472

 

I have found these food combinations and variations based on them to be particularly nourishing and fulfilling.

 

Low Fat / Low Cholesterol Mythology

Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD calls the new guidelines from National Cholesterol Education Program guidelines for “converting healthy people into patients.”

“There is no evidence that too much animal fat and cholesterol in the diet promotes atherosclerosis or heart attacks. For instance, more than twenty studies have shown that people who have had a heart attack haven't eaten more fat of any kind than other people, and degree of atherosclerosis at autopsy is unrelated with the diet.”

Source: http://www.ravnskov.nu/ Uffe Ravnskov

 

“People with high cholesterol live the longest… Consider the finding of Dr. Harlan Krumholz of the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at Yale University, who reported in 1994 that old people with low cholesterol died twice as often from a heart attack as did old people with a high cholesterol.1”

Source: http://www.westonaprice.org/moderndiseases/benefits_cholest.html

 

Many Americans are told to eat a diet low in fat. Eating animal protein, with the fat removed is particularly unhealthy. “It is possible to starve to death eating lean meat. I’m not making this up. The ancient tribes of the West knew this and would not eat female bison in the spring because nursing and pregnant bison cows burned off their fat reserves during the winter months, leaving few calories in their flesh that might help the natives to digest the pure protein of the meat.”4

Source: http://www.westonaprice.org/traditional_diets/native_americans.html

 

High Fiber Mythology

“Bran fiber became popular after a British missionary surgeon named Dr. Dennis Burkitt announced the results of pioneering studies in the 1970’s noting that rural Africans on high-fiber diets had far less colon cancer than people in the West…. Dr. Burkitt’s basic premise was right, in my opinion, but the American median and health culture took ‘the fiber hypothesis’ in a totally different direction. While the African tribesmen Dr. Burkitt studied rarely ate grains, the idea was promoted in America that eating large amounts of bran fiber from whole-grain wheat would help prevent colon cancer, diverticulosis, hemorrhoid, and colonic polyps…. For thirty years, the grain-fiber hypothesis was considered the gospel truth. However, the truth is that bran fiber actually aggravates many of these conditions…. The over consumption of high- carbohydrate grain-based foods such as bran, fibrous breakfast cereals, whole- wheat bread (non-sprouted or [non-] fermented), and soy, which all contain high amounts of phytates, is a primary cause of intestinal disease and other diseases!”

 

4 Nourishing Traditions, excerpted from Forbes FYI pg 236

 

“[R]ecommended fiber sources, the kind of fiber that promotes colon health… include broccoli, cauliflower, celery, and lettuce as well as soaked or sprouted seeds, nuts, grains and legumes. Berries and other small fruits along with fruits and vegetables with edible skins are also good sources of low-carbohydrate fiber.”

Source: Jordan Rubin: The Maker’s Diet, Page 141

 

Dietary Guidelines Pregnancy and Lactation

 

Foods to Be Eaten Daily

 

Activators Daily, Choose One Row*

A. 1.5 teaspoons, a mixture of high vitamin butter oil and high vitamin (or fermented5) cod liver oil, best taken 2 or 3 times daily in ½ teaspoon increments and/or

 

B. 1.5-3 ounces of a grass fed animal liver, or wild fish liver with

1-4 tablespoons of Summer Butter, (deep yellow colored) and/or

 

C. 1/3 - 3 tablespoons of wild caught fish eggs

 

2-4+ tablespoons of raw unsalted grassfed butter

www.westonaprice.org/foodfeatures/butter.html

 

16-48+ ounces (2-6+ cups) of whole fat raw grassfed milk; cow, goat or sheep6

 

2-6 whole eggs, from chickens raised on pastures **7

 

2-6 ounces of a very high quality raw, grassfed cheese; cow, goat, or sheep

 

1-2 tablespoons of organic extra virgin coconut oil

www.westonaprice.org/knowyourfats/coconut_oil.html,

 

Ample amounts of fresh vegetables and fresh fruits, Dark leafy green vegetables (should be cooked), Carrots, and Fermented Vegetables

 

6 ounces or more of Bone Broth for trace minerals and gelatin. Examples: chicken stock, fish stock, or beef stock www.westonaprice.org/foodfeatures/broth.html

 

Consider oily fish or lard daily, for vitamin D

www.westonaprice.org/motherlinda/lard.html

 

Lacto-Fermented condiments and laco-fermented beverages, such as Sauerkraut and Beet Kvass http://www.westonaprice.org/foodfeatures/lacto.html

 

5 High Vitamin Butter Oil and Fermented Cod Liver Oil are Available From Green Pastures: www.greenpasture.org

6 For More Raw Milk Information, See the Campaign for Real Milk, Available At: www.realmilk.com

7 For More Real Egg information see, Gerber, B. Real Eggs from a Real Farm:

 

Foods to Eat Several Times Per Week

 

Make sure that you are eating two of these three categories of foods several times weekly, raw grassfed dairy, sea food that includes the organs, organs of land animals.***

 

Eat fresh wild caught seafood including, shellfish, such as, crab, lobster, shrimp, oyster’s, clams. (From Clean Waters)

 

Fresh beef or lamb, the muscle meat, raised on a pasture, always consumed with the fat several times per week8 cooked medium rare, and/or marinated for several hours and/or eaten in the same meal with bone broth or cooked in a stew. (It is acceptable to eat the organs of beef or lamb and forgo the muscle meat)

 

Soaked or Sprouted, freshly ground organic whole grains (must usually undergo at least 7 hours of fermentation) http://www.westonaprice.org/foodfeatures/be_kind.html

 

3-4 ounces fresh grass-fed or wild liver, at least once or twice per week (One of the most ideal foods for pregnancy and lactation)

 

Beneficial Farm Turns a Hatchery Egg Machine into a Barnyard Animal, Available At:

www.westonaprice.org/farming/realeggs.html, Accessed March 10, 2007.

8 For more information about Beef, Fallon, S. Enig, M. It’s the Beef, Available At:

www.westonaprice.org/mythstruths/mtbeef.html

 

Quinoa, for the time of lactation, (must undergo at least a 12 hour fermentation)

 

Seaweed – can sometimes be a healthy source of much needed trace minerals. (Seaweed is not a good source of fat-soluble vitamins or activating substances)

 

Additional Special Foods

Make sure to eat least one of these foods regularly

(for example, several times weekly)

 

Crab or lobster, including the mustard or tomalley (from pure waters)

 

Fish Eggs

 

Milk, Butter, or Cream, obtained when the animals are eating freshly growing green grass (High Vitamin Butter Oil)

 

Octopus

 

Organs and Glands (Must be from 100% grass fed, no hormone or antibiotic animals, or wild fish) Thyroid, Intestines, Liver, Bone Marrow, Tongue, Eye’s, Brain, Kidney, Gonads, Thymus, Heart, obtained from animals eating freshly growing grass, or fish during the time when they are egg bearing. Organs and glands will help nourish your body, they are important to eat. http://www.westonaprice.org/basicnutrition/vitaminasaga.html

 

Avoid these Modernized Foods

 

Sugar – White Sugar, Brown Sugar, Organic Sugar, Evaporated Cane Juice, Corn Syrup, Commercial Jams

 

Flour & Grain Products – White Flour, Wheat Flour, Organic Flour, any unsoaked grain products. Examples: bread, crackers, cookies, doughnuts, breakfast cereals, muffins, pastries, tortillas, bagels, and sandwiches

 

Hydrogenated Oils - like Margarine, and Low quality vegetable oils, Vegetable Oil, Soybean Oil and Criscto.

 

Any type of junk, convenience food, or modern fast foods

 

Coffee, Soft Drinks, Nutrasweet, and anything with artificial flavors, artificial colors, or artificial ingredients

 

Soymilk, Protein Powder, and Excess Tofu

 

Alcohol, Cigarettes, and Drugs (including most prescription drugs & vaccines)

 

(If there are improvements or modifications to this diet, they will be posted on my website, www.healingourchildren.net)

 

Trust your instincts. These are guidelines, not rigid expectations that have to be precisely followed. However I take great effort to avoid the unhealthy foods. Particularly, in the final stages of pregnancy, your appetite might very widely, trust these instincts. After the birth, you may not feel hungry at all, trust that feeling and do not force yourself to eat. Your body may have cravings for certain things, so for example: for two weeks you might eat lots of lamb, and only some fish. Then it could switch, you eat lots of fish, and very little red meat. Overall, try to make sure you are eating a balanced menu as these guidelines suggest, but it may be too rigid for you to try to eat all these foods every single day. Taking a break from certain foods, and eating more of other foods can be balancing.

 

* Weston Price successfully used the mixture of equal parts high vitamin butter oil and cod liver to improve pregnancy health, to stop tooth decay, and to help heal and regrow bones. These food supplements can be replaced with their equivalent whole food versions, or with a good quantity of fish eggs daily. For more information see, “The Activators” and Appendix B.

 

** One source suggests eating eggs 5 days on, 2 days off, if you are prone to miscarriage.9

 

***The liver's of small animals, like squirrels and guinea pigs during certain seasons may be used, as well as insects during certain times of the year might count as fourth and fifth categories of food. I do not know what times of the year this would be, but it would be when they are in abundance. I did not list these are foods a majority of us do not eat.

 

**** Vitamins are not to be obtained from synthetic sources

 

The figures given here, for Vitamin’s A and D are based on estimates suggested by wise people. Since I have not seen an accurate analysis of the vitamin A and D content of Indigenous people, and since each person has an individual different need for these different vitamins, these numbers are given to be guideposts. (Absolutely no synthetic vitamins)

 

Source: http://www.westonaprice.org/children/dietformothers.html site. (Guidelines Modified by Author)

Additional Guidance: For sources of Pasture Raised animal products http://www.eatwild.com/

 

Foods to Avoid

What not to eat, is at least as important was what you do eat. Many items at your local health food store are not healthy. Many modern foods actually rob the body of the vital nutrients, instead of fulfilling the bodies nutrient needs. Even many organically labeled foods are unhealthy because these foods do not contain highly absorbable nutrients. I advocate purchasing organic products whenever you can, but do not assume that just because it says organic, that you are fulfilling your nutrient needs. Many organic foods, which have been processed, do not have some of Nature’s delicate nutrients intact. Particular food hazards to avoid are pasteurized milk including organic, especially milk that is not from grass-fed cows. Avoid all processed grain products even organic ones, like cereal, cookies, crackers, ect. Meanwhile, grass fed raw milk, and grains that have been freshly ground at home which are soaked or fermented in an acidic medium are extremely life giving and contain vital nutrients.

 

Avoid Non-Organic Food

”Pesticides and other toxins will be present in the mother’s milk if they are present in the diet, so all care should be taken to consume organic foods of both plant and animal origin during pregnancy and lactation. Organic foods also provide more omega-3 fatty acids needed for baby’s optimal development.” Source: Nourishing Traditions, page 599

 

Don't eat commercially processed foods such as cookies, cakes, crackers, TV dinners, soft drinks, packaged sauce mixes, etc. Avoid white flour, white flour products and white rice.

 

“[I]n the production of refined white flour approximately eighty percent or four- fifths of the phosphorous and calcium content are usually removed, together with the vitamins and minerals provided in the embryo or germ. The evidence indicates that a very important factor in the lowering of the reproductive efficiency of womanhood is directly related to the removal of vitamin E in the processing of wheat.”

 

Source: Price, Weston. Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. Page 493

 

Avoid all refined sweeteners such as sugar, dextrose, glucose and high fructose corn syrup.

 

“Last but not least, sugar consumption is the cause of bone loss and dental decay. Tooth decay and bone loss occur when the precise ration of calcium to phosphorus in the blood varies from the normal ratio… Dr. Melvin Page, a Florida dentist, demonstrated in numerous studies that sugar consumption causes phosphorus levels to drop and calcium to rise. Calcium rises because it is pulled from the teeth and the bones.. Thus sugar consumption causes tooth decay not because it promotes bacterial growth in the mouth, as most dentists believe, but because it alters the internal body chemistry.”

 

“A survey of medical journals in the 1970’s produced findings implicating sugar as a causative factor in kidney disease, liver disease, shortened life span, increased desire for coffee and tobacco, arteriosclerosis and coronary heart disease.”

Source: Nourishing Traditions, Pages 23,24

 

Avoid all hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated fats and oils. Avoid all vegetable oils made from soy, corn, safflower, canola or cottonseed. Do not use polyunsaturated oils for cooking, sautéing or baking. Avoid fried foods.

 

“High temperature processing causes the weak carbon bonds of unsaturated fatty acids, especially triple unsaturated linolenic acid, to break apart, thereby creating dangerous free radicals.”

 

“Most of these man-made trans fats are toxins to the body, but unfortunately your digestive system d