Nutritional classes to take place

By Anne E. Cox

Fishing for Good Nutrition
There is an old Chinese proverb that says: “Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”
Modern interpretation of this proverb might go something like this: “Give a man hydrogenated soybean oil in his French fries, refined white flour in his bun, and a sugary soft drink on the side and he will live for a few decades or so. Teach a man to properly prepare foods and you heal his chronic illnesses, stabilize his blood sugar, and repair his tooth decay.
There is no doubt we live in a heavily diseased and surprisingly, a malnourished society- how did this happen? We haven’t always been malnourished and diseased.
Doctors like Weston A. Price, who was a dentist in 1937 noticed a diet-disease connection in his patients who had serious tooth decay, misshapen oval faces and ate a refined modern diet. So Dr. Price and others scoured the world looking for indigenous peoples free from modern diet in order to study why they had perfect health and what they ate.
Dr. Price found entire villages in the Scotland, Australia, Africa, Alaska, on the South Seas, near the Everglades, in the Alps of Switzerland, and among the Native Americans with less than 1 percent or no tooth decay. Villagers who hadn’t been exposed to refined diets had naturally straight teeth, and broad faces with good facial construction (and they didn’t have tooth brushes or toothpaste.) These villages had handsome round faces, optimal organ function, excellent eyesight and hearing, athletic skeletal and muscle development, and gave birth to healthy and content babies. These people were disease free with friendly and optimistic dispositions.
When roads began to connect villages all over the world it made commercialized foods more available and diets changed from traditional whole foods to refined foods. Societies went from being disease free, tooth decay free, fertile, and beautiful to developing infertility, tuberculosis, chronic heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. The villagers began having difficulty bearing children or bearing low birth weight babies with body and facial structure deformities, and crowded decaying teeth within “one generation” of their dietary changes. There is an indisputable connection between disease and diet- and tooth decay is a key symptom of nutritional deficiencies.
The healthy and robust civilizations of the past are a far cry from society today. Presently one in four couples are having fertility problems. Low birth weight babies are being born with digestive issues and cry persistently for proper nourishment. Many of our children have ADHD or mouths full of rotting crooked teeth. The population has become diseased, depressed, and deficient. Most people today suffer from some kind of disease, indigestion, constipation, and recurring bacterial infections. We are losing organs left and right like gall bladders, appendixes, pancreases, kidneys, livers, thyroids, milen sheaths around nerve endings, and especially hearts. This has become the new normal, and the common thread running through all of these medical problems-is diet.
What was it that made these indigenous people, (who turn out to be our ancestors), so resilient? It was what they ate. They consumed between 30-80 percent of their diet as fat and still maintained slender bodies “and no heart disease.” Their diets consisted of some form of protein from whole raw milk, butter, cheese slices as thick as a slice of bread, animal fat, organ meats, stocks, fish, cod liver oil, or eggs. They ate cold pressed plant oils, some fruits and vegetables, and soaked or fermented grains, beans, nuts and seeds. Today these foods are being severely misrepresented. They are not as nutritious as they used to be because they have had the important food materials removed during processing. They are not properly soaked before preparing, or the soil that produces the food for the animals and ourselves is deficient.
Instead we are encouraged to eat low-fat, high fructose, enriched, refined, highly processed, low salt, genetically altered, additive and preservative filled, carbonated diets. I can guarantee you our ancestors didn’t eat any pasteurized, homogenized, low-fat 2 percent milk or meal out of a can. This kind of diet leaves people with addictions and severe cravings that lead to overeating empty calories because these foods do not contain adequate vitamins and minerals to support healthy development. They contribute to chronic diseases, obesity, fatigue, tooth decay, and mental illnesses.
How is it that ingredients now take up half of the backside of the product packaging? Most of these ingredients aren’t even food and are harmful to our health. Sadly, we eat these foods without question…and even provide them for our children’s school lunches. Most of the foods we eat today are severely lacking in vitamins and minerals. Even our fortified milks and cereals don’t come close to the amount of vitamins that were originally in food before it was processed. There shouldn’t be a need to put vitamins and minerals “back” into foods. They were already there to begin with. They just needed to be prepared correctly.
People today are giving up and giving in because the food that is prepared “for us” is convenient for our busy lifestyles and we just eat what is provided for us. Modern food and nutrition education includes the use of refined and nutrient poor foods and people are still sick after following these dietary recommendations. It wasn’t until recently in January 2010 that the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition “finally” announced that they found “no significant evidence for concluding that dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of heart disease or coronary vascular disease.” This means that cholesterol full foods like whole milk and butter are not the villains they were made out to be. Even cholesterol itself which is beneficial in healing our arteries has been labeled a rogue to human health.
However this has not changed any manufacturing practices. Hydrogenated, partially hydrogenated and polyunsaturated fats which are very unstable when heated to high temperatures (and the real culprit of many diseases, including heart disease) are still being used in almost every snack food we consume.
The proper interpretation to our Chinese proverb should be: “if you give a man just enough to get by he will get along okay for a little while, but show him how to do it himself and give him knowledge and he will know how to take care of himself and his family for the rest of his life, and hopefully generations to come.” This is what we would like to accomplish by teaching these classes. Our goal is to teach people how to help themselves by giving them knowledge, because knowledge is power.
Our proposal is that the most unhealthy county in the state of Utah lead the state and then the nation in becoming disease free, cavity free, and mental illness free by making the change back to eating traditional whole foods that our ancestors ate for thousands of years-“disease resistant”. Our proposal is for our community to get educated and learn how to properly prepare these foods with surprisingly simple techniques.
Because this type of education should be free to everyone and for the benefit of future generations we propose that our local experts, doctors, professors, businesses, chefs and certified kitchens, gardeners, farmers, grandparents and parents pull together in an alliance to support the availability and public education of preparing traditional whole foods. We ask our local professionals to donate 15-30 minutes “a year” to sharing what they know and helping restore health by helping teach their community true nutrition.
We encourage our local “families” to set aside two hours a month to learning how to prepare these foods and then practice at home with easy to understand recipes that are highly nutritious, digestible, delicious, satisfying, and timely. Please make this change beginning in your families and then help others learn. If you are sick and tired of being tired and sick then come learn how to prepare traditional foods correctly from home that can help you.
Each class will only be an hour long right after school so that children can come and participate. The classes will feature a short lecture from one or
two of our local experts followed by a segment that shares the supportive research behind these excellent foods. Each class will also feature a basic
cooking demonstration where the community is able to see how to prepare foods correctly so that they are digestible and maintain their vitamin and
mineral content. These are cooking techniques our ancestors used for thousands of years but that have become nearly extinct with the
manufacturing age of food. We will also provide a few recipes to try at home between classes and a grocery list of where you can find these foods locally. These classes are not just about giving you information and then turning you loose, but providing excellent resources and a good support
system.
If you would like more information or would like to offer to help teach please call Anne Cox at 801-687-2345.
Here are the first few dates and subjects we will be educating on. We will follow up at a later date with the entire class schedule for the year.
Good Nutrition Begins in Good Soil: **by Master Gardner Instructors and USU horticulturists Dennis Worwood and Ron Patterson *Friday, *May 13th*3:30-4:30pm at Active Re-Entry 10 S. Fairgrounds Road in Price
Quality soil makes nutritious food which makes healthy animals and healthy people. It’s time to plant that summer garden. Come learn how to get started with good soil and make nutritious food in your own back yard.
Introduction to Traditional Whole Foods and Superfoods: **by Anne E. Cox, Nutrition Researcher* Friday, *June 3rd* 3:30-4:30pm at Active Re-Entry 10 S. Fairgrounds Road in Price
Our Great Grandparents and Ancestors ate traditional whole foods and were virtually disease and tooth decay free. How did they do it? By properly preparing and eating traditional whole foods disease can be reversed and prevented from ongoing in the next generation. These foods have been around
for thousands of years and are highly nutritious when prepared correctly.
Nutrition and Physical Degeneration: The Pioneering Work Of Weston A. Price by Dr. Ronald Sanders DC,PC*** Friday, *June 24th* 3:30-4:30pm at Active Re-Entry 10 S. Fairgrounds Road in Price Dr. Ronald Sanders will highlight on the work of Weston A. Price and his book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. Searching the globe for healthy people, he found people with excellent nutrition were disease and tooth decay free.
Choosing the Right Vitamin and Mineral Supplements: **by Dr. Ronald Sanders DC,PC from Castle Chiropractic Center* Friday, *July 15th* 3:30-4:30pm at Active Re-Entry 10 S. Fairgrounds Road in Price.
Listening to your cravings and to your children for vitamin and mineral deficiencies. Dr. Sanders will show us how to choose the right supplements.
Learn how to prepare vitamin packed foods properly so that vitamin deficiencies can be avoided. Learn about synthetic vitamins and why they
should be avoided.
*Finding Time and Money for Traditional Whole Foods:** by Christine Jensen from Emery County USU Extension* Friday, Aug 12th 3:30-4:30pm at Active Re-Entry 10 S. Fairgrounds Road in Price
Do you know where to find traditional whole foods locally? Are you tired of playing hide-n-seek at the grocery store? Do you think traditional whole
foods are too expensive? Christine Jensen from USU Extension Services will teach you how to shop and still purchase nutritious food. Get a grocery list
provided by our local grocery stores. It’s economical to eat from home, but if you must eat out find out which foods on the menu to go for.
Healing Power of Water* *by Dr. Ronald Sanders DC,PC from Castle
Chiropractic Center* Friday, August 26th 3:30-4:30pm at Active Re-Entry 10 S. Fairgrounds Road in Price
Based on the book “Your Body’s Many Cries for Water” by Batning Heldg, MD. You’re not sick you’re thirsty. Don’t treat thirst with Medication. Learn
how to restore alkaline balance to the body.
Other classes that will be featured later this year are: Properly preparing Grains and other “seeds”: Bread Even Celiacs Patients Can Eat** by Dr. Matthew McClean DDS*
Stress and Its Effects On Health by Dr. Ronald Sanders DC,PC at Castle Chiropractic and Julie Johansen from Winter’s End
Salt and the Mistake of the Low Salt Diet* by Darryl Bosshardt
Natural Helps for ADHD* *by Dr. Ronald Sanders DC,PC from Castle Chiropractic Center
Good Fats, Bad Fats: It’s Time you Know Your Fats* *by John Weber, Chemistry Professor at USU Eastern*
Organ Loss:Which Organs can’t you Live Without?*
Autism* *by Dr. Ronald Sanders DC,PC from Castle Chiropractic Center*
Nourishing Traditions: by Sally Fallon, National President of Weston A. Price Foundation
Foods to Avoid and Why- Our Hormones Say So
Managing and Restoring Mental Health Through Diet
Cooking Traditional Whole Foods with Sous Chef Ryan from Real Foods Market
The Power of Green and Red in Your Diet. Taste the Real Foods Rainbow.
Herbs, the other food group Preserving Food without a Refrigerator; Food Safety: Good bacteria, Bad Bacteria; Eating Meat Economically: The Value of Meat, Eggs, Milk, Butter, and Cheese in the Diet; Cholesterols Real Job Description; How to Heal Tooth Decay; Nothing Should be Low-fat About Your Childs’ Diet: A Look at Pre-Pregnancy, Pregnancy, Infancy and Childhood Dietary Guidelines; Modern Diseases: Our Ancestors Didn’t Suffer with Chronic
Degenerative Diseases.* Find out how you and your children can avoid them also. Eat Fat, Lose Fat; Soy Alert.