Emory University researchers demonstrated the importance of organic food when they performed a trial in Seattle Public Schools during which students were fed an organic diet for 5 days. At the end of 5 days, the level of tested pesticides in the students’ bodies went almost to zero. Once the students resumed a conventional diet, their pesticide levels went back to “normal”.
This study underscores the direct effect we can have on our bodies by choosing organic. The sacred time before, during, and after pregnancy is a time to prioritize nutrient dense, organic foods like organic grass fed beef and raw dairy.
While conventional grain-fed beef has been exposed to endocrine disrupting chemicals and contains antibiotics, organic grass fed beef supports fertility, pregnancy, and the next generation by supplying ample fat-soluble vitamins and antioxidants in an easy-to-assimilate protein package.
Sacred Foods in Traditional Cultures
Traditional cultures prioritized grass fed beef and grass fed dairy products for newly married couples, those of reproductive age, pregnant and nursing women, and growing children. They viewed pre-conception and pregnancy as a sacred time to prepare the body to create new life and the future of their tribe.
Weston A. Price, a 20th century dentist, observed cultures without access to processed foods, and he determined that, as a consequence, these peoples had far superior health in comparison to modern Westerners. He traveled the globe and studied primitive cultures in an effort to restore knowledge lost in industrialized societies.
The Weston A. Price Foundation (WAPF) is dedicated to educating people today about how to use traditional foods and therapies to heal from the diseases of modernity, using the diet of our pre-industrialized ancestors.
The WAPF has digested Price’s work and synthesized 11 principles to help guide our dietary choices. This article is the ninth in a series to address and add context to each of the principles. This principle states:
“Traditional cultures make provisions for the health of future generations by providing special nutrient-rich animal foods for parents-to-be, pregnant women and growing children; by proper spacing of children; and by teaching the principles of right diet to the young”
Nutrient-Rich Animal Foods
Nutrient-rich animal foods is a broad category, and there was a wide variety documented across cultures in Dr. Price’s travels. The foods included raw grass fed milk, raw butter, pastured eggs, liver and other organ meats, fish roe, cod liver oil, fresh seafood, grass fed meats and game, bone broths, and animal fats like tallow and lard.
Animal foods are a superior source of nutrition because the nutrition is almost always easier to assimilate from an animal than it is from a plant. These animal foods are rich in fertility supporting minerals and vitamins like:
Vitamin A (retinol)
Zinc
Vitamin D (fats from pastured, grass-fed animals)
Copper
Vitamin K2
Vitamin E (grass fed beef is a rich source)
B Vitamins
The WAPF has curated a comprehensive list of recommended foods and quantities for fertility, pregnancy, and growing children.
Traditional cultures prized particular foods because they recognized these foods to be life-giving, in the truest sense of the term. We would do well to remember and follow their wisdom. Grass-fed organic beef creates a strong foundation of minerals for the next generation.