Ok, this is "THE BIG ONE", and sadly there really aren't many "worthy" cookbooks out there which go back to the HEALTHY OLD WAYS of eating which man "use to" do... Now a days most cookbooks promote mass produced "name brands" products (ie: betty crocker & more ~ which are full of horrid disease promoting ingredients), easy/fast, non-nourishing synthetic foods, and everyone says "YIPPEE CONVENIENCE FOODS!" not realizing that these so-called-convenience-foods ARE NOT A CONVENIENCE when they make you sick, & unhealthy like modern man has now become! Food is a BIG ISSUE for me & most don't realize HOW VERY IMPORTANT IT TRULY IS... As we have taught daughter, "YOU EAT CRAP, YOU ARE CRAP!" Yep, that pretty much sums it up!!!!! Ok, so now I shall get going and start listing MY TOP 3 HEALTHY COOKIN' COOKBOOKS which will change your life, & promote good health! Food is like PREVENTATIVE MEDICINE, you'd be amazed by what SMART FOOD CHOICES can do! Ok, My Survivalist COOKBOOK Recommendation # 1 is called: NOURISHING TRADITIONS By Author Sally Fallon Here's a little bit about my most favorite book ever, which has taught me much through the years.... The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats. Modern food processing denatures our foods but ancient preservation methods actually increase nutrients in fruits, nuts, vegetables, meats and milk products. Sally Fallon unites the wisdom of the ancients with the latest independent and accurate scientific research in over 700 delicious recipes that will please both exacting gourmets and busy parents. This cookbook offers a fascinating guide to wise food choices and proper preparation techniques. It incorporates the findings of Price, Pottenger, Howell, Bieler and other physicians associated with PPNF. Book Description for ISBN 0967089735 A full-spectrum nutritional cookbook with a startling message--animal fats and cholesterol are vital factors in the human diet, necessary for reproduction and normal growth, proper function of the brain and nervous system, protection from disease and optimum energy levels. Includes information on how to prepare grains, health benefits of bone broths and enzyme-rich lacto-fermented foods. Reader Reviews of Nourishing Traditions *****Valid Message Let Nourishing Traditions be a provocative springboard for the discerning reader. True to their word, the authors turn mainstream nutrition on its head. They discuss centuries-old practices that sound barbaric today - drinking unpasteurized milk, leaving food out for days, eating brains, bones, hearts, kidneys, animal fat and fish eggs. They exonerate cholesterol and saturated fat (with a caveat), and dethrone soy and vegetable oil. Doctors across America blanch in shock. In a world where 'healthy' is synonymous with 'low-fat,' this book is straight up heresy. Step back to more than a hundred years ago, or perhaps to a different country, and the picture is quite different. Healthy means traditional. Traditional foods, which kept native societies healthy generation after generation, are nutrient-dense, high quality, and prepared in ways that preserve or enhance nutrient availability. These preparation methods are the real payoff of this book. Fallon examines obscure practices like home-cultured dairy, lacto-fermentation, soaked nuts, fermented porridges and doughs - traditions long absent from our modern kitchens. She has done the world a great service to gather all of these dusty secrets in one place. Learning, testing and modifying these techniques have revolutionized the way I cook, bringing exotic new flavors, textures and challenges into my kitchen. As fun as food science is, I would not go through all the effort if I didn't believe there was a nutritional benefit to it. This leads to another great payoff of the book: the many questions it inspires. For every traditional food and technique, the authors explain why it is healthier than the conventional alternative. The text and sidebars are packed with studies, excerpts and anecdotes that support their points. Since Nourishing Traditions operates on a fundamentally different paradigm than mainstream nutrition, I wanted to research many of these topics on my own. I learned so much more than the book alone, and unwittingly opened up a universe of nutritional controversy and complexity that I never thought existed. One drawback of Nourishing Traditions is the writing style. The authors are clearly passionate about the subject matter and sometimes stray into sensationalist, even sarcastic language, which undermines their credibility. I wish they had presented their findings in a more objective, humble manner. The Nourishing Traditions paradigm has truly changed the way I think about health and cooking. More than just a cookbook or a textbook, it sets a conceptual framework for everyday nutrition grounded in tradition. For all foods, the test of time means more to me than any calculations of calories, fat, or sodium. I recommend this book to everyone with a questioning mind and a critical eye. Do your own research and reflection on every issue to sift fact from propaganda. I think Nourishing Traditions raises a much-needed contrarian voice in our increasingly synthetic world; how you hear it is up to you. *****The antidote to the unhealthy american diet 2007-11-01 This book is important! Aside from not a great lay out this book is facinating, educational and the bible for eating a healthy, un-processed, environmentally responsible diet. *****A MUST HAVE Book 2007-10-28 I have read and re-read the Nourishing Traditions book a few times. I have found it invaluable toward learning more about cooking for good health. The content is historical, scientific-based, cultural and practical... all in one book. I refer to the book almost daily for recipes and other info. I even started a book study review group with the sole purpose of reviewing and studying this amazing book. There is so much to learn in here, you will see that you will re-read it many times. It is the first book that I would refer someone to read when it comes to natural health and healing foods. *****Unique. 2007-10-28 I consider this book a "must have" for anyone interested in challenging conventional ideas that fat is bad, ideas that devalue the importance of "good bacteria," that think homemade stock and canned broth are interchangeable, etc. The reason I only gave 4 stars is because I don't LOVE Sally Fallon's recipes, overall. I think she's labeled as a "gourmet cook" somewhere and I have to say "mmm?.." The book is chock-full, however, and something I consider a wonderful resource - especially for things like home-brewed dairy products, lacto-fermented veggies and naturally leavened baked goods. *****The best cookook I have ever bought 2007-10-24 I love this cookbook! But it is so much more than a cookbook. It opens up a new world of nutrition, that goes against all the advice I have gotten for years. It validates the cravings I have had since a very young child for many of the foods and combinations of foods, that it turns out are traditional. I fought my instincts for decades and ate what I thought through fairly constant study and interest in health was best for me and my family. After a long long time without meat I made my husband a dish from grass fed beef ( very hard to find here in Japan) in coconut cream and it literally brought tears to his eyes! When I too swooned he said he finally understood that deep down and since long ago I really did love meat, but I had been trying to be virtuous all these years. Part of my virtousness was eating the basically tradtional Japanese diet of my Japanese husbands' family and neighbors. I have eaten rice three times a day for the past eight years. I started having digestion problems after the first three years and never put two and two together until now. My body ( passed down from British ancestors) was not designed for so much rice eating. All my cells are breathing great sighs of relief as they are now getting a much wider variety and truly traditional nutrition. Thank you Sally Fallon. It is mind boggling to imagine what our health would be like today if people would have listened to Weston Price 70 years ago. -------------------------------------- My SURVIVALIST COOKBOOK Recommendation # 2 is: KEEPING FOOD FRESH ~ OLD WORLD TECHNIQUES AND RECIPES By The Gardeners & Farmers of Terra Vivante WONDERFUL would be an understatement!!! This book has a wealth of old world food preservation techniques which don't require fancy equipment, electricity, or methods like modern day canning with HEAT which destroy the nutrional value of one's food. I LOVE this book as much as the 1st one above.... inside it's pages they give you "FOOD STORAGE HINTS" tips on how to make your squash crops last sooooo much longer by rubbing them down with oil & so much more!!!! ~W~ Book Description for ISBN 1890132101 Too often, preserves are but a pale reflection of fresh foods. Luckily, this definitely is not the case with natural preserving techniques. Thanks to the nine main methods described in this book, we learn that almost any food can be preserved without nutrient loss. All of the recipes are effective, economical, and easy to do at home. Most of the methods (drying; lactic fermentation; and preserving in oil, salt, or vinegar, for example) issue from a long tradition that has been swept aside by a tidal wave of industrial canned and frozen foods. This tradition holds an immense but lately obscured wealth of gastronomic and nutritional value. Very often, these recipes go beyond merely preserving food: they transform it by enriching it with new flavors, and better than either freezing or sterilization usually can. We also discover that by using less sugar in jams and other sweet preserves, fruit retains its full flavor, without burdening us with additional calories. With 300 recipes describing how to preserve over one hundred kinds of food, this book restores our appetite for traditional preserves that truly are house specialties. Reader Reviews of Keeping Food Fresh *****Keeping Food Fresh: Old World Techniques and Recipes 2006-08-20 This is a great compendium of old-world preserving techniques that can still be used today. A great resource for kitchen gardeners who treasure their ability to feed themselves around the year with their homegrown and preserved produce! Low-energy techniques make it possible to preserve without depending on electricity. *****What Grandma forgot to tell you. 2005-10-13 If you're like me you missed learning the ways of preserving food without canning or freezing at your mother or grandmother's elbow. This book is an excellent reference for an experienced cook to learn some forgotten or abandoned ways of food preservation. The translation is well done, the information and instructions are very clear for me. I'm especially pleased with the suggestions on about how long you can keep the food when preserved by each recipe. I'm looking forward to trying something different with the fruits of this years harvest. ----------------------------------------- My SURVIVALIST COOKBOOK Recommendation # 3 is: Wild Fermentation By Author Sandor Ellix Katz Book Description for ISBN 1931498237 Bread. Cheese. Wine. Beer. Coffee. Chocolate. Most people consume fermented foods and drinks every day. For thousands of years, humans have enjoyed the distinctive flavors and nutrition resulting from the transformative power of microscopic bacteria and fungi. Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods is the first cookbook to widely explore the culinary magic of fermentation. "Fermentation has been an important journey of discovery for me," writes author Sandor Ellix Katz. "I invite you to join me along this effervescent path, well trodden for thousands of years yet largely forgotten in our time and place, bypassed by the superhighway of industrial food production." The flavors of fermentation are compelling and complex, quite literally alive. This book takes readers on a whirlwind trip through the wide world of fermentation, providing readers with basic and delicious recipes-some familiar, others exotic-that are easy to make at home. The book covers vegetable ferments such as sauerkraut, kimchi, and sour pickles; bean ferments including miso, tempeh, dosas, and idli; dairy ferments including yogurt, kefir, and basic cheesemaking (as well as vegan alternatives); sourdough bread-making; other grain fermentations from Cherokee, African, Japanese, and Russian traditions; extremely simple wine- and beer-making (as well as cider-, mead-, and champagne-making) techniques; and vinegar-making. With nearly 100 recipes, this is the most comprehensive and wide-ranging fermentation cookbook ever published. Reader Reviews of Wild Fermentation *****Excellent book 2007-10-21 This book is full of useful information on all types of fermentation and a lot of excellent recipes too. A great addition to my library. *****Changed the way I veiw food! 2007-10-10 This book is wonderful! Sandor Ellix Katz has a great way of conveying his personal beliefs on food systems, and how we eat affects our culture. I've been making many of the fermented foods included in his book, and hope to get around to trying to make them all! My friends all think I'm food obsessed now, but I'm completely enjoying myself and keeping myself entertained with the wonderful recipes in this book. ****What can I say... 2007-09-04 I love this book, my family loves the soda, my brother wants my sauerkraut and I taught some kids who to start and maintain a sourdough starter made with the yeast from the plumbs on our tree. I can't wait to make wine. *****The Katz Pajamas 2007-08-21 I love this book! Not only is it a comprehensive (and surprising) overview of how pervasive live culture is in the foods we consume, it also is a very helpful guide to making some of these things at home. The style is casual, friendly and the information comes from the writer's own deep experience. If you are a DIY cook or baker, you need to get this book! ------------------------------------------ Whewy ,that's it... I finally got 'er done! YEE HAW!!! I know alot of folk get mad about this subject "as they are brainwashed on modern stuff". That's ok, as I believe in FREEDOM of choice... and we do have to suffer the consequences/deal with the results of the choices "we" make. Now logically one would figure that if this so-called-modern-stuff were to really be so good.... Then WHY IS IT THAT WE ARE UNHEALTHIER THAN WE HAVE EVER BEEN & WHY ARE THERE SO MANY MORE DISEASES THAN EVER BEFORE? Why.... BECAUSE NOW A DAYS MODERN FOODS aren't like REAL WHOLE SIMPLE NOURSIHING FOODS of mans past. They are full of PRESERVATIVES TO MAKE FOODS LAST YEARS, and YEARS, and YEARS ON THE STORE SHELF, SYNTHETIC ADDITIVES, and MODERN FOOD RAISING PRACTICES (<--which are too lengthy to add here). All I can say is BAD BAD BAD BAD STUFF is in all of it!!! When we consume it, it builds up in our bodies (<--as toxins which have a very negative effect) and that's why we end up with high cancer rates, diabetes and so much more, sadly.... Yep, all in the name of $$$MONEY MAKING$$$ with all of these poison foods & multitudes of doctor's visits ~ YES, IT'S A BIG BUSINESS indeed!!!!!!! Hopefully those of you out there, who are really into SURVIVALISM, realize that HEALTH is beyond important. If we don't get healthy now (by making better food choices), and boost our immune systems before T.S.H.T.F... the majority of society will be so very (pardon my language here) SCR*WED!!!!! It is not reasonable to think that one will survive with synthetic meds/products (which one cannot even provide for yourself anyway) & etc. Especially when folk have created a non-hardy/weak bodies... Overall I want to "inspire" those who are open minded and realistic about survivng in the future. I wish everyone & their families THE BEST! Sincerely, Wildernessgal (Who's thankful for the day I happened upon each of the 3 above books, which helped me to make a very positive change in my families/my own life... I think that they are an outstanding/cheap investment which will make a big difference in one's future!) P.S.- Another good aid to help you in learning more, would be to go to the following site: www.westonaprice.org Also, instead of buying "mass produced poisons" @ your local supermarket, check out the following links http://www.westonaprice.org/localchapters/index.html , & http://www.realmilk.com/where.html which will help you & your family to find healthy naturally raised whole foods in your local area. That is, unless you are able to do it all for yourself! ***APPLAUDS***Bye bye now & Enjoy!
