For those of you who just want the rules for eating, plain and simple, The Weston Price Foundation has ‘em fer ya. Here they are, my emphasis added to highlight what most people are ignorant of.

Dietary Guidelines

1. Eat whole, natural foods.
2. Eat only foods that will spoil, but eat them before they do.
3. Eat naturally-raised meat including fish, seafood, poultry, beef, lamb, game, organ meats and eggs.
4. Eat whole, naturally-produced milk products from pasture-fed cows, preferably raw and/or fermented, such as whole yogurt, cultured butter, whole cheeses and fresh and sour cream.
5. Use only traditional fats and oils including butter and other animal fats, extra virgin olive oil, expeller expressed sesame and flax oil and the tropical oils—coconut and palm.
6. Eat fresh fruits and vegetables, preferably organic, in salads and soups, or lightly steamed.
7. Use whole grains and nuts that have been prepared by soaking, sprouting or sour leavening to neutralize phytic acid and other anti-nutrients.
8. Include enzyme-enhanced lacto-fermented vegetables, fruits, beverages and condiments in your diet on a regular basis.
9. Prepare homemade meat stocks from the bones of chicken, beef, lamb or fish and use liberally in soups and sauces.
10. Use herb teas and coffee substitutes in moderation.
11. Use filtered water for cooking and drinking.
12. Use unrefined Celtic seasalt and a variety of herbs and spices for food interest and appetite stimulation.
13. Make your own salad dressing using raw vinegar, extra virgin olive oil and expeller expressed flax oil.
14. Use natural sweeteners in moderation, such as raw honey, maple syrup, dehydrated cane sugar juice and stevia powder.
15. Use only unpasteurized wine or beer in strict moderation with meals.
16. Cook only in stainless steel, cast iron, glass or good quality enamel.
17. Use only natural, food-based supplements.
18. Get plenty of sleep, exercise and natural light.

Dietary Dangers

1. Don’t eat commercially processed foods such as cookies, cakes, crackers, TV dinners, soft drinks, packaged sauce mixes, etc.
2. Avoid all refined sweeteners such as sugar, dextrose, glucose and high fructose corn syrup.
3. Avoid white flour, white flour products and white rice.
4. Avoid all hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated fats and oils.
5. Avoid all vegetable oils made from soy, corn, safflower, canola or cottonseed.
6. Do not use polyunsaturated oils for cooking, sauteing or baking.
7. Avoid fried foods.
8. Do not practice strict vegetarianism (veganism); animal products provide vital nutrients not found in plant foods.
9. Avoid products containing protein powders. [This means “health” powders added to smoothies, etc. . .]
10. Avoid pasteurized milk; do not consume lowfat milk, skim milk, powdered milk or imitation milk products.
11. Avoid battery-produced eggs and factory-farmed meats.
12. Avoid highly processed luncheon meats and sausage containing MSG and other additives.
13. Avoid rancid and improperly prepared seeds, nuts and grains found in granolas, quick rise breads and extruded breakfast cereals, as they block mineral absorption and cause intestinal distress.
14. Avoid canned, sprayed, waxed, bioengineered or irradiated fruits and vegetables.
15. Avoid artificial food additives, especially MSG, hydrolyzed vegetable protein and aspartame, which are neurotoxins. Most soups, sauce and broth mixes and commercial condiments contain MSG, even if not so labeled.
16. Avoid caffeine-containing beverages such as coffee, tea and soft drinks. Avoid chocolate.
17. Avoid aluminum-containing foods such as commercial salt, baking powder and antacids. Do not use aluminum cookware or aluminum-containing deodorants.
18. Do not drink fluoridated water [and use fluoridated toothpaste].
19. Avoid synthetic vitamins and foods containing them.
20. Do not drink distilled liquors.
21. Do not use a microwave oven.

What’s Wrong With Politically Correct Nutritional Guidelines?

PC DIETARY GUIDELINES in Italics

“Avoid saturated fats.” Problem - Saturated fats play many important roles in the body. They provide integrity to the cell membrane, enhance the body’s use of essential fatty acids, enhance the immune system, protect the liver and contribute to strong bones. Saturated fats do not cause heart disease. In fact, saturated fats are the preferred food for the heart. Your body makes saturated fats out of carbohydrates.

“Limit cholesterol” Problem - Dietary cholesterol contributes to the strength of the intestinal wall and helps babies and children develop a healthy brain and nervous system. Foods that contain cholesterol also provide many other important nutrients. Only oxidized cholesterol, found in powdered milk and eggs, contributes to heart disease. Powdered milk is added to 1% and 2% milk.

“Use more polyunsaturated oils” – Problem - Polyunsaturates in more than small amounts contribute to cancer, heart disease, autoimmune diseases, learning disabilities, intestinal problems and premature aging. Large amounts of polyunsaturated fats are new to the human diet, due to the modern use of commercial liquid vegetable oils.

“Avoid red meat” Problem - Red meat is a rich source of nutrients that protect the heart and nervous system including vitamins B12 and B6, zinc, phosphorus, carnitine and Coenzyme Q10.

“Cut back on eggs” Problem - Eggs are nature’s perfect food, providing excellent protein, the gamut of nutrients and important fatty acids that contribute to the health of the brain and nervous system. Americans had less heart disease when they ate more eggs. Egg substitutes cause rapid death in test animals.

“Eat lean meat and drink lowfat milk” Problem - Lean meat and lowfat milk lack fat soluble vitamins needed to assimilate protein and minerals in meat and milk. Consumption of low-fat foods can lead to depletion of vitamin A and D reserves.

“Limit fat consumption to 30% of calories” Problem - 30% calories as fat is too low for most people, leading to low blood sugar and fatigue. Traditional diets contained 40% to 80% of calories as healthy fats, mostly of animal origin.

“Eat 6-11 servings of grains per day” Problem - Most grain products are made from white flour, which is devoid of nutrients. Additives in white flour can cause vitamin deficiencies. Whole grain products can cause mineral deficiencies and intestinal problems unless properly prepared.

“Restrict salt” Problem - Salt is crucial to digestion and assimilation. Salt is also necessary for the development and functioning of the nervous system.

“At least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables per day” Problem - Fruits and vegetables receive an average of 10 applications of pesticides, from seed to storage. Consumers should seek out organic produce. Quality counts!

“Eat more soy foods” Problem - Modern soy foods block mineral absorption, inhibit protein digestion, depress thyroid function and contain potent carcinogens.

I have changed my Avacado Dip and Guacamole recipes. The latter is just divine. mmmmm . . . gotta go eat some more.

I thought it might happen. I felt on the precipitous edge for a while now.

I have quite a sophisticated hedge of stoicism built up around my heart. I maintain it with shears of criticism and fertilize it with regular dousing of fear. Episodes of tears are very rare, feel very out of control and definitely hidden behind the hedge. Part of me would love to mow the hedge down, but then people would see me in all my vulnerability. Undoubtedly arrows of ridicule and mockery would pierce me if I allowed them to see their target, a heart soft, open and childlike before the Lord.

The Master Gardener, though, has been working His gentle plans to remove the hedge now, though, for a while. He has been gracious to plant and tend strong perennials of courage, grace, love, compassion, joy, peace, gentleness and hope so that as the hedge came down my heart would not be left bare and desperate, but quietly surprised and encouraged by the transformation.

So I’ve snapped, much to my relief. Something in me, protected by this hedge, has resisted my call to motherhood. Surely it can’t be enough to “just be a mother”. Surely it can’t be enough to only receive praise and validation from my Lord and my family. I just lusted for validation, achievement and prestige outside my work in the home. I had to excel at something besides homemaking or mothering, or I had to excel at these enough to be recognized by someone other than my family.

However, the stress of this third baby, all the cooking changes I have had to make, and several other “life factors,” alongside all the positive, wonderful, powerful encouragement I received through the Choosing Home and Above Rubies ministries have forced me over the edge. The final blow has been Serene and Pearl’s album “Peace All Over Me” which I purchased at the retreat and have listened to non-stop since. The music finally forced my heart to fully connect with the life that the Lord has given me. More than one of these songs has brought me to tears. Like I said, I’ve snapped!

Some skeptics, those well versed in the desensitized skepticism so prevalent in our “enlightened” culture might dismiss the sweet harmonies and lyrics as simplistic and overly-sentimental. Such a critic is too hard to feel the depth and profundity of the heart expressed on this album. My resistance to fully feeling the motherly tenderness and passion saturating these songs opened my eyes to how much I have been tainted by feminism and the world’s version of womanhood. The residue of this perspective still lingers. How really just inferior and almost stupid the world sees a woman who would sing,

It was more than just pretend; It was what I was made for. . . . Let me be like the mother in my childhood dream. . . . Grant me this little girl’s wish, with arms full of heavenly treasures, May I be as contented and joyful and give me the sparkle of childlike pleasure.

All you want to be is a mother like a seven year old pretends to be? How silly and sentimental! Wake up to all the important things you could do, like gain power, earn money and waste your spirit away . . . . It has been so long since I consciously conceded to the world’s view of femininity and yet how much the subconscious pressures and voices still linger.

If there is anything I am loathe to be thought of it is “stupid”. In many ways, the foundation of my self-worth has stood on my being perceived as intelligent. To fully yield to motherhood feels like making myself vulnerable to the accusation of being lesser of mind, a different class compared to all those women who have time to read, write and think. If you want to really hurt me, you can call me a simpleton or uneducated. I’d rather be thought of as physically unattractive than as unintelligent. Motherhood sometimes feels as though it threatens to make me both!

But the world’s view of motherhood and womanhood is wrong and God in His grace has brought me to a point where I am sick enough of living in fear and bondage to the world’s definitions and standards. I am ready to be free. God has granted me new focus on the task of mothering He has truly blessed me with. I am resolved and content, finding new joy and delight in my children this week. I am sick of the bondage to a sick world’s opinion. I am breaking loose, freely accepting the soft, vulnerable, deeply feeling role that the Lord has given me. It might seem sentimental to those too broken to any longer know how to feel deeply and purely, but to the pure, all things are pure.

I see my four year old delight to pretend to be a mom; to sling her little baby and nurse her with nurturing delight. How tender and precious she is. How much grace God has given me and my family that she has somehow seen enough of a kind, loving and nurturing mom to know what it looks like and to enjoy imitating it. Thank you kind Lord! It inspires me to live up to her heavenly granted imaginings.

Lord, help me come to you as a child, free and pure in the love you have given. I am so thankful for the peace and freedom I have been given. Peace with being lowly. Peace with being made a servant. Peace with having my heart broken with love.

I strongly recommend Serene and Pearl’s CD’s. I was skeptical as to what the musical quality would be, but have been pleasantly surprised. The recording and mixing are very professional, the songs are written with pleasing melodies and tasteful arrangements, and every lyric is so uplifting. And of course, the harmonies are heavenly.

My favorite song on the album well expresses the new joy and peace I have been granted;

“Little arms reaching for me, Grubby fingers touch my face and love is what I feel.

Little eyes looking at me, chubby cheeks burst with smiles and joy is what I know.

Peeking in while they sleep at night, I thank God for the gift of life, I thank God for more than I deserve.

My heart is full, My heart is full. Why would I want for more, when my cup overflows?

I have long felt uneasy about my posts on Family Planning. Not that I have completely changed my mind, but because I critiqued and disagreed with parts of Nancy Campbell’s book, Be Fruitful and Multiply. This year my husband at first couldn’t understand why I was still going to the retreat, but I showed him how I agree with 90% of their theology and “family-ology”, if you will. Hardly anyone agrees on everything. Perhaps I would feel less uneasy about it if I had expressed my opinions independently of a review of her book. As it is, my position is expressed in the form of a critique.

Moreover, I love their ministry. Although I found things I beg to differ with in the aforementioned book, that is the only place I have found those arguments. In Nancy’s speaking and magazines, I haven’t encountered anything that I must dissent from. In fact, the issue just before last had an article that perfectly illustrated the most concrete disagreement I have with Ms. Nancy’s book. Consider this quote:

“There was essentially no lower segment left to my uterus when they delivered my son. It could mean death to the baby, uterine rupture, or any number of horrible complications if I were to become pregnant again.

” . . . We prayed about it and decided to continue to chart my cycles and trust God for the outcome.

“Two years and eight months after Timmy was born, we discovered that the Lord had side-stepped our attempts at avoiding pregnancy since He allowed me to ovulate a full week early on day eight of my cycle.”

Consider the second paragraph. Did this couple sin in their decision to use NFP (Natural Family Planning)? Nancy’s book seems to argue that any avoidance of pregnancy isn’t trusting God and therefore sin (Romans 14:23 “For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.”) I cannot agree with this, but beg forgiveness if I misunderstand Nancy’s position. In my critiques, I also felt that the overall emphasis on family took too much focus off the essential cross and Gospel, although I am willing to concede that such might be the case because my calling in ministry is to have a different focus than theirs: One body, many parts and functions.

As a side note, I do believe that there is an issue in some circles with “the cult of the family”. I do not think that this is because the vision for family is completely incorrect, but that the vision stops with family. I believe that the Kingdom vision of Christ begins with family, but grows out from there to include the entire polis, to include community, city, state and world. The family is indeed the basic unit but it does not stop there. At some point putting family first begins to work against the Kingdom when families become too isolated from the ones we have been called to proclaim the gospel to, serve, aid and make disciples.

I do not see the Campbell�s as succumbing to this difficulty, for they both have strong family roots as well as use the strength of family to outreach to those around them. I met one girl at the retreat who had met Serene at a Raw food’s picnic. If you have ever been around raw food’s only people, you know that they are usually quite “out there”! (I say that with utmost affection and as one who loves to be around those “out there”. I am from Eugene, Oregon you know!)

I hate disagreeing with Ms. Nancy, but at this point feel that it would be for me to fear men and not God to change my mind or remove my posts. I humbly ask the sweet women of Above Rubies to allow me to disagree on this point yet still be friends with the ministry. Again, I have never heard Nancy speak legalistically about NFP or write anything I had to disagree with in the magazine and so from my perspective I have no reason to feel out of fellowship with the ministry. I would even still recommend Be Fruitful and Multiply to others because there is so much in it with which I heartily agree and feel is quite in need of being said to the church today.

I hope that if anyone from Above Rubies reads my blog that they will agree to disagree with me in peace. On my side, it does not interfere with my support or participation in the ministry. I pray that it might be likewise seen from the other side.

I will be removing my posts on FP temporarily from the blog so that I might review them to make sure that I have disagreed with the utmost respect toward Nancy and her book. I know her heart in the Lord and I passionately concur with her overall vision.

UPDATE - I have left a few of my FP posts up for the sake of thinking and discussion. They are a year old and I have perhaps changed a bit in my thinking. Until I take the time to rework the posts, please consider them food for thought as opposed to aggressive argumentation.

Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions (p 447) on the topic ~

“Fundamental to [healthy sandwiches] is avoidance of the usual sandwich ingredients - preserved meats, condiments containing sugar and polyunsaturated oils, processed cheeses and unsuitable breads.

It is, in fact, modern bread that makes the sandwich possible and palatable. Old style, sourdough, slow-rise breads are too dense and hard for sandwich lovers; it was the advent of baker’s yeast that allowed bakers to produce softly spongy and uniform bread for sandwiches. Baker’s yeast produces a quick rise in bread in a very short period of time so that the phytates in whole grains are not properly neutralized. Thus, both commercial whole grain and refined flour sandwich breads present health risks, especially when so many dough conditioners and preservatives are added, as is the custom.

However, there are compromise breads available that wills serve for sandwiches. They are, unfortunately, all made with baker’s yeast; but the grains are first allowed to sprout or sour.

Ezekiel bread is one of these. I love the rich, nutty taste, but Audrey, whom we haven’t had diagnosed but obviously suffers from gluten intolerance, can’t eat these so well. She is able to eat my spelt sourdough, which is fermented for 15 hours (the starter is fermented 7 days - I use the NT recipe). Once she has adjusted a bit, I will try the Ezekiel bread again. Honestly, I am overwhelmed with making bread right now, but am trying to persevere! I would love to buy it instead, but I haven’t found such a sourdough. I suppose I could buy rice bread, but it just sounds wrong.

Martin Luther made the distinction between the “Theology of Glory” that seeks a way of power and triumph outside our call to the cross, a spirituality which wishes to ignore our call to suffer in this life and seeks by force to demand heaven to come down now. If only you were spiritual and faithful enough, you would be healed, you would have power, your marriage would be all “God wants it to be”. Sometimes God has ordained that we suffer. In this life we will have trouble, but fear not, BY THE CROSS, Jesus has overcome the world. We endure through the spirituality of the “Theology of the Cross” until HE brings glory and triumph and power. And he has chosen to bring it through the weak, dispised, humble things.

In his Maundy Thursday sermon, “As One Who Serves,” NT Wright said ~

‘The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; but it is not so with you. The greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves.’ And with that Jesus went off to show the way, to indicate at last the difference between the king of the Jews and the kings of the Gentiles, to carve into history the name of history’s Lord, the one who serves, and saves, and judges.

God’s promise to enthrone David’s son remains, a promise which, though often subverted into Gentile-lookalike monarchy, carries at its heart, as in Isaiah’s Servant songs, the radically alternative shape of sovereignty, a sovereignty of service, of one who would carry out YHWH’s saving purpose for Israel and the world at the cost of his own very life.

And at every step in the road there are siren voices telling us that it needn’t actually be quite so hard. Already in the early church some were eager to soften the lines of this revolutionary, world-changing spirituality and vocation. The world and its power-structures are irredeemable, some thought; let’s not try to challenge or change it, let’s instead escape into our own private spirituality, let’s pursue an altogether different kind of kingdom. Let’s follow a different dream, live by a different story, claim a different heritage rather than the difficult and craggy Jewish one. And let’s, in the last analysis, go after a different god. The god who made this wicked world can’t after all be a good god, and the god who called the Jewish people, and declared that David was the man after his own heart, can’t be the ultimate high god. Let’s escape from that whole tradition, they thought; then we shall be free to explore our own patterns of spirituality, to avoid confrontation with the powers of this world, to follow our own star wherever it leads.

And let’s pretend that Jesus himself is happy that we rewrite the story in this way. Let’s tell the tale a bit differently, to make it clear that Jesus’ true message was about helping us discover who we really are. Then we won’t need that shocking and dangerous nonsense about taking up the cross;

And the reason that I labour this alternative worldview, and highlight the ways in which it represents not just a variation on the genuine path of Jesus and his first followers but a full-scale rejection and overturning of it, is because it has become, in our own day, a major if not the major alternative, in the popular mind, to the true path of the kingdom, the sacramental path, the path of healing and baptism and consecration to which we rededicate ourselves today. The reason for the astonishing popularity of The Da Vinci Code on the one hand, and for the huge current media hype about the so-called ‘Gospel of Judas’ on the other, is that so many in our day are eager for enlightenment, hungry for spirituality, and yet desperate to avoid the way of the cross, the genuinely revolutionary kingdom of Jesus.

We are not called to escape. It is not all about me and discovering “my” path. It is about me becoming part of His Kingdom, a choosen one called to battle in this age of redemption. And the battle looks not like paradise, but the cross. Paradise awaits for us on the otherside.

We Texas Above Rubies were so blessed to have all of Nancy’s daughters here for the retreat. Secretly I want to be just like them! They are so tall, gorgeous, full of life, kind, graceful and Nancy herself especially has such a refined, careful, loving, prayerful demeanor. I just want to soak ‘em all up! Secretly, I also felt more “normal” around them. Often I feel like the wild “crunchy” one, but not at an AR retreat!

Here is total honesty for you. In my flesh, I want to be jealous. Part of me wishes it weren’t silly to immitate their cool accent and speak the way Nancy does. You have to get a tape of hers just to hear the melodious way she talks. It’s divine. However, God is gracious to keep my flesh under control, and truly, I took away from the retreat a freedom to be myself, the one-of-a-kind self God made me to be, with the Spirit and all His breathtaking fruits being manifested uniquely in my life. I also so want to insipire other women to feel such freedom as well. Being Christlike has so much more to do with inward character and spirit than it does how you dress, where you live or what niche group you belong to.

Nancy mentioned, as she spoke about dressing yourself with the dignity and beauty God gave you, said He designed us all to be gloriously different! Each of her girls has a slightly different flare to their dress as well. We can be redeemed country, redeemed suburban, redeemed hippie, redeemed high fashion or some redeemed ethnic “style”. We saw all of these such women at the retreat. It is no more “Christian” to be a homesteader wearing old fashioned dress than it is to be urban. Of course, there are principles to follow, such as modesty, respect, etc. . . but there is so much wonderful diversity through which these principles may be manifested in our dress, lifestyle and tastes. Think of all the amazing, delightfully different ecosystems of nature God made; so to it is with the cultures HE has made. He made the African to be different from the Indian from the European from the Russian from the Brazillian from the Alaskan from the Californian (yes there is even a redeemed way to be uniquely Californian! . . .

Well, the girls need me. Hope this made some sense!