I just got back from Expo West and have been super busy — but I wanted to quickly put up a post to let you know that Sally Fallon Morell, President of the Weston A. Price Foundation is speaking live right now — and you can go watch it streaming online for free!

Here’s How to Watch

1. Go to this page: http://healthfreedomconference.com/live

2. Click on the Health Class link right above the video player.

UPDATE: They are taking a lunch break right now (12:15 pm PST). If it’s not working — check back in a little while!

Sally will be speaking until 5 pm PST today — for almost 6 more hours! If you’re at work, you can watch while multitasking.

Every time I listen to Sally speak, I learn new things. She’s talking about the importance of vitamin A right now — I’ve already learned a lot just in the past few minutes of watching. Don’t miss this chance to watch!

If you find this link too late, you can make a donation to the Health Freedom Conference for only $20 to give you access to the archive watch ALL the videos — lectures by author Rami Nagel, author and vaccine expert Tim O’Shea, raw milk hero Mark McAfee, etc. Just click the donate button.

Welcome to Real Food Wednesday!

Kelly’s post this week is about Fats and Low-Carb Diets with Jimmy Moore and Dr. Andrew Weil. I love Jimmy Moore!

My post is a link to my podcast (internet radio) interview with Matt Stone, traditional food blogger at 180 Degree Health. We talked about omega 3s and omega 6s, extreme paleo diets, thyroid health, metabolism and weight loss, and various other stuff related to nutrition and traditional food.

While you’re at it, go check out the two giveaways Kelly is currently running on her blog:

Enter to win fermented cod liver oil from GAPSDiet.com

Enter to win organic grass-fed ghee from Pure Indian Foods

And don’t forget — Kelly is hosting Real Food Wednesday next week!

Please share your posts about healthy, real food below.

How to Share Your Post:

1. Post on your blog and be sure to link back to this post. (not just the site, but this post)
2. Add your name (or the name of your blog) and your URL to Mr. Linky below.
3. Non-bloggers – post in the comments!

Help Spread the Real Food Message

Please stumble and tweet the posts. Kelly & I will stumble and tweet as many as we can. It just takes a second and the more people who do it, the more powerful it is. Help us get the word out about real food!

For all the details on Real Food Wednesday, please see this page.

Now it’s your turn! Add your link to Mr. Linky below.

I had a wonderful time chatting with fellow traditional food blogger, Matt Stone, author of the 180 Degree Health blog.

Matt Stone is a blogger as well as an author, currently working on his fifth ebook. He’s a voracious and enthusiastic researcher and is a self-described “dietary adventurer, having done everything from vegan diets to zero-carb and his highly controversial but well-recieved ‘high-everything diet.”

Matt is also a former professional chef and is able to convey a lot of great information to his followers in videos and blogs on how to make a healthy diet practical, something he sees as being vitally important, as he strongly feels that the battle of health vs. disease is won and lost in the kitchen.

We had such an interesting discussion, we went over and talked for close to an hour and a half. I think you’ll enjoy it as much as I did — click below to listen or download.

Listen to the Podcast: Matt Stone from 180 Degree Health

Click the play button below to listen.

Click here to download the mp3 file.

This post is part of Real Food Wednesday here on CHEESESLAVE — go check out the other posts today!

Think your kids won’t eat raw oysters? Do they turn up their noses at liver and onions? You need to read this post.

I had the most interesting conversation with Ceci, the woman who owns our daughter’s daycare. She has a few secret tricks up her sleeve to get kids — any kid — to eat anything.

Yes, liver. And yeah, tripe. And, yep, pretty much anything else you can imagine that you think a child would never eat. Octopus. Natto. Pancreas. You name it. All those super-nutrient-dense foods that are going to give your kiddos high cheekbones, a wide, beautiful face, and perfectly straight teeth.

Ceci from Peru

Ceci grew up in Peru on a traditional diet. She told me that she grew up eating all kinds of organ meats, including liver, kidneys, stomach, brains, and glands. She still makes chicken soup from scratch, as well as beans, rice and tamales and pozole for the children at the daycare.

Last week, I was at the daycare chatting with Ceci, when one of the women who works for her came up to us and handed me a bag of coconut candy I had made for my daughter, Kate as part of her afternoon snack. It was fresh coconut, roasted, covered with raw honey, and dried in the dehydrator. (Yum, doesn’t that sound good? It was!)

The young woman handed me the Ziploc bag of coconut candy and said, “Kate ate everything from her snack, the cheese, the almonds, the raisins — everything but this coconut.”

I thanked her and she left. I was a little surprised and puzzled by the fact that Kate did not eat the coconut candy. I could understand maybe if it had not been sweetened. When I tried to give her fresh, raw coconut, over the weekend, she wouldn’t eat it. She spit it out. However, when I sweetened it with a little raw honey, she loved it. She had eaten a small bowl of it as a snack on Sunday. And now she was not eating it. Why the switch?

I looked at Ceci. She was shaking her head.

Once the girl was out of earshot, Ceci said, “All the children eat anything I give them. Anything. The only time I have trouble with children not eating their food is when I get a new girl. It’s always that the girl does not like the food — that’s when the children won’t eat it.”

“Really?” I asked, fascinated. Ceci’s been running this daycare for like 30 years. She has seen it all. “So if the girl doesn’t like the food, the kid won’t eat it?”

Ceci nodded. “The children know.”

Learning to Love Liverwurst

It occurred to me suddenly that Kate had eaten liverwurst sandwiches with me — and she had eaten them at daycare before, too. But then last week, the same girl who told me that Kate wouldn’t eat the coconut candy had also informed me that Kate did not eat her liverwurst-on-sprouted-bread sandwich. I flashed back in my mind of her her handing me two days worth of liverwurst sandwiches.

“She wouldn’t eat these,” she said. I remember her face, the look of disdain.

“Ceci,” I said, “Is this why Kate didn’t eat her liverwurst last week?”

Ceci’s eyes widened. “She didn’t eat it? She ate it with me before.”

“No! For two days she wouldn’t eat her liverwurst sandwich.”

Ceci nodded knowingly. “It was the girl. She doesn’t like liver. I love liver. Kate eats it when she’s with me. From now on, you tell me when it is Liver Day. I’ll have Kate sit with me when she eats her liver. She’ll eat it if she is with me.”

I laughed. “It’s a deal!”

I packed a liverwurst sandwich for Kate yesterday. I told Ceci in the morning, “It’s Liver Day!” She gave me a conspiratorial wink and told me she’d make sure Kate sat with her to eat her snack. I said, “I made a big sandwich so you can have half.”

When I picked Kate up from daycare, Ceci told me that Kate ate her snack sitting with her. “We shared the sandwich and it was delicious — she ate half and I ate half. We loved it!”

How To Get Your Kids to Eat Anything

Ceci told me her secret.

“One taste,” she said. “I tell the children, take one taste. Then the next time, I tell them, two tastes. Then the next time, three tastes.”

“How many times do you do it?” I asked.

“Until they like it.”

I laughed. “Genius!” And then I asked, “But the mother has to like the food?”

“Yes,” she said, nodding. “If we don’t like it, they won’t like it.”

In other words, we can’t fake it. If we want our kids to eat liver, we have to learn to love it first.

This post is a part of Real Food Wednesday at Kelly the Kitchen Kop.

Photo credits: Nir Nussbaum and Savannah Grandfather on Flickr

Last month, I posted on this blog the story of Paula, a woman I met on an airplane who had grown up eating traditional food (raw dairy, cod liver oil, and organ meats) in Guadalajara, Mexico.

Shortly after posting that, I got this interesting email in my inbox:

Hello Ann Marie,

My name is Hilaire. I am from Oregon and I just recently moved to Guadalajara Mexico. I am married and we have four beautiful daughters (ages 1-7 yrs.) Last night I was desperately searching online for someone in my area who knew where to find good healthy raw milk.

I suppose I was hoping to find an expatriate who had read the research of Weston A. Price and knows all about nourishing traditional foods. A local chapter please?! That is when I stumbled upon your blog entry about Paula from Guadalajara. I was disappointed when I found it was not you that was from Guadalajara, but I was happy to hear someone from here still knows how to eat well.

Although I speak Spanish fine, I am after all a “gringa” that knows little about the ways of life down here. I have found that there are people who eat traditional foods like you mentioned Paula eating, but many of them also drink milk out of a box in which the second ingredient is vegetable oil. They might make refried beans that used to contain lard, but they’ve been misled into using the “healthier” vegetable oil instead.

I am in a very urban setting. Sure they have every animal part imaginable ready for purchase at the mercado, but my American mind can’t wrap around the lack of refrigeration and the lower standards of cleanliness. I find myself walking down the aisles of Wal-Mart wondering if I am better off there or taking my chances in the crowded open air markets (think more India than France).

I know that that is how things used to be, but when it comes down to actually buying stuff for my family, the fear sets in. I come from the beautiful and fertile Willamette Valley where things are pretty and clean and I could trace most foods back to their source nearby.

This is a huge city where honey could be fresh raw honey or a mixture of corn syrup and other things (I was told by locals not to buy honey unless I knew the source). Raw milk is legal here, but it is sold by people riding on bikes or motorcycles with containers strapped on the back. Where did it come from, is it safe, how do I know?

OK, so what is my point? I guess this is a desperate plea out into the land of cyberspace for any advice, help, or even better, connections, on how to feed my family traditional nourishing food in Mexico (especially when it comes to animal products).

Anything helps.

Thanks,

Hilaire

Thank you so much for writing, Hilaire. I wanted to post this on my blog because I thought maybe you would get some good responses from my readers in the comments. Also because I want this to be searchable on the internet so other people in your shoes can find it.

Response from Sally Fallon Morell of the Weston A. Price Foundation

I wasn’t sure how to answer your questions so I emailed Sally Fallon Morell, author of Nourishing Traditions and the President of The Weston A. Price Foundation.

Here’s what Sally wrote:

Dear Hilaire, I can understand your concern about cleanliness, but it this case, the raw milk is your best bet because it has it’s own build in safety mechanisms. I am sure that if you hang out at the market you can find someone with a goat who can bring you goat milk they have milked no later than the day before. Of course, get lard there and bones to make into broth. All these things will give you immunity if you happen to have problems with the other food.

Hope this helps, Sally Fallon Morell

Response from Mare at Just Making Noise

I also sent an email out to Mare Beard, author of the Just Making Noise blog. I was especially interested to hear what Mare had to say, since she was raised in the United States and recently moved to Costa Rica with her family. (The photo above is a picture of Mare eating her first bite of liver pate when she had lunch with me at Anisette in Santa Monica last month.)

Mare’s answer is a bit longer, and I hope it helps Hilaire — and anyone else out there with these same questions and facing similar challenges. I sent her Sally’s answer so she responds to that as well.

I totally understand your fear… new country, new place, new language and… new food. It took me a few months to get used to the changes from food to cleanliness (or sometimes lack of it), but I had to remember that our standard of cleanliness is a little over the top and not exactly healthy.

I totally agree with Sally’s respond on locating raw milk. We’ve been drinking & kefiring raw goat’s and cow’s milk since we moved here over a year ago… no sickness or problems. Not all the raw milk we drank was organic, but it is grass-fed and we ALWAYS ask lots of questions about their animals. Especially about the antiboitics… thankfully every farmer we talked to do not sell the milk if a cow has been given antibiotics. They also said they only use it for emergency because it’s expensive. Like you, we see farmers driving around in their trucks selling fresh milk from that morning. Goat’s milk is favorable here and I was blessed to be able to find a farmer who had enough goat’s milk to sell to us. My encouragement to you is to keep asking, keep looking and you WILL find clean sources of milk directly from a farmer. It takes time and perseverance… it was hard, but so worth it. You will be surprise with how much you can find in a foreign country that you can’t find so freely in the states. I especially love how cheap clean raw milk is here!!

With meat… we buy our meat from a butcher that several locals recommended and we’ve loved it. They have fresh beef delivered 3 times a week and I’ve seen the carcass hanging… that’s my favorite time to buy meat because I know it is fresh. Again, like with the milk… keep asking around and you will find locals who care about cleanliness and freshness. I know the place I buy my beef doesn’t look “clean” for the typical American, but it is very clean for a typical Costa Rican. Maybe you could even find the source of meat from whomever you buy milk from. All the beef is pretty much grass-fed. I do know that the beef we buy is 95%-98% grass-fed because our guy is very picky and likes to bring the best to his customers. There are some beef that have been fed chicken manure, but he doesn’t sell that (thankfully!!). Again, ask questions.

I also agree with Sally with buying the bones to make bone broths… so good and so plentiful! I love how pretty much every part of the animal is available and is consider NORMAL to use! If I tell our buchter I want to make broths or soups… he would bring out all the bones and parts that are commonly used for that purpose. The oxtail is a favorite and I would often have to request it so they would save it for me.

I don’t fully agree with Sally on buying lard. Our butcher sells fresh lard and I would totally use it if I couldn’t find butter, coconut oil or palm oil. I do use olive oil, but I try to stay away from cooking it as it is not a stable fat for cooking. Maybe I don’t know enough about lard, but the pig’s diet is terrible here in Costa Rica. They are mostly fed veggie oil waste along with corn, chicken poop & food from trash. From my understanding of how the pig’s body works… they don’t have the ability to detox, so toxics (and antiboitics) can build up in their fat and body. Lard is pig fat and I’m not comfortable using it because of what I know and have researched on pigs. If I can find a farmer that raises his pigs free-ranged and naturally, then maybe I would use it. I try to make our own butter as much as possible, but I do buy regular butter from the store because I know it is better then vegtable oil and margerine. I also use a lot of coconut oil which I bring from the states, but thankfully have found a source here in Costa Rica. I do know that palm oil is popular here, but haven’t really looked for it. Maybe you can find a source there?

I do not buy fruits, veggies or meat at the supermarket… mostly because they all taste like cleaning products that the stores uses and I know that my veggies, fruits and meats are fresher from the farmer’s market whether they are organic or not. As always I ask questions about how they grow their produces and enjoy knowing that pretty much everything they sell is directly from their farms. There are several organic farmer’s markets around Costa Rica… have you been able to locate any outside of your area? I’m sure there are some.

Overall, I stay away from all the processed foods and stay close to wholesome foods even if they aren’t organic. We know God will bless our efforts to eat healthy and we choose to be grateful for what we can find.

If you have any more questions… please let me know! I hope I was of some help!

Photo credit: Wonderlane on Flickr