I still remember the first seeds of my rewilding.  They were sown in my childhood–little things that took root.  My mom told me one time, while I was blowing away dandelion fluff and making wishes, that dandelions were edible.  She had never e…

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I think that there is a very limited segment of society that even has any real options for any sort of permanent walk on the wild side. They are mostly younger people without a lot of social responsibilities. Which is not in any way meant as a denigrating remark.

But, I mean what if your 8 year old really doesn’t want to be wild? Can you imagine getting most 16 year olds to give up MTV, the mall, oh wait and ALL of thier frinds.

H’m and I have to say unless you personally own a piece of property that is big enough to be a year round habitat for a couple of humans, who’s going to let you just hang out on their land without calling the cops. And look at the kind of resouces humans need while they’re being “wild”. I mean a few dozen deer, a bunch of rabbits, lots of fruits, grains, and vegetable. That sort of predation is pretty obvious, especially if it isn’t just one or two people.Remember, vagrancy is technically a crime, so is theft or property damage. Ask the homeless. they get hassled about it enough.

I think the reason no one is going er..rewild, is that it’s actually illegal, impractical, and generally impossible while our current society is based on the concept of ownership. It’s ok to hunt in order to eat, as long as the cow isn’t some farmers. If you’re going to harvest berries, it better be on land where no one minds, etc.

I’ not saying that it’s wrong, but it just won’t work, not right now.

That kinda sucks, but remember that it was a bunch of wild, feuding tribes that caused people to bunch up into societies and make all of these rules in the first place. I mean what if it’s the deer herdthat your kid depends on for food that wild people eat.

I never said that Price was the final authority on anything, only that he did research unlike any other that I have heard of. I’m still interested if you have a particular reference that you would recommend. The reference to a “vast body of work” does me no good. Name a good book and I will seek it out. I am already reading several books that I found out about from this site.

As I said in my post to Janene, it is Price’s discovery of superfoods as well as the value of raw meat that is particularly important. The other issue that is dealt with in his book is soil depletion. I realize a lot of others talk about this, but this was my first exposure to the issue. Personally I am concerned about the lack of minerals in the soil that feeds the wild game that I eat. You are only as healthy as the soil your food comes from whether that be wild or domestic food.

Regarding biases and prejudices, I don’t know how it is possible to be human and not have them. In reading Price’s book, one has to be ever mindful of the context. That doesn’t invalidate the data, however.

And again, if your search feature worked, then I would have been aware that this subject often came up in your discussions. I tried several times to search…for the very reason of not wishing to be redundant. I have read quite a bit here already, but only discovered your site a few days ago.

And…in reading about your paleo diet experiment, I can’t help but be confused about how you condemn grains and milk, yet are willing to consume Splenda? You must be aware of what Mercola says about artificial sweeteners?

Personally, I’ve found that foods such as sauerkraut (I make mine salt free using a culture from Body Ecology and it tastes like a salad) and coconut oil are very helpful when eating low carb. Tangy foods help curb the craving for sweets and the coconut oil gives energy and is very digestible, plus it kills the various bad bugs that can tend to live in our gut. Anyway, I wish you success in your attempt to change your eating patterns and lose weight.

And…part of the reason that I even consume dairy now is because I had to give up fruit and I’m trying to keep my weight up while keeping my blood sugar down and also treating candida. I’m also seeking the probiotic benefit of the kefir. I actually became underweight by eating paleo. We each have our individual issues and health considerations to deal with. There is no one right way to eat for everyone.

Despite my appearance here as possibly confrontational, that isn’t the intent. I do very much enjoy your writing.

Jan

I sympathize with the problem of too many books vs. too little time. I have the same problem myself. We all have our own priorities and interests. My point was only to offer the info to this group as I couldn’t find any reference to it in my perusing of this site.

There is so much in Price’s book that isn’t in Fallon’s book. I didn’t previously consume any dairy products, but now I drink raw milk kefir. Otherwise, my diet is strictly paleo. Prior to reading Price, I was paleo, but had to discontinue fruit (I’m treating for candida). Having been fully indoctrinated in all the vegetarian dogma, Price literally knocked my socks off.

The main value his work has for me is the variety of superfoods that he discovered these various groups using and the common nutrients that they have. Fallon adapts this to the foods available to all westerners. It’s true that fish roe is a great food for the pre-conception and pre-natal/breastfeeding periods, but that isn’t something commonly found here (or affordable). Fallon does tend to focus on foods that we can actually get here and also what people tend to really eat.

The people Price studied went to great lengths to obtain certain “super” foods. I believe we all could benefit from knowing what they are if we wish to have good health for ourselves and our children.

Price’s book is full of pictures of dental deformities caused by improper diet. You could eat paleo and still have these deficiencies if you weren’t careful. I wish I had known all of this sooner. I could have potentially saved my two daughters a lot of misery due to orthodontia and in the case of my older daughter, the misery of wearing a pavlik harness (for her shallow hip socket) when she was a baby. Did my nutrition deficiency cause this? Very likely, I think. At the time I thought I was doing everything right as a vegan…I had certainly read all the books.

Some of the groups Price studied included foods like clay and ash in their diet (to obtain minerals and salt). Fish heads were important for nutrition, particularly in children. The eyes of fish are high in Retinal (vitamin A). Liver is a superfood. Raw meats can provide enough vitamin C to prevent scurvy. This info from Price. His work is a scientific study, whereas Fallon took this work and created a cookbook for the western palate. I found the chapter on raw foods (Fallon’s book) to be very useful myself.

I’ve enjoyed reading your diet related posts elsewhere on this site. I don’t believe we differ all that much philosophically when it comes to food.

Again, the thing that strikes me as so important about Price’s research is that he actually analyzes the content of the foods eaten by healthy modern primitives. This isn’t just a theory about what people of the paleo era ate, this is real data compiled on the habits and health of real people eating foods available today. Despite the impression from Fallon’s book, the emphasis was not primarily on groups eating lots of dairy and grains. His fascination with butter oil came from the discovery that this was a superfood that was available to Americans unlike many of the other super foods. Thus, he used this oil in his experiments and found that in combination with cod liver oil it brought many back from the brink of death. The importance wasn’t that it was butter, but that it contained a factor he called Factor X which was present in all super foods. Of course he would focus on what was actually available as a source of this nutrient. As paleo people, the other super foods would be of primary interest and you would have to read his book to get that info.

Jan

Who knows what a revolutionary I will be once I get off these pacifying foods?

I’m glad you’re familiar with the paleo diet and other work that’s been done in similar veins. You said you’d heard of nothing other than Price to address these issues, so I assumed you must not be aware of this vast body of work, since it deals with such things extensively.

But no, I don’t “reject” Price at all. I find his work quite useful. I don’t “reject” Loren Cordain, either, but there’s parts of his work I disagree with, too.

They ate lots of raw fat and raw meat. That is why Weston A Price was in favor of drinking raw milk. There is no other source of raw fat in the western diet. The eskimos obviously didn’t drink milk. I think getting enough fat is what primitivists have the most problem with.

I think maybe we are experiencing a failure to communicate

Price and Fallon have published some very useful materials. I think few here would disagree with that.

However, I think a lot of folks here ALSO look at it as limiting, in that there is a lot of focus on dairy, grains and legumes — if you don’t eat those things, then the info becomes less useful.

For myself, I do eat some legumes and some dairy, so I do use the fermentation techniques on my beans (having determined that they are fully digestable for me if they are properly fermented) and I try to buy only Organic Non-American Made cheeses: ‘Raw’ Cheese, I believe is produced without any heat, and it makes me ill, however, outside the US, most cheese is made with raw milk, and then processed ‘normally’ and that seems ideal to me.

I have not read Price’s book, only excerpts, web articles and Fallon’s book. So yes, I am sure there is other useful info… its just a question of how applicable… and how much time there is for reading each day divided by number of books to read:-)

Janene