And Raw Liver rocks! Each to their own. It’s one of my personal favorites.

Glen, I couldn’t agree more. Something is not right. I just spent the day at the Gold Coast and had a tough time eating anywhere because all I could find was junk food shops. I finally made it to my ‘oasis’ on the coast - Luka’s Fish & Chips for some traditional Fish & Chips cooked in Beef Tallow. Oh yeah!

People from non-industrialised societies generally died much younger than we do today, so the many health problems we currently experience in later life were not so pronounced. If you do a lot of physical activity, consuming a lot of animal fat is an easy and valid way to provide energy, however I’m guessing most readers of this website don’t walk more than 7000 steps a day (popular thinking recommends walking at least 10,000 steps).

As for eating raw liver (see Joanne’s liver nourishing article), I don’t know why you would bother (why freeze it and swallow in pill sizes to minimise the yucky raw flavour?) when cooked liver tastes so good. The medieval recipes cited do not use raw liver. I would class heating without boiling as a form of slow cooking. And I definitely would not want to start with the recommended large portion of liver and slowly cut back until the headaches and joint pains go away.

Joanne, apologies if I’ve offended, it was not intended, just want to provide a bit of balance to the comments. I enjoyed reading some of your articles even though I don’t agree with all of your ideas. Everyone is entitled to have their own views on health and nutrition, and one can only hope readers are intelligent enough to make their own decisions about diets and lifestyles.

Ancel Key’s work has been discredited over and over again, leaving science with little proof to the saturated fat-heart disease theory.

http://www.menshealth.com/cda/article.do?site=MensHealth&channel=health&category=heart.disease&conitem=a03ddd2eaab85110VgnVCM10000013281eac____&page=1

Take, for example, a 2004 Harvard University study of older women with heart disease. Researchers found that the more saturated fat these women consumed, the less likely it was their condition would worsen. Lead study author Dariush Mozaffarian, Ph.D., an assistant professor at Harvard’s school of public health, recalls that before the paper was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, he encountered formidable politics from other journals.
“In the nutrition field, it’s very difficult to get something published that goes against established dogma,” says Mozaffarian. “The dogma says that saturated fat is harmful, but that is not based, to me, on unequivocal evidence.” Mozaffarian says he believes it’s critical that scientists remain open minded. “Our finding was surprising to us. And when there’s a discovery that goes against what’s established, it shouldn’t be suppressed but rather disseminated and explored as much as possible.”

For example, in a new 12-week study, University of Connecticut scientists placed overweight men and women on either a low-carb or low-fat diet. Those who followed the low-carb diet consumed 36 grams of saturated fat per day (22 percent of total calories), which represented more than three times the amount in the low-fat diet. Yet despite this considerably greater intake of saturated fat, the low-carb dieters reduced both their number of small, dense LDL cholesterol and their HDL/LDL ratio to a greater degree than those who ate a low-fat diet. In addition, triglycerides decreased by 51 percent in the low-carb group compared with 19 percent in the low-fat group.

Dr. Krauss found that when people replace the carbohydrates in their diet with fat “saturated or unsaturated” the number of small, dense LDL particles decreases. This leads to the highly counterintuitive notion that replacing your breakfast cereal with eggs and bacon could actually reduce your risk of heart disease.
Also:

http://www.westonaprice.org/knowyourfats/oiling.html

Reveals the corporate interest in keeping saturated fat in the bad books.

The “cholesterol makes heart disease” theory is just as shonky as the “saturated fat makes cholesterol theory”.

http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/

For independent science on cholesterol and health.

For a better understanding have a good and interesting read on the Harvard School of Public Health site. In this day and age of conflicting and often biased and self serving opinion it is a very refreshing site. Their findings are also all backed up with up to date research, the site is also very nicely presented and accessible.

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/fats.html

The fact of the matter is, as Dr Bircher has explained with great emphasis, is that Meusli is per se, NOT a cereal dish, but a fruit dish.

He strictly recommends not more than ONE tablespoon of otas, with one whole ground (obviously organic) apple. There are many alternative versions of Meusli that he recoomends, mainly by rotation of the fruit, and the nut garnish.

I am, with a limited knowledge of Ayurveda, not in agreement with his ptting salt in Meusli, because salt and milk should NEVER be mixed.

Apart from that, the breakfast cereal industry has virtually hijacked the concept of Dr Bircher’s original thinking, so that people wold comsume more and more breakfast cereal.

Please do not hesitate to respond, if you have any views on the above, which are from Dr Bircher’s original book, the source of the short and crips summary which I have provided on my blog.

Btw, the tablespoon of butter is so totally not required!

The problem with grains, is again a little different. The conceot here, is that fresh grains have a lot of “fire” (another concept alien to allopathic medical science) in them. There have been cases of spontaneous fires in wheat silos where fresh grains have been stored.

The trick, is to eat only old grains, i.e., those that have been kept in storage for months, whether it is rice or whether it is wheat.

Fermented food, per se, is “sour” in its nature and taste. Excessive “sourness” as in the case of excessive anything, will lead to all the problems associated with it.

Remember the saying “sour grapes”?. well, the origins of that is, that if you eat to much “sour” you will be prone to jealosy.

Similarly, the results of eating excessive salt will be a temporay enhancement of the sex drive, and premature aging. That’s why sailors, when they land in ports are so horny, but look aged and wrinkly due to the exposure to salt and salty air.

Damn, I could go on, but maybe on my blog!

hope that I have provided some “nutrition” to re-think some of the concepts.