Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon

In the most interesting cookbook you will ever read, Sally Fallon answers these questions and much more.  Her book, Nourishing Traditions, is a must-read for anyone interested in nutrition and healthy living.  If you are looking for a repeat of what dietitians and health professionals say on talk shows, do not bother buying it.  On the other hand if you are confused about how one study thinks consuming high fructose corn syrup is the same as any other sweetener versus another study refuting this claim, you need this book.

This book is not politically correct.  It states on the cover, “The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats.”  Ms. Fallon sought to discover what people groups ate that allowed them to thrive, prevent dental problems, and other health-related problems.  She goes against what the average American has been told by their doctor, and it makes sense with all of her research as well as the research of the Weston A. Price Foundation.  This foundation is dedicated to bring back nutrient-dense foods into the American diet through education and supporting organic farming and locally farm-raised food.

In Nourishing Traditions, you will learn about the importance of lacto-fermentation, raw dairy products, grassfed meats, and soaking your grains.  This cookbook has hundreds of recipes from all over the world.  Korea, Cuba, Africa, the Middle East are just some examples.  It is the only cookbook that I have read from cover to cover.  She has quotes from medical journals and research, from literature, and other places to help illustrate the points she is making.  I learned so much about nutrition from this book.  I have found some great recipes, too.

In addition, my favorite sections in  Nourishing Traditions are on feeding babies, food allergies, milk and milk products, and a catalog of fresh vegetables.  The latter tells you how to prepare some vegetables you might have been too afraid to try.  My family loves her recipes for potato and leek soup, creamy mayonnaise dressing, kimchi, and chicken enchiladas with red sauce.

If you have spend anytime in the kitchen preparing food and are interested in not using pre-packaged, processed foods, then you need this book.  You can rediscover the art of cooking with nutrient-dense food.  For those of you living in the city and/or without means to raise your own garden, meat, or goats for milk, then this book also lists resources to help you find sources in your area.  After reading Nourishing Traditions, you won’t listen to the nutritionists on talk shows or news programs claiming that calories are calories and that it does not matter from where they come.  I highly recommend purchasing and/reading this cookbook.  It is great for the homesteader, those with food allergies, and those wanting to serve truly healthy meals to their family.

These are my buckwheat pancakes.

My vision for this project is that you will download the cookbook in a pdf file and print it out at home.  You can bind it in any format you desire to use.  I personally like to use a three ring binder and slip the recipe pages into sheet protectors so that food does not splatter on the pages while I am cooking.  But if a page does get ruined, the cookbook is on your computer and you can print out that page again.

Most of my recipes are gluten-free.  I decided to include recipes that are only wheat-free; therefore, I am calling my e-cookbook, The Texas Homesteader Wheat-free Cookbook.

Gluten-free cooking is much more restrictive than wheat-free cooking. So many of the people I have met only have a wheat allergy and not Celiac disease, which is an auto-immune disease in which that person cannot tolerate gluten of any kind.

Traditionally, gluten-free cooking does not allow oats, which are not only delicious but also very nutritious.  Recently however, cross-contamination of the oats with wheat has been found to be the problem.  Some companies are now selling gluten-free oats, which are assured to not be contaminated.  Even so, some people still stay away from oats.  I am including recipes with oats, which are perfectly fine for someone allergic to wheat.  Someone with Celiac disease would just have to decide for themselves if they would want to try the few recipes I have with oats.  They know better than I what their bodies can handle.

Grains I do stay away from are spelt, barley, and rye.  Spelt is too much like wheat.  It is like wheat’s first cousin.  Rye and barley contain gluten, and I just don’t use them by preference.  On the other hand, I use both brown and white rice flours, sorghum flour, almond meal, cornmeal, buckwheat, and some starches like arrowroot, tapioca, and/or potato.  

This cookbook would be great for anyone.  You do not have to have an allergy to wheat to enjoy this cookbook.  If you know anyone who is allergic to wheat, then you will have recipes to cook when you want to entertain them.  Since the holidays are my most stressful time with food allergies because of all the special get-togethers, parties, and holiday dinners, I am including a meal plan for each major holiday.  If you are hosting Thanksgiving dinner, you can use my recipes to create a traditional wheat-free fare.  All of your guests will be shocked to learn that they ate a wheat-free dinner and your wheat allergic friends or family would be grateful to you for removing their stress.

These are my wheat-free chicken and dumplings.

My recipes are also whey-free (from cow’s milk) and peanut-free because my children have allergies with these foods as well. The e-cookbook is what I already use in my own home.  Through trial and error, I converted my family recipes to ones that we could enjoy again.  The cookbook includes family favorites like chicken and dumplings, dinner rolls, and green chicken enchiladas.

I will let my subscribers know first when I am releasing the e-book.  My first 10 subscribers are going to receive a free copy of the e-book as a thank you for their early support. I occasionally send all of my subscribers e-mails.  If you subscribe to Texas Homesteader via RSS feeds, I thank you for your readership; however, I have no way of knowing who you are and how many subscribe in this manner.  If you would subscribe through e-mail and not verify the e-mail subscription, then I would be able to count you as one of my subscribers.  And, you would still only get my articles via RSS feeds.  You would then be treated as a subscriber for any future give-aways.

I hope that you are as excited about the up-coming release of my Texas Homesteader Wheat-free Cookbook as I am.  The cookbooks will be very affordable.