As someone who has been coaching folks on how to transition from a modern to a Traditional Diet for over ten years, I feel quite certain I’ve seen and heard it all when it comes to health fads.
Well, ok – maybe not all. But certainly very very close!
One mistake I see over and over again is the very same error I made myself over 21 years ago when my husband and I first got married and decided to eat “organic”.
Organic actually meant something back then. There were no labeling tricks, GMOs, or hidden chemicals to worry about. Just clean, nutritious, organic food certified by either the state of California or Oregon that tasted great.
Unfortunately, eating “organic” wasn’t exactly the health boon I had hoped it would be.
I was still very tired a lot of the time and suffered from uncontrollable sugar cravings which I chalked up to poor will power.
Eating Healthy is Not Just a Matter of Will Power
As it turned out, it wasn’t a will power problem at all that caused my nearly constant sugar and refined carb cravings. It was a metabolic need for sugar that caused these cravings which stemmed from the utterly wrong and hopelessly unbalanced fats in my diet.
I had Country Crock in the refrigerator and avoided fat, especially butter, as much as possible. I drank skim milk and ate lowfat yogurt. According to my HMO doctor, I was doing everything right.
And yet, I felt terrible much of the time. I had trouble getting out of bed in the morning, was foggy brained and had difficulty getting well under my own power when I got a cold or flu which I seemed to suffer from frequently. I also was a tummy bug and food poisoning magnet.
And then, a miracle occurred! Someone handed me a cassette tape (remember those?) about Why Butter is Better by a lady named Sally Fallon Morell. I was skeptical. I threw the tape on the seat of my car and there it sat for weeks.
When I finally listened to that tape, my life changed in less than an hour. What was said on that tape made so much sense and was rooted in such compelling research, I couldn’t believe that I had never come across this information before since I was an avid reader of health related books.
Where has this information been all my life, I thought?
I Finally Get My Fats Straight
I immediately went home and chucked the Country Crock spread, the bottle of vegetable oil in the pantry, and the lowfat salad dressing in the trash. I poured the skim milk down the drain and bought myself some full fat yogurt, cream and butter. I bought a jar of ghee for cooking and extra virgin olive oil for making my own salad dressings.
I gorged on full fat everything that night for dinner – and the next morning for breakfast.
And you know what?
I felt better!
How much better?
Much, much better! The very next morning, I wasn’t as tired when I got out of bed and I noticed my sugar cravings were much diminished mid-morning at work. I was actually able to resist the box of Dunkin Donuts on the conference room table for perhaps the very first time.
From that point on, making sure the fats were right in my diet became Job #1.
Having eaten organic and clean for over a decade and seeing little results and then experiencing the overnight impact from one simple tweak – getting my fats straight – made me realize how incredibly easy it is for people to make a huge improvement to their health with just a few simple alterations.
A few months later, I became the Chapter Leader for the Weston A. Price Foundation, founded by none other than Sally Fallon Morell, and my focus became helping those in my community get their fats straight as I knew this would give people the energy, concentration, and focus to tackle the other dietary and life changes that needed to be made too.
But, getting the fats straight needed to come first. Without that critical first step, it is very hard if not impossible to transform health to a vibrant state.
You might feel ok, but are you vibrant? Do you jump out of bed in the morning with a clear head and a spring in your step?
This is what I mean when I say vibrant. Not simply getting through the day, but feeling awesome while doing it.
Because getting the fats right is such a critical and foundational principle to health and because I have seen so many people earnestly trying to be healthy but getting the fats all wrong, I finally decided to write a book about it.
Why I Wrote “Get Your Fats Straight”
My eBook aptly titled Get Your Fats Straight is based on the three steps I’ve used for years to help people on the right path to Traditional Diet and correspondingly vibrant health.
I also wrote Get Your Fats Straight with the goal of keeping the discussion about fats very, very simple.
I’ve read a lot of books on fats over the years and most of them you need a degree in Chemistry to understand.
Get Your Fats Straight is such a simple explanation of all the fats – which ones to eat and why and which ones to avoid and why – along with how to implement them in the diet in a cost effective and practical manner that you will be relieved.
For those of you just getting started on a Traditional Diet, Get Your Fats Straight is where you want to begin. If you’ve gotten off track for awhile and need some easy, focused steps to get you back on the wagon, Get Your Fats Straight can help with that too. If you just want an enjoyable read on fats that will give you some new ideas for your own kitchen, Get Your Fats Straight offers that as well.
I’ve included numerous, very simple recipes at the end of the book that we eat in our home on a frequent basis to give you a basic menuplan. These recipes are very simple, but use a lot of traditional fats. A meal does not need to be gourmet or take a lot of time to be incredibly nourishing and satisfying.
So read and enjoy … and if you don’t have a Kindle, join the club! I’ve read many Kindle books without ever owning a Kindle!
Simply read the Kindle book in your PC or Mac browser. If you prefer, you can download the free Kindle software to your smartphone, iPad, or tablet (from the appstore or android market) and read that way. Kindle reading is fun and very easy to do. I’ve gotten so I buy few print books anymore as I much prefer them on my tablet and phone so I can read and refer to any of my books, anytime and anywhere.
I am hopeful Get Your Fats Straight will help many folks avoid the pitfalls of organic eating that took me over a decade to finally resolve!
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
I never ate anything else anyway because it tastes crappy 🙂 when I first came to the US I looked for full fat yoghurt but couldn’t find any and thought that was very strange! In Europe it was always common to eat and drink the full fat stuff just for the good taste. And guess what I’ve never had any sugar cravings or weight problems. In fact I don’t even like sweets very much or chips or whatever.
Hi, Sarah. I’m curious how you first met Sally Fallon. Did you guys just stumble upon each other randomly (like on a plane), or was it at a conference? Thanks for everything that you do.
I met Sally after I was already a Chapter Leader for awhile and had read her book and listened to her talks on cassette tape (!!). She was in my area for a local seminar and I hosted her at my house :)) This was back in either 2003 or 2004 when I first met her in person.
Hi Sarah,
Actually, the $9.99 is a bargain for your e-book. I’m addressing the comment above. I appreciate that you have written this e-book , and since it is the truth and not linked to industry – it is PRICELESS. It is as if in the 21st Century you are a true ‘doctor of health’. If a person follows the truth about fats in your book, then they can have an improvement in their health. The trouble is that most just watch MSM television or read MSM magazines and learn lies – like the LIE that butter causes heart disease and that vegetable oil and margarine are good for the heart. This LIE was put out there by industry, and millions have heart disease and diabetes because of it – (and , of course , grain and sugar cause even more heart disease and diabetes. ) Thanks, Sarah, for your valuable work in enlightening us about truely healthy food.
agreed kathleen especially for an ebook.
I’m excited read. :).
I personally think $9.99 is too much for a book that is only 125 pages. 🙂
Agreed. I don’t mean to minimize the work that is put into writing an e-book, it’s just that I can get most physical books for around $10 (sometimes used). E-books don’t have to cover printing, shipping, etc. I’ve been seeing some pricey e-books lately that I would love to read, but I just can’t bring myself to pay over $5 or so for an e-book.
I’m sorry, but if you feel like 9.99 is too much, then keep it to yourself and don’t buy it. This comment really frustrates me. Sarah (I am sure) put a ton of hard work, time, and energy into this book. I am also quite sure that she spent quite some time deciding how much to sell it for. It is her business, and her blog, and she can charge whatever she wishes. Either take it, or leave it. But complaining about it just feels really rude to me – especially on her opening day when she is so excited! What a way to squash her balloon.
First of all, I can assure that there was no “balloon squashing” intent on my part. But mostly I just want to clarify something from my perspective. I work in an industry where people who need a service come and ask us for a quote. Sometimes a quote will turn out to be more than than their budget can handle. They have two options: Talk to us about it, or just walk away. Nine times out of ten, we will try our best to work into their budget in one way or other as long as we are able. We hate it when people just “take it or leave it” without ever communicating with us. I never, ever leave a comment with the intent of being rude and I sincerely hope Sarah does not take it that way. My only intent was to communicate that this is outside my budget. It does sound like a fantastic book and I hope it does fabulously.
I totally agree! What’s with the BS people who seem to monitor this food blog anyway?
Thank you Sara for the e-book, and for this absolutely wonderfully informative blog! As for the “downer” people- how about you take your negativity elsewhere. You are a drag!!!
I’ve paid much more for books with much less info. I think it is worth the $9.99 and purchased it immediately when I got the email from Sarah. I would have paid more and was thrilled to see it was priced right. 🙂
9.99$? For me it is 14.32$! Is it because I am in Europe????
They have a cloud reader. That’s where I send all my books from Amazon.
You don’t need a kindle…just the app!
Hi Kelly. If it’s any consollation, studies have been done that show the benefits of eating paleo being larger than exercise. Do you eat paleo, by the way? You say “I do eat healthy” but….are you conscious of what you’re eating? Do you know what’s in your food? If you have GMOs, soy, sugars, refined carbs, preservatives, fillers, “vegetable shortening” <– which is what Country Crock is….it really is a crock!, or even food coloring your healthy diet may be sabotaged. And back to the need for exercise: exercise ain't as effective as those marketing folks who help sell DVDs on TV would have you believe. 🙂 You positively, absolutely, completely and totally can NOT "just eat whatever (you) want if you exercise it away" ((not that that is what you're doing, but it's the basis for people assuming exercise is a cure-all that will get them in shape. The same people who believe that line of thinking likely still think the "calories in and calories out" mentality is valid (which it is NOT). 🙁 So, my suggestion: read the book, learn more about fats….look into the paleo diet/lifestyle, discover more bad news about our food chain/supply….(it's better if you know than if you don't, sorry)…and become an informed consumer of all things present in our modern diet. That way, you'll be able to look at everything you're eating, and better health comes with knowledge. To put it another way: belly fat goes when the crap in your diet goes out the window. Don't expect to exercise it away; just because I lift my arm above my head 100 times a day doesn't mean I'll lose fat on that muscle; same goes for ab exercises. Just because you exercise an area of your body doesn't mean you'll lose fat in that area of your body. Again, those late-night marketing people are geniuses. They get us to think that a stomach with better muscle tone (which is what ab exercises do) helped us get rid of the fat there; it's just toned more, not less fatty. It gets held closer to the body, so it appears fat is gone. But it's not; it's still there. Regardless, I hope all works out for you on your quest for better health, Kelly Williams! 🙂
There might be other issues at play: hormones, thyroid, etc. With me I think it’s stress. While I try to relax and make time for myself, I tend to stress out subconsciously. Not sure how much I can do about that… and with a full time job and 2 small kids making time to exercise is virtually impossible. Maybe this summer….
I eat more animal fat and find I don’t stress out as much, the more I eat, the less I stress. I especially dose up on the Fermented Cod Liver Oil during stressful times.
But I don’t have a Kindle… 🙁 I’d love to read it!
Christine, a kindle app can be downloaded for free on iPhone and ipad
And a free Kindle app can be downloaded on a PC.
“Get your fats straight” One thing I can’t get straight up until now. I still am struggling with my awful looking love-handles a.k.a belly fat. I do eat healthy but i guess, whats missing is the regular exercise. Ironic isn’t it? I know what’s missing yet I still don’t have enough time nor vigor to keep on going and start working on an exercise program.