six real foods make PARADE magazine

NINA is 'the antidote to the faddists and kooks who all too often dominate American food discourse.' That's David Kamp, author of The United States of Arugula, talking. (His new book, The Food Snob's Dictionary, is a bluffer's guide to terms like grass-fed and pastured and other things I'm always wittering on about. Acquire the lingo, and laugh while you're at it.) I'm a nutrition geek, a local food entrepreneur, and a monomaniac about the operations of farmers markets. The daughter of working farmers, I grew up in Virginia, selling our ecological vegetables at farmers markets. After some years as a vegan and vegetarian, I now eat beef, eggs, butter, raw milk - the foods I grew up on - with impunity. In Real Food, I explain why they're good for you. (So are fish, olive oil, and vegetables.) Mark Bittman called Real Food 'compellingly smart' and Michael Pollan said it was 'persuasive and invigorating.'

What's New

parade magazine asked me for six 'superfoods'

Read all about it. 'Superfood' is a bit overused, but that's what they wanted and I'm glad to see real red meat and supersaturated coconut oil mentioned in the health pages. It is fun to watch people catch on to real food instead of imitation this and that. Sometimes they make it only halfway. The other day a whipped topping company wrote me. They were keen to show me that the competitor doesn't much resemble Jersey cream, or cream from any cow, for that matter. It contains water, flavorings, corn syrup, hydrogenated coconut oil, polysorbate, sorbitan monostearate, xanthan and guar gums, and sodium caseinate, a protein derived from cow milk that makes oil and water do what they don't like to do: mix. And to promote their own, er, whipped product, which contains real cream, along with a lot of other nonsense you don't need, including non-fat milk, corn syrup, flavorings, and the stuff that makes it stay fluffy forever. Remember the real food rule: Eat foods that spoil, but eat them before they do. In this case, buy heavy cream, get out the hand mixer, and enjoy the real thing instead. Fresh. Simple. Good for you.

vegetarian pregnancy and insulin-resistant kids

Researchers found that largely vegetarian women consuming high levels of folate (from leafy greens and beans) and low levels of vitamin B-12 produced children who were small but fat and insulin-resistant at age six. This has interesting implications for vegetarian pregnancies. Lots of folate is good, of course. Don't stop eating leafy greens. But don't rely on beans and rice for protein. Vegans and vegetarians are likely to lack adequate B12, which is found only in animal foods.

Allow me to quote the UK Vegan Society on B12. 'It is exclusively synthesised by bacteria and is found primarily in meat, eggs and dairy products. There has been considerable research into proposed plant sources of vitamin B12. Fermented soya products, seaweeds, and algae such as spirulina have all been suggested as containing significant B12. However, the present consensus is that any B12 present in plant foods is likely to be unavailable to humans and so these foods should not be relied upon as safe sources.'

If you're pregnant or planning to be, eat plenty of grass-fed beef, pastured pork and poultry, and clean wild fish for adequate B12, protein, iron, and zinc.

back on the real food road

This spring I'll be speaking here and there about Real Food. Find out whether I'm coming to your town.

eat well when you're not cooking

Too busy to cook? Industrial food used to be the only option. Not anymore. See my brand-new, highly-selective, national list of real food caterers. And send suggestions! Traditional foods only, of course: no vegan, low-fat, low-cholesterol, or low-saturated fat menus. We also want chefs who use ecological ingredients from independent, local farms.

raw milk at london farmers' markets

I envy the eaters at my farmers' markets in London, where it's legal to sell untreated milk. Read all about it. See my SHOPPING LIST to get your own.

thanks, michael pollan

Michael Pollan's new book, In Defense of Food, picks up some themes from Real Food, including: the more Americans think about nutrition, the worse our health becomes (I called this Amerexia Nervosa, our national eating disorder); eat foods your great-grandmother would recognize as food; real food (like yogurt) is conservative; it hasn't changed in thousands of years; Weston Price was right: any traditional diet is good for you. Thanks, Michael, for citing Real Food several times!

ON THE JANUARY BLOG: eat more eggs

Why eggs are good for nursing mothers and sad news about pasteurized milk.

more fat skeptics - at the american heart association, no less

Gary Taubes and Ronald Krauss of the AHA discuss the changing understanding of heart disease. It's striking how open Krauss is to the challenges Taubes outlines in Good Calories, Bad Calories. Listen to the interview.

short films introduce the real food hypothesis

How did the misguided advice to avoid butter come about? Two short films, called Big Fat Lies and The McGovern Report, explain. Thanks, YouTube.

mothers + babies

Things we like.

real food babies

Are you starting to feed your baby real food? From seven to ten months, Julian ate all kinds of things, including raw cream with banana and cinnamon, eggs, spicy Italian sausage from Flying Pigs Farm, guacamole, tomato salad with garlic yogurt dressing, pesto, and German potato salad with mustard and capers, along with heap plenty fruit and vegetables. And some 70% or even 85% chocolate.