Please Don ’t Eat the Wallpaper by Nancy Irven

Please Don ’t Eat the Wallpaper!
by Nancy Irven

Subtitled “The Teenager’s Guide to Avoiding Trans Fats, Enriched Wheat and High Fructose Corn Syrup,” this little book reminds us that white flour, the chief ingredient in bread, cake, crackers, pasta and thousands of other processed foods, can also be used to make glue for wallpaper. Irven then shocks us with real life examples of student meal diaries—it’s a wonder these kids are even alive with their diets of sodas, gum, candy bars, chips, pretzels and breakfast cereals. Irven is a chiropractic physician and her book describes her efforts to help high school students improve their diets. They learn the many reasons to avoid white flour, industrial fats and refined sweeteners; how to read labels; and how to make healthier choices, such as butter, meat, eggs and honey.

The THUMB is UP on this excellent introduction to the dangers of processed foods, although the book is not without flaws. Irvin refers to trans fats as “plastic,” which is a misinterpretation of “plasticization,” a technical term used in the food processing industry to describe treatments that change the characteristics of margarines and spreads. And while praising saturated fats, she argues that marbled steak is not good for us. Overall, however, Irven has accomplished a Herculean task, that of getting the attention of modern teenagers, hellbent for physical degeneration. She provides practical advice and real life examples of beneficial dietary changes that teenagers can actually accomplish, albeit against tremendous odds.

“I’m so very glad that you spent your time to teach my class and me about all these nasty foods we are eating on a daily basis,” writes one of Irven’s students. “But you didn’t leave it there. You taught us even more—by explaining all the healthy foods we could eat and how much they helped.” From a modern teenager, that’s high praise!

This article appeared in Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts, the quarterly magazine of the Weston A. Price Foundation, Fall 2010.

About the Reviewer

Sally Fallon Morell is the author of Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats (with Mary G. Enig, PhD), a well-researched, thought-provoking guide to traditional foods with a startling message: Animal fats and cholesterol are not villains but vital factors in the diet, necessary for normal growth, proper function of the brain and nervous system, protection from disease and optimum energy levels.

She joined forces with Enig again to write Eat Fat, Lose Fat, and has authored numerous articles on the subject of diet and health. Through her New Trends Publishing label, she publishes books on nutrition and health, such as The Fourfold Path to Healing (by Dr. Tom Cowan), Honoring Our Cycles (by Katie Singer), The Untold Story of Milk (by Ron Schmid) and The Whole Soy Story (by Kaayla Daniel). The President of the Weston A. Price Foundation and founder of A Campaign for Real Milk, Sally is also a journalist, chef, nutrition researcher, homemaker, and community activist. Her four healthy children were raised on whole foods including butter, cream, eggs and meat.

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