Healthy 4 Life: Dietary Guidelines from the Weston A. Price Foundation for Cooking and Eating Healthy, Delicious, Traditional Whole Foods
By the Weston A. Price Foundation
This colorful booklet is a treasure for anyone getting started with a Wise Traditions diet, and a great tool for others (WAPF chapter leaders, especially) who want to share information about the goodness of nourishing foods and the vibrant health that follows! It’s even a good reminder for seasoned travelers on the Wise Traditions eating journey.
In eighty-four pages, Healthy 4 Life succinctly communicates the wisdom of the WAPF dietary guidelines. With bright and quaintly engaging illustrations and color-coded tabs to designate different sections, it is easy to navigate and understand. It starts with a single page for each of the four Wise Traditions food groups: “Animal Foods” (in red), “Grains, Legumes & Nuts” (orange), “Vegetables & Fruit” (green) and “Fats & Oils” (blue). A very useful two-page spread specifies “Foods to Avoid” and “Healthy Choices.” (My one small critique is the use of the color red for “Healthy Choices”—my initial reaction was that red meant “stop” or avoid.)
Sections focus on the why, what and how of each food group, with clear preparation instructions and simple starter recipes to make it easy to incorporate them in your diet. The Animal Foods section covers WAPF “superstars” (e.g., bone broth, stews, organ meats, whole raw dairy), with a short section on vegetarianism. Grains discusses wise preparation techniques (soaking or sprouting), gluten issues and soy dangers. Vegetables & Fruits discusses cooked versus raw and highlights how adding good fats and lacto-fermenting improves nutrient availability. Finally—saving the best for last—the “crème de la crème” section addresses the all-important topics of saturated fats, cholesterol and cod liver oil.
The last ten pages offer valuable tips on beverages, seasonings, sweeteners, cookware, meal plans, healthy children, pregnancy and nursing, and finding healthy foods. For those new to WAPF, this inexpensive booklet ($10!) serves an important role by providing a truly healthy alternative to the USDA’s heavily promoted “MyPlate” (successor to the Food Pyramid). Healthy 4 Life gets an enthusiastic thumbs up; order a few dozen copies to share!
This article appeared in Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts, the quarterly journal of the Weston A. Price Foundation, Summer 2024
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