Page 78 - Special Issue: Healthy Baby

The provision PRIMITIVE PREGNANCY DIETS particularly important. Since most of the choline
The provision of special pregnancy and pre-
in milk is contained in phospholipids, this means
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of special conception diets to mothers-to-be was a universal that high-quality Maasai milk is probably about
pregnancy and characteristic of the healthy traditional groups five times richer in choline than the milk you
preconception studied by Weston Price. In some cases, these would find in the grocery store.
Compared to grain-fed milk, grass-fed milk
groups provided special preconception foods to
diets to fathers-to-be as well. is much higher in fat-soluble vitamins, pigments,
mothers-to-be All groups that had access to the sea used conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) and omega-3 fatty
9
was a universal fish eggs; milk-drinking groups used high-quality acids. Price showed that the content of vitamin
dairy from the season when grass was green and A, activator X (which we now believe to be
characteristic rapidly growing. Some groups used other foods vitamin K ), and essential fatty acids markedly
2
of the healthy such as moose thyroids or spider crabs, and increased in butterfat during the rainy lush sea-
African groups whose water was low in iodine son. As the quality of grass increases, we can
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traditional used the ashes of certain plant foods to supply presume that the content of other grass-related
groups this element. These foods were added against the nutrients—such as pigments, vitamin E and
5
studied by backdrop of a diet rich in liver and other organ CLA—will also markedly increase in the milk.
meats, bones and skin, fats, seafood and the local
Although modern science still has much
Weston Price. plant foods. research to accomplish in order to fully elucidate
In some cases‚ Fish eggs are especially rich in cholesterol, the value of traditional wisdom, it has already
these groups vitamin B , choline, selenium, calcium, mag- confirmed that many of the nutritional factors
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nesium, and omega-3 fatty acids. They contain that we now recognize as the most important to
provided a modest amount of most fat-soluble vitamins healthy embryonic and fetal development are the

special but their vitamin K content is unknown (see same ones emphasized in traditional pregnancy
2
and preconception diets.
Figure 1).
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preconception The Maasai allowed men and women to mar-
foods to ry only after spending several months consuming VITAMIN E
Vitamin E was originally named “Fertility
fathers-to-be milk from the wet season when the grass was Factor X” in 1922 because rats could not re-
especially lush and the milk much denser in nutri-
as well. ents. Maasai milk is higher in fat and cholesterol produce without it. Two years later, researchers
and lower in sugar than commercial American dubbed it “tocopherol” from the Greek τόκος
milk. The highest quality Maasai milk used for (tokos), meaning “childbirth,” and φερειν (fere-
preconception diets, however, is even richer: in), meaning “to bring forth.” Its precise role in
compared to commercial American milk, it has rat fertility remains unclear and scientists have
over twice the cholesterol, nearly three times the yet to conclusively demonstrate its essentiality
fat, and over five times the quantity of phospho- to human reproduction. 11
lipids (see Figure 2). The phospholipid content is Mice lacking the gene for the protein that
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FIGURE 1. IMPORTANT NUTRIENTS FOUND IN FISH EGGS
Nutrient Content per 100 grams (% pregnancy RDA)

Cholesterol 588 mg
Vitamin B 20.0 mcg (770%)
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Choline 491 mg (109%)
Selenium 65.5 mcg (109%)
Calcium 275 mg (28%)
Magnesium 300 mg (83%)
EPA (omega-3) 2,741 mg
DHA (omega-3) 3,801 mg
Total omega-3 6,789 mg (485%)
Vitamin A 905 IU (35%)
Vitamin D 232 IU (116%)

76 Wise Traditions