Page 37 - Spring2013

Meat, Organs, Bones and Skin:

Nutrition for Mental Health

By Chris Masterjohn, PhD

hen I look back on my life and consider my
struggles with anxiety, nothing stands in sharper

Wrelief than the healing power of nutrient-dense
animal foods such as meat, bones, organs and skin. In my

late teens, I became a vegetarian, thinking I would save
the environment, the animals and even my own health.

Six months later I became a vegan, excluding all animal
products from my diet. Rather than improving my health,

however, I developed problems with digestion and leth-
argy, a mouth full of tooth decay, and a profound aggrava-

tion of the anxiety disorders I had struggled with since my
mid-teens.

After a year and a half, I slowly began including animal foods such as
eggs, milk and eventually fish in my diet. Nothing seemed to help. After
about two years, I caved in to strong cravings for red meat at Christmas
dinner. I feasted luxuriously on such meats thereafter, and within two weeks
my regular panic attacks had ceased. Nevertheless, I still suffered from the
phobias and obsessive-compulsive disorder I had had prior to becoming a
vegetarian. Several months later, I discovered the work of Weston A. Price.

Wise Traditions SPRING 2013 SPRING 2013 Wise Traditions 37