Page 75 - Summer 2019 Journal

All Thumbs Book Reviews
The Fifth Vital Sign: Master Your Cycles and Optimize Your Fertility By Lisa Hendrickson-Jack
Hendrickson-Jack is a certified fertility awareness educator and holistic reproductive health pracitioner who has dedicated her career to providing women with practical knowledge to manage their family planning and reproductive health—something our medical and educational systems have consistently failed to do.
The author begins with an in-depth discus- sion about the normal menstrual cycle, noting that charting one’s cycle can be up to 99.4 per- cent effective when used for birth control, while also serving as a way to identify one’s fertility window confidently.
She then discusses conditions that can in- terfere with normal cycling, including thyroid disorders, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and hypothalamic amenorrhea (HA). These conditions can be predicted by charting one’s cycles, and overcome with lifestyle changes.
Hendrickson-Jack’s most important chapter focuses on hormonal contraception (HC), oth- erwise known as the Pill. Hailed as the wonder drug that would set women free, and which
did set women free from the prospect of eight children by the age of thirty, it soon became apparent that serious consequences could fol- low its use, infertility being just one of them. Hendrickson-Jack provides wise guidance on coming off the pill, advice for recovery from the many nutrient deficiencies it causes, support for your natural hormone system and a plan to restore fertility.
The wonderful thing about The Fifth Vi- tal Sign is that the dietary advice is right in sync with the Weston A. Price Foundation. Hendrickson-Jack recommends lots of good fats, raw milk, pastured meats, lacto-fermented foods and bone broth. She recognizes the vital importance of vitamin A for reproductive health and recommends cod liver oil and liver for fertility and well-being. Most importantly, she warns against soy foods as contributing to thy- roid problems and infertility. So many women today are struggling to find vibrant health and overcome infertility. I recommend The Fifth Vital Sign as a great place to start. The book is gentle, helpful and easy to read, and will help women regain the vital skill of reproductive control. Thank you, Lisa, for this important contribution!
Review by Sally Fallon Morell
THE CARNIVORE COOKBOOK:
ZERO-CARB RECIPES FOR PEOPLE WHO REALLY LOVE ANIMALS by JESSICA HAGGARD
Many people have been duped into fearing meat, and the recent escalation of propaganda for the cow-antagonistic Green New Deal and fake meat products suggests that the duping continues. The Carnivore Cookbook offers a timely and refreshingly unapologetic antidote, pointing out how frail and weak consumers have become through animal food avoidance and overconsumption of soy. Animal foods, Haggard reminds us, are “the one group of foods that is absolutely necessary for human health and survival.” The brief but helpful introduction includes tips on meat quality, underappreciated cuts, essential kitchen tools and ways to obtain meat inexpensively, with pertinent sidebar quotes from the Bible, lapsed vegans and artisan butchers as well as notables such as Fergus Henderson of nose-to-tail eating fame. One interesting sidebar discusses the uses of donkey fat. Following the introduction, the recipes cover fats and sauces, eggs, seafood and various meats, including raw meat dishes and organ meats. This basic book is not for the highly experienced or gourmet cook—most of the “zero-carb” recipes (with no grains and barely any vegetables to be found) include just three to five ingredients each and rely heavily on bacon and cheese to add flavor and texture. However, the roughly two-hundred page volume would be well suited to helping a former vegetarian or inexperienced cook learn how to render fat, make a basic cream sauce or bone broth or get comfortable preparing a variety of different animal foods in simple but palatable ways. One quibble: the cover photo features steaks with all the fat trimmed off, and while the fats chapter includes traditional fats such as lard, tallow and ghee, Haggard says nothing in the introduction about the central importance of animal fats or about the risks of overconsuming muscle meats. Review by Merinda Teller
SUMMER2019
Wise Traditions 73