A Better Way of Eating?

My life has also dramatically improved since I added lots of saturated fats to my diet. As for “dangerous” raw dairy, I drank it when I was pregnant, and have done so for almost six years. It’s probably the main reason my kid’s teeth are perfect, even without regular brushing.

Unfortunately, good food is expensive in the U.S., or rather, bad food is artificially cheap. But it’s your choice to pay the grocer (or farmer) now, or the doctor later.

Source: Elizabeth Jia & Samara Martin Ewing, 9NEWS NOW.

SEVERNA PARK, Md. (WUSA)–Standing in her kitchen, Cara Bergman cooks up breakfast. She’s making bacon, pancakes, eggs and organic smoothies.

Bergman and her family follow the Weston Price Foundation Diet. The program was started by a Cleveland dentist. Bergman describes the diet as “A back to basics way of eating….It’s traditional food.”

No processed or refined foods. All natural.

“My rule of thumb,” says Bergman, “Nothing that was created in a building. All the food we eat in our house is food that comes from a farmer or we grow ourselves or that we get from a farmers market.”

The first thing you notice about Bergman’s meal are the organic vegetables and fruit. Some grown in her very own garden.

The next thing you notice is the saturated fat. No “butter-like” products here. No vegetable oil. Real butter. Sometimes she’ll use up to half a stick.

“Lard is healthy, butter is healthy, there’s nothing wrong with saturated fat,” says Bergman. “That is a big misconception in our culture. It’s that we’ve been told that saturated fats causes heart disease, clogs your arteries. That is not true. Saturated fat, we’ve been eating for thousands of years. The trans fats are what is new to our diet.”

She explains eating natural fat keeps the body feeling full longer. “When the body is satisfied, you no longer over-eat,” she says.

Bergman also uses a lot of coconut oil.

The dairy products Bergman uses are the next thing you notice. She only uses raw dairy. This means her butter, milk and cheese are not pasteurized.

“Raw milk is going to have much more nutrients than pasteurized milk,” says Bergman. “You have your B-6 and your B-12, which are completely destroyed when you pasteurize.”

“Raw dairy products are dangerous,” says Maureen Shackelford with the Anne Arundel Medical Center.

Shackelford, a nutrionist, says raw dairy products are particularly dangerous for children, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems.

“They’re not pasteurized and pasteurization heats milk to destroy the bacteria and when the bacteria is not destroyed it can lead to diseases such as TB, typhoid fever, and E-coli,” a potentially deadly food-borne illness.

Shackelford, as well as other nutritionists 9NEWS NOW spoke with, like the Weston Diet’s emphasis on non-processed foods and organic fruits and vegetables.

Bergman says she has never had any problems with the raw dairy products she has been purchasing for the past 4 years.

Bergman also uses a natural method of killing off potential pathogens. She serves sauerkraut or another lacto-fermented vegetable on the table for every meal. The good bacteria from these vegetables help digest and kill off any food-borne germs in raw milk, she says.

As for the saturated fat issue, Maureen Shackelford worries about the long-term effects.

“A lifetime of eating high saturated fat can lead to clogged arteries and therefore potential heart disease,” says Shackelford. The American Dietary Guidelines indicate less than 30 percent of your daily calories should come from fat.

Bergman disagrees. She says ever since following the diet, her whole family feels healthier. The 5′4″ mother weighs 120 pounds. She says her cholesterol is under 200.

“I have never felt better in my life,” says Bergman. “Eating this way I’ve been healthier. My skin is better. My hair. Everything has improved.”

Bergman has fed 1-year-old son, Rain, and 3-year-old daughter, Lily, on the diet. She says her children are also healthier because of it.

“They’ve never had any ear infections….They’ve never been on antibiotics. They’re thriving, they’re robust, they have energy. And unfortunately, what I see in children today is, lots of allergies, lots of asthma, food allergies.”

Bergman believes the relatively new processed fats and artificial ingredients are to blame for health problems.

“A lot of times people go to the grocery store and they read labels like crazy. Well we just buy food that just don’t have any labels on them,” Bergman says.

This food comes at a higher cost though. Bergman travels to Pennsylvania to get her raw dairy products. A gallon of raw milk can cost $6.50. Raw butter costs $10 for a pound. In total, Bergman says she shells out $1,000 a month to feed her family of 4 per month.

Selling raw dairy products is illegal in the District, Maryland and Virginia. However, people like Bergman are allowed to transport the goods into the state for personal use.

Bergman says learning to cook for her family the Weston Price Foundation way took a while at first. “It took me longer to cook this way at first….But now that I’ve mastered the concepts, and come up with my own shortcuts, cooking this way is a cinch.”

Bergman now teaches cooking classes. For more information click here.