Vegetarians or vegans who read Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions or Weston A Price’s Nutrition and Physical Degeneration may admire the Traditional Foods principles of whole foods, nutrient-density, preconception nutrition, embracing good fats and so on. However, those who are unwilling to consume meat or animal products may wonder if the Traditional Foods diet is a good fit for them.
Traditional Foods Practices That Do Not Involve Meat
While Traditional Foodism is often considered to be heavy on meat and dairy, plenty of food preparation techniques are specific to vegetables and grains, while others are simply geared to avoiding additives. Veg*n Traditional Foodists can soak grains to remove the phytates, lactoferment vegetables (using salt, not whey, if necessary), eat good fats in the form of coconut and palm oils and avocados, avoid processed foods and refined vegetable oils, soak nuts, and bake their own sourdough bread and soaked-flour baked products. Following these practices will help conserve the body’s enzymes, assist in the absorption of minerals, and promote good digestive health.
Is Meat Necessary in a Traditional Foods Diet?
Of the pre-industrial societies Weston A Price studied, not every society consumed meat. All the healthy societies did, however, consume some form of animal product such as milk, cheese, blood, fish roe and eggs. The WAPF declares that organ meats such as liver are the best possible sources of various fat-soluble vitamins and iron; the Foundation does not endorse vegetarianism. However, Nourishing Traditions contains some advice for vegetarians, principally suggesting they consume what animal products they can (raw milk and eggs being particular favourites).
Individual Traditional Foodists find they need different quantities of meat and animal products in their diets. Many women find their animal protein needs increase during pregnancy and lactation. Some people find they initially crave large quantities of meat and fat in order to heal gut damage and correct vitamin and/or mineral deficiencies; after several months, these cravings subside and they adopt a more balanced diet. It is not uncommon to find Traditional Foodists who eat only a few servings of fish and red meat a week. Indeed, Nourishing Traditions speaks highly of the diet of ancient Roman soldiers, whose only regular animal protein came from a fish sauce used for seasoning.
Do Veganism and Traditional Foods Contradict Each Other?
Traditional Foodists consider veganism to be unhealthy – unable to provide the most bioavailable forms of many vitamins and minerals, and lacking many of the most nutritious foods available. Many practitioners of Traditional Foodism are ex-vegans who found their health suffered on a diet free of animal products. Most of these people consider themselves ethical omnivores, eating only humanely-raised, pastured animals, as the WAPF endorses (both for ethical and nutritional reasons).
Sally Fallon offers a brief defense of meat-eating in Nourishing Traditions, based on a spiritual perspective unrelated to the science behind the use of traditional foods. While not all Traditional Foodists would agree with her particular defense, most consider meat-eating at worst a necessary evil. As such, most vegans would have philosophical objections to Traditional Foodism and vice versa.
In short, Traditional Foodism is not all-or-nothing, but some vegans may be uncomfortable in a community which places great value on the nutritional properties of animal products. Others find the emphasis on humanely-raised meat an acceptable ethical alternative to veganism or the Standard American Diet, and adopt a low-animal-products form of the diet.
Sarah Tennant - Sarah Tennant is a onetime English major who lives in New Zealand with her husband and two small children. Her interests range from ...
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