The Primitive Diet

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Sally Fallon is the president of the Weston A. Price Foundation and the author of Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats.  She believes that animal fats and cholesterol are essential parts on the human diet.  For grains, she recommends soaking them before eating to aid digestion and eating fermented breads like sourdough.

The so-called Primitive Diet does not include refined, canned, pasteurized, or homogenized foods.  Instead, this diet contains raw milk and organ meats like liver.  They strive to eat foods high in Vitamin A, D and K.  Gelatin-rich bone broths are a staple of the Primitive Diet.

Liver with gravy

Marinate liver in lemon juice or vinegar for several hours and pat dry.
Cook quickly in hot lard and set aside in a warm oven.
Make a gravy by stirring some unbleached white flour in the remaining fat and adding beef stock.
Whisk until smooth and boil down a bit.

Soaked Yeasted Bread
Makes three 9-inch by 5-inch loaves or one 9-inch by 5-inch loaf, two 8-inch pizza crusts and 8 rolls or hamburger buns

3 cups sponge
1 cup water or 3-4 eggs plus enough water to make 1 cup
2 tsps baker’s yeast
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup warm water
1/2 cup softened butter
1 1/3 Tablespoons sea salt
6 cups plus 4-6 Tablespoons whole wheat flour, preferably freshly ground

Mix 2 teaspoons yeast into 1/4 cup warm water and let soften for 15 minutes. Remove 1/4 cup sponge to keep for future starter. (Feed the starter with 1/2 cup flour and 1/2 cup water and put in covered container in the cupboard. The starter will keep for one week, until the next bread making, without anything being added, but it should be stirred occasionally.)

Place 6 cups flour in a big bowl. Add 1 1/3 tablespoon sea salt and stir in. To the bowl containing the sponge, add the honey, egg-water mixture and yeast-water. Beat and stir into the flour. Add a small amount of additional water or several tablespoons additional flour until the dough feels right--it should be somewhat flabby. Knead in the bowl for 10 minutes, using water on your hands to keep from sticking. Toward the end of the kneading, smear 1/2 cup soft butter in your kneading bowl and work this in. Cover with a damp cloth and let rise for 3 hours. Deflate, round and let rise another 3 hours.

Grease your pans--loaf pans, pizza rounds and a pie pan for the rolls--and divide, round, relax and shape the dough. You may use unbleached white flour to help with the forming. (If you are making hamburger buns, make balls of the dough, flatten and place on a greased cookie sheet.) Proof in warm place 45 minutes to 1 hour, covered with a damp cloth. Don’t overproof. Preheat oven halfway through the proofing. Bake at 415 degrees for 15 minutes, then at 315 degrees for 15-20 more minutes.

Music Break: Negril by Boris Gardiner