Sally Fallon Morell is the author of the 1996 cookbook “Nourishing Traditions" and founder of the Weston A. Price Foundation. Courtesy of Sally Fallon Morell
When Sally Fallon Morell was young, she recalled her father joking: “Your mom and I have perfect teeth and perfect eyesight. How come all you kids need braces and glasses?” As she grew up and studied the relationship between nutrition and physical development, she discovered the answer: “We need to eat nutrient-dense, traditional foods.”
“Even though we were eating good food, we were not getting what my parents got before the Second World War—cod liver oil, liver once a week, raw milk,” she said. In the 1970s, promotion of a low-fat diet “became kind of shrill,” she said, “and I just knew it was wrong.”
In 1974, a friend introduced her to Weston A. Price’s book, “Nutrition and Physical Degeneration” (1939). Price, a Canadian dentist, had traveled the globe to study indigenous peoples that had maintained their traditional diets. He found 14—all with perfect dental health and strong bodies. Their diets were rich in foods such as animal fats, organ meats, and whole, raw milk. “It’s the total opposite of what we’re being told: skim milk, egg whites, and my pet peeve—skinless chicken breasts,” Morell said. “The low-fat diet starves our bodies of the nutrients and minerals that are essential to growth and vitality.”
In 1996, she published a cookbook, “Nourishing Traditions,” to put these findings “in a practical form for Americans,” she said. “I always say the one requirement of a healthy diet is that your children will eat it. The food has got to be delicious.” In 1999, she founded the Weston A. Price Foundation, a nonprofit promoting nutrient-dense foods.
Today, Morell and her husband run a dairy farm in southern Maryland, producing raw milk, raw cheese, and pastured eggs, chicken, and pork. She gave us a peek into her own kitchen.
Biba Kayewich for American Essence
What I Eat in a Day
6 a.m.: Breakfast
Life on a farm starts early! I begin each morning with a big glass of raw whole milk from our farm.
I always eat breakfast; I cannot function without it. If I’m in a hurry, I’ll eat cheese and homemade pâté.
Several days a week, we have eggs from the farm with low-nitrate, natural bacon that we sell in our farm store. I don’t always eat bread, but if I do, it’s sourdough bread with plenty of grass-fed butter.
A couple times a week, we have oatmeal. Proper preparation of grains is one of the themes in my book, because grains are very hard to digest. The traditional cultures that ate grains always soaked or fermented them. I soak the oats overnight in warm water, on the counter, with a little whey, vinegar, or lemon juice. I cook the oats the next day. We make a big pot about once every two weeks and reheat it as needed. I eat my oatmeal with lots of butter and a natural sweetener like maple syrup.
Biba Kayewich for American Essence
1 p.m.: Lunch
We follow a European-style meal schedule; I lived in France, with French families, so this suits me well.
I’ll make meat—local, grass-fed meat, including our own pork—usually slow-cooked with a broth. Anything sauteed or fried is cooked with lard. We make our own on the farm, and it has the most amazing smell.
We have really nice fresh fish from the Chesapeake Bay—not farmed. The crab here is the best in the world, so very often I’ll make crab cakes. My husband loves oysters, so they’re frequently on the menu.
We typically have two vegetables, always with plenty of butter. I often make salad, and I make my own dressing. I like to toss it with our own grated raw cheese.
Eggplant is one of my favorites. It really has to be prepared well; if not, it will be bitter, and it’s actually not very good for you. I peel the eggplant, slice it, and sprinkle salt on the slices. I cover them and a lot of juice comes out. Then I wash them off and dry them. Then, I usually brush them with bacon grease and put them under the broiler in the oven.
I have two to three different types of ferments in my fridge and always have one of them with each meal. I make lacto-fermented sauerkraut and other types of pickles, such as pickled beets and pineapple chutney. These give good bacteria to the gut. There are more beneficial bacteria in a tablespoon of raw sauerkraut than in a whole bottle of probiotic pills.
I always have a bottle of kombucha for lunch, and in the afternoon while I’m working at my desk. It’s a probiotic, so it settles the stomach. I make my own, without any flavorings so it is pretty sour, but I find it so refreshing.
If I have dessert, I usually have homemade ice cream.
7 p.m.: Dinner
Dinner is simple; it’s usually a soup, based on homemade broth. Twice a month, I make a great big pot of soup and freeze it in portions. Very often, I skip dinner and it’s just my husband eating. I think it’s better to go to bed on a relatively empty stomach.
Slow-cooker short ribs. Biba Kayewich for American Essence
This article was originally published in American Essence magazine.
