not sure how I feel about Sally Fallon

From Caroline — Blog by Caroline Cummins

February 9, 2009

skimmed her 2001 book Nourishing Traditions over the weekend. seems like a book with a useful niche, but I doubt that niche is on my shelf.

sure, there’s a lotta footnotes backing up Fallon’s various health claims, but am I really gonna go look up all those studies and see if my take on them jives with hers? nah.

and I know she’s got a lotta fans, but I really couldn’t, erm, stomach the bossy tone of the book. attitude goes a long way toward converting the masses, ya know, and this one wasn’t for me.

at the very end of the book is a brief section with suggestions for how busy people can apply some of the book’s principles to their own hectic lives. the list is very short (make your own salad dressing, for example) and feels like a literal afterthought.

because, really, this book is for people who don’t have careers and are willing to devote their days not only to near-impossible sourcing of ingredients (perfectly fresh, unpasteurized, totally clean, pure raw milk) and hours of fermentation, soaking, simmering, and the like (all nuts should be soaked for a day and then dried out in an oven for a day before eating).

um, unless I get a Bessie of my own in my back yard, I’m not sure where to get that ideal raw-milk ingredient Fallon deems necessary for what feels like half the book’s recipes.

and I’d rather eat my nuts freshly toasted for a few minutes instead of spending a day soaking and a day cooking. am I missing out on vital nutrients by being such a lazy bum? Fallon would say yes. but I’m not so sure.

as for the section on homemade baby formula made from raw cow’s milk or meat — since when we were supposed to give babies formula made from cow’s milk (a known allergen in little tots) or meat? not that industrially produced formula is exactly fabuloso, but yikes!