In times of information overload, confusion and complexity, the wisdom of the past is a potent force multiplier.
Sally Fallon, author of Nourishing Traditions, articulates this beautifully in the preface of her book on embracing the culinary traditions of our ancestors as an efficient road back to health and vitality:
Technology is a generous benefactor. To those who have wisely used his gifts he has bestowed freedom from drudgery; freedom to travel; freedom from the discomforts of cold, heat and dirt; and freedom from ignorance, boredom and oppression. But father technology has not brought us freedom from disease.
Chronic illness in industrialized nations has reached epic proportions because we have been dazzled by his stepchildren- fast foods, fractionated foods, convenience foods, packaged foods, fake foods, embalmed foods, ersatz foods- all the bright baubles that fill up the shelves at our grocery stores, convenience markets, vending machines, and even health food stores.The premise of this book is that modern food choices and preparation techniques constitute a radical change from the way man has nourished himself for thousands of years and, from the perspective of history, represent a fad that not only has severely compromised his health and vitality, but may well destroy him; and that the culinary traditions of our ancestors, and the food choices of healthy, non-industrialized people, should serve as the model for contemporary eating habits, even and especially during this modern technological age.
