I found this letter from a recovered bulimic on the Westin A. Price Foundation website. The Weston A. Price Foundation is a nonprofit, tax-exempt charity founded in 1999 to disseminate the research of nutrition pioneer Dr. Weston Price, whose studies of isolated nonindustrialized peoples established the parameters of human health and determined the optimum characteristics of human diets.
Many of you know that I finally recovered from bulimia & binge eating after ending years of digestive distress & candida — and this was made possible by following The The Body Ecology Diet, by Donna Gates. Donna is a big supporter of The Westin A. Price Foundation. Through Donna’s recommendation, I have found many great articles and resources from the website. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in learning for about healing nutrition. Many of the articles support what Donna writes about in the Body Ecology Diet.
1950’s – Food Changes, Our Bodies Stay The Same
One of the eye-opening things I recently learned was that our diets drastically changed around the 1950’s — to processed foods, like TV dinners — but our digestive systems are still the same. It makes sense that we’d have side effects to processed foods if our bodies were so used to whole foods, a lot of variety, locally grown produce and raw dairy products. Pasteurization and antibiotics brought great advances in technology, but they also created a problem for the healthy bacteria (microflora) in our intestines. If you remember from the post I did on my consult with Donna, microflora help ensure our bodies have what they need to be healthy and disease free.
We have a long way to go before the biology of the digestive system meets the medical field somewhere in the middle. Until then, for those who suffer from cravings, addictions, IBS and immune-related issues that have not been resolved medically, a healing diet may be worth looking into.
Here is the letter:
SKELETON IN THE CLOSET
I am writing to you because you have saved my life! I am a 43-year-old mother of three boys, happily married to a wonderful, understanding, supportive man. I know he couldn’t care less if I was thin or chubby. Professionally I am an RN who is completely disgusted with our modern medical system. I have spent over 15 years in self study of nutrion and natural health and my boys are very healthy. Generally speaking our diet has been void of processed, sugar-laden, chemicalized “garbage” food.
We are a happy, healthy, well-adjusted close-knit family. We camp, fish, hike, bike ride, golf and share many other family-oriented activities. Everyone was doing well, except for me. . . I had been keeping a big, ugly skeleton in my closet for the past 30 years. Its name is bulimia. It started in high school. I still remember the moment a friend bragged how she could eat a whole half-gallon of ice cream and then throw up and not gain a pound. I thought, “Wow, great idea!” What seemed like a great weight control answer turned into a very long nightmare. I am sure that part of my interest in health and nutrition was actually a search for an answer to my own secret, agonizing problem. I usually succumbed to 1-3 binge-purge episodes each day—some days more often. Every once in a while I would look into the mirror and tell myself “that was the last time!” I sometimes went without binge-purging for three or four days, but never any longer. What a failure! I read every book possible about my condition and possible treatment. None had a very good success rate. All included long-term, expensive counseling. Too much risk, too much money. It was easier to keep the monster under control rather than attempt to kill it.
The turning point was my introduction to the teachings of the Weston A. Price Foundation. Up to that point I had a front row seat in the lowfat, high-complex-carb, semi-vegetarian camp. After more research, I dramatically changed my diet. I also put myself on the amino acid program directed at eating disorders, described in The Diet Cure by Julia Ross.
What followed I consider nothing less than a miracle! I have not had one binge-purge episode since! I am so ecstatic about my new-found success that I do not mind the extra weight I have put on. My research tells me that over time my body should adjust to my ideal body composition while gradually getting rid of the extra fat. I’m still working on that and most days I am not obsessing about my extra weight.
As I struggled with bulimia, I always thought that this problem was due to my lack of will power. Now I know that the problem was nutritional—my body had cravings for things it was not getting in my lowfat diet.
I pray that your work continues to reach people in need. You have a lifelong fan in me who will continue to advocate your work to all who will listen.
-Erica Lowe, Bozeman, MT
Response from Westin A. Price Foundation: Thank you for sharing your story. Think of all the enzymes you were losing with daily purging, and how hard your pancreas had to work to replenish them! Your experience leads us to consider other medical problems that might be blamed on lack of will power, such as alcoholism, drug addiction and obsessive-compulsive behavior. The first treatment for these conditions should always be a nutrient-dense traditional diet.
This probably explains why I can go for a week without b/p, and then relapse. My body probably can go for so long with only certain nutrients before it starts craving them so intensely that I feel an uncontrollable need to binge again. Ok, so maybe I need to seriously reconsider my diet. I do have to admit it has been far from varied lately. Salad for lunch, salad for dinner. A little bit of chicken in it, a couple of almonds, and sometimes some other veggies… but, I’m going to have to face it, my body is going to need a broader range of nutrition than that! And moccha frappucchinos aren’t going to fill that hole in my diet..!! :-/
Whatever happened? I used to have such a well-rounded diet with lots of whole grains, legumes, some fish and lean meats, and different kinds of veggies. Now it is rare I ever eat anything but salad anymore (except when I’m bingeing and purging). And I am the one telling my patients that too much cold and raw food is bad on their digestion! Hmm.
I’m curious, is there more info on what kind of diet this woman switched to? Was it the BED or a similar diet?
love,
Emily
Comment by Emily — May 16, 2006 @ 8:34 pm
Hi Emily, The diet she switched to is just like the Body Ecology Diet. Westin A. Price Foundation believes in the same traditional, healing diet — that nurtures our system and keeps it in natural homeostasis. Most of us have destroyed our healthy bacteria (microflora) through taking antibiotics, eating too much sugar, stress, constipation, the Standard American Diet, etc.
Once the good microflora get overpowered by the bad, leaky gut and candida can happen. Also, over time, we may end up not having the proper enzymes to digest our foods. This can happen with bulimia too. Then we can’t break down proteins to get L-tryptophan, which makes serotonin. And we can’t break down proteins to get the B12 that we need to balance our moods. Our immunity gets weak.
I have to say that I’ve never enjoyed food so much as when I started the BED. Processed foods and foods that set off cravings for me — they never deeply satisfied me. They set off a raging need inside of me. The foods on the BED feel deeply nourishing, are delicious and are satisfying. I’ve never felt such a grounded sense of peace and joy during and after eating. There is no sense of deprivation — it’s actually kind of fun to try all of these foods and know that they are doing good things for my body. They keep me even — there is no longer a roller coaster ride.
Donna Gates supports Westin A. Price and Sally Fallon, who wrote Nourishing Traditions. All of them believe the same things — although they aren’t the only ones. So any of these sources will point to similar nutritional information.
With love,
Heather
Comment by Heather — May 16, 2006 @ 11:11 pm
Heather, I know what you mean about processed foods not being satisfying. I consider myself very lucky that, throughout my life, processed foods have made up a rather small fraction of my diet. I was spoiled to have two parents who were both excellent cooks (with a mom who was very health-conscious) and prepared two homemade meals for our family almost daily with lots of fresh, vibrant ingredients. I do believe that the quality of food (meats, fruits and vegetables) availabe in my hometown in Germany was superior to the mass-produced, indrustrialized food that the majority of Americans buy and consume. Of course, it is still a matter of choice and consciousness. Fresh, nutritious foods can be found most anywhere in the United States, and Germany offers plenty of nutrient-poor, empty-calorie processed foods as well. Still, I do think the overall health-consciousness is higher in Europe than in the U.S.
I have American friends who grew up on fast-food, industrially raised meat and canned vegetables. One of my friends had never had a fresh vegetable until she met her husband, who introduced her to a whole new way of eating!
I am very appreciative of having been raised on a well-rounded diet based on fresh ingredients, a minimum amount of candy, and antibiotics only on a few rare occasions when it was absolutely necessary. I thank my mom for that! I know it wasn’t easy for her to go against the mainstream all these years, stand her own, and live and raise a family according to her convictions!
As far as the candy, I believe that the reason I never crave store candy is BECAUSE I didn’t have it as a child. It’s way too sugary and artificial-tasting for me. However, this doesn’t mean I do not crave other sweet things. My mom always made all kinds of homemade goodies (cakes, tarts, pastries…) which were so delicious it was very difficult to hold back! Or even just fresh bread with cold butter and homemade jam on it… Those are MY sweet indulgences.
By the way, I have a friend who studied nutrition before going to school for Chinese Medicine. He has taught some cooking classes at which I’ve learned some wonderful recipes that have become staples of my diet. I plan to share some of them on my blog in one of my upcoming posts. He has a website you might enjoy taking a look at. He has a couple of recipes on there. Unfortunately, he doesn’t update it very often. One of the featured recipes is one of J’s and mine alltime favorites, and it’s very easy to make. It is a nori-wrapped, baked miso salmon. You can take a look at it at nourished.org
It is a shame he has moved out of the area, as I would have loved to take more of his enlightening and taste-bud-stimulating cooking classes!
Anyways… this was another long one! Once I get going…
love,
Emily
Comment by Emily — May 16, 2006 @ 11:51 pm
Hi Emily, You are so lucky to have grown up with such great varieties of health foods! I had always heard that Germany was the place for healthy foods and supplements — my husband even exclaims about the German rules for purity of beer making! It must have been a bit of a shock to see the changes in the States — although I bet there’s a great network of health food stores and alternatives in CA.
Thanks for sharing the Nourished website — it’s great! The salmon recipe looks excellent and I plan to try it after a trip to the store for some salmon! I also hope to take some cooking classes. Not much in my area in the boonies of New Hampshire — so I’ll probably wait until I can go to one of the Body Ecology cooking retreats in Florida once they get going. They are creating a training center in Jupiter Florida and have hired a couple of great chefs to get the program going.
With love,
Heather
Comment by Heather — May 17, 2006 @ 3:30 pm