As for my opinion, I can't really say or take sides for I've never fully followed the diet. I have integrated some of the ideas, with positive results. For example, a few years ago I was 340 pounds and am now 215. The weight has come off slowly. However, I can't say I've been on any particular diet, such as Weston Price. I have been on a diet in which I don't buy a lot of processed foods (canned foods and fast foods taste like cardboard to me these days). I tend to buy my food from local farms, both meats and vegetables. Very rarely do I eat canned foods and fast foods is only used in dire emergency.
Thus my diet approximates Price but does not follow. But, then, I am not one to follow anybody's theoretical bend. Indeed, when I was working as a counselor, I was required to follow a standardized method of counseling families with children at-risk for out-of-home placement, generally through Department of Corrections. I oftentimes found myself in trouble for not being compliant with the program. I simply am not one to comply with standardized anything. In many ways I was more like the kids I was serving.
As such, my diet is a mix-match and ultimately comes down to my picking and choosing what foods feel good to me. (With clients it was my intuition in relation to family needs). Ultimately, my guide is my inner Wisdom, or what I often refer to as Sophia in my writings regarding spirituality.
Thus my advice is to read and learn and meanwhile listen to your body as you eat and look at the larger changes. Wisdom is within you and not within the academics. Wisdom is the Way of Nature. If you follow any particular regimen or align yourself with any one prescribed way of behaving or believing, then I think you may be in trouble. Nature's Way includes diversity more so than standardization.
Ellie's dramatic recovery of health, mobility, and a can-do attitude led her to favor the Biodynamic style of farming, which is a spiritual-ethical-ecological approach to agriculture, food production and nutrition. Biodynamic farmers strive to create a diversified, balanced farm ecosystem that generates health and fertility as much as possible from within the farm itself. In this sense, the goal is to have a self-perpetuating system.
Biodynamic farming mimics Nature. If you go into any wilderness area, you will see a wide variety of plants, insects, birds and other species. Nature is not standardized. The reason for this is survivability. If there is only one type of tree in a forest, and a disease attacks that tree, the entire forest is destroyed.
Thus variability is good for survivability. This makes Biodynamic farming more resilient than corporate farming, which is often based on monoculture cropping in which one crop (e.g., corn) is planted for several acres. Again, one bug that goes after corn and your crop is potentially deleted. To compensate, farmers using monoculture cropping often react by the use of a lot of pesticides which further deteriorates the land and, ultimately, increases the resistance of the pests its trying to destroy.
This creates a vicious cycle where as nature creates a virtuous cycle which Biodynamics mimics. Biodynamics was first developed in the early 1920s based on the spiritual insights and practical suggestions of the Austrian writer, educator and social activist Rudolf Steiner, whose philosophy is called "anthroposophy." In this system, preparations are made from fermented manure, minerals and herbs. These are used to help restore and harmonize the vital life forces of the farm and enhance the nutrition, quality and flavor of the food being raised. Biodynamic farmers mode of operandi is to "think global/act local." These practitioners recognize and strive to work in cooperation with the subtle influences of the wider cosmos on soil, plant and animal health. In other words, they live according to the premise that what we do in our backyards has consequences for the Earth.
Most biodynamic initiatives seek to embody triple bottom line approaches (ecological, social and economic sustainability), taking inspiration from Steiner's insights into social and economic life as well as agriculture. The popular Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) movement was pioneered by biodynamic farmers. A CSA is in operation when a person pays in advance for farm shares. The money is then used to foster the food's development from planting to harvesting.
As part of Ellie's farming plan, she uses a technique called "mob grazing". According to Angus Beef Bulletin, the top 10 reasons to start this type of planned high-density grazing are:
1. Improve forage quality.
2. Reduce hay and feed costs.
3. Eliminate seed purchases.
4. Increase legumes and native grasses.
5. Reduce weed problems.
6. Minimize equipment costs.
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