Question: Do you know if coconut oil’s antimicrobial effect extends to probiotics? If I am prescribing probiotics do you know if I am undoing the effects by prescribing coconut oil as well?
Answer: My understanding is that coconut oil encourages the right kind of bacteria in the colon–it is the preferred food for the kind of bacteria you want to have there.
But I think in the small intestine, the benefit of coconut oil is to kill the bad guys, rather than provide food for the good guys. Of course, when the bad guys are kept at bay, the good guys can proliferate.
Question: I have been sick a long time and have been trying to follow a NT diet for the last year and have been pretty successful. I have a source of raw milk and make kefir and drink fermented beverages and prepare foods in the NT way. I recently had IGG and IGA blood allergy tests. I showed as being allergic to a lot of things among which are milk, eggs, wheat, rice, chicken, almonds. These are staple things in my diet and I am at a loss as to how to eliminate all of them. Do you have any comment on the validity of IGG and IGA blood allergy tests? - Patricia
Answer: I am not familiar with these tests, but I know that they often give false positives. What I would recommend is the pulse test to determine allergies. It is described in the introduction to Nourishing Traditions. Best, Sally
You can always eliminate each suspected allergen and reintroduce them after a month, one by one eliminating them again if they cause any upset. Bone broth is my number one recommendation for bowel healing which may help. - ED
Question: What does Sally think of the “new” coconut flour recipes that are coming out? Does that flour need to be soaked? Is it adding too many carbs in the diet to consume muffins made of the coconut flour? - Patricia
Answer: Coconut is a fruit so it does nto actually have to be soaked. But I have not worked with it, so really can’t answer any questions about it.
If you do use coconut flour, dear Nourishers, feel free to help Patricia out in the comments below - ED
About the Author...
Sally Fallon is founding president of the Weston A Price Foundation, a non-profit nutrition education foundation with over 400 local chapters and 9000 members. She is also the founder of A Campaign for Real Milk, which has as its goal universal access to clean raw milk from pasture-fed animals. Author of the best-selling cookbook Nourishing Traditions and also of Eat Fat Lose Fat (Penguin), both with Mary G. Enig, Phd, Sally has a encyclopedic knowledge of modern nutritional science as well as ancient food ways. Her grasp on the work of Weston Price is breath taking and her passion for health freedom, inspiring. In each edition of Nourished Magazine Sally answers your questions about nutrition, health, food and medical politics. Send us an email with your question and we'll put it to her.
Sep 27th, 2007 at 3:00 am
My question is about Caffeine and Coffee. I wonder if traditional diets incorporated any caffeine? How much caffeine can you drink and still be healthy? I’ve heard that caffeine leaches the nutrients from my body, is this true? What does coffee do to your metabolism? Is decaf coffee a better option? Is tea any better than coffee?
thank you!
Oct 1st, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Caffeine jolts the adrenal glands and eventually leads to adrenal exhaustion. My own health did not begin to improve until I quit coffee–the hardest thing I ever did. Sally
Jan 4th, 2008 at 5:01 am
I know this post is old, but my question also is in reference to caffeine. I have recently decided to cut out coffee except for once a week as a treat, organic of course. However, I’m exchanging coffee for tea. I’ve been having a good quality whole leaf black tea in the morning, and then green teas through out the day. I know the black tea is chuck full of caffeine, is this just as bad for my health as coffee? If so, would it be better to switch to all herbal and green teas?
Jun 18th, 2008 at 11:00 am
My body reacts very badly to caffeine nowdays. I can’t even have decaf coffee! I also get the same reaction from black tea which makes me think it’s probably just as bad as coffee. My favourite tea to drink at the moment is rooibos which is a caffeine-free red tea often used in South Africa. It’s naturally fairly sweet and can be served with milk.