Raw Milk - Our Constitutional Right Spelled Out

Raw Milk access and availability has been suppressed however (details are in the Petition and Report in Favor of Natural Milk available through the WeWant2Live.com site) see this video [Disarm the FDA] and listen to the US Senator saying "I'm outraged when I see pictured of FDA agents wielding firearms and raiding farms to arrest Americans for the crime of selling milk directly from a cow."

Thanks Nathan for your Primal Diet and Amish farm experiences!

More about Nathan!

I am satisfied with the Primal Diet - experimenting and refining...

Epilogue

It has been nearly 2 years since I first wrote the Amish Diaries. I prepared this for blog publication while sitting in an open air kitchen in the middle of the jungle on the Big Island of Hawaii (where this photo was taken), typing and editing the last of The Amish Diaries. I am wondering how successful it is going to be and if people are going to find it interesting. I think about how much has changed and how much has stayed the same.

I am still friends with Albert and talk with him regularly. Because of my experience living with him, I fell into becoming his “broker” and was able to get him some large accounts. He is now busier than ever and is sending his products all over the United States and even into other countries. However, he has had many close calls. The PDA (Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, I like to call them the PDA-Holes) is well aware of his and other Amish and Mennonite activities and have tried to shut him down numerous times. Luckily, the PDA is so inept and unorganized that simply by Albert asking the PDA inspector for his identification when he comes to his farm is enough to confuse and set them back for months. Also, Aajonus Vonderplanitz and The Right to Choose Healthy Foods organization have been instrumental in helping Albert prepare legal documents, assist him with court cases and most importantly, simply know his rights. It has truly been a pleasure and a learning experience to watch the legal savvy of Aajonus in action. Without his love, knowledge and countless hours he has donated, Albert and many others, would have been shut down a long time ago.

As always I am still constantly experimenting with and refining my diet. Living with Albert was a powerful transition point for me from a Weston Price diet to an Aajonus Vonderplanitz Primal Diet. So far I am very satisfied with Aajonus’s diet and recommendations. After years of being fooled by unhealthy looking false gurus, I feel I have finally found a friend and a teacher who, frankly, knows what the fuck he is talking about. I have a home in Los Angeles right by the local Primal Diet style raw foods co-op and have been able to integrate myself in the community there. Having that resource of hundreds of people who are doing the same “weird” diet as me has been integral in my healing. I regularly correspond with Aajonus. As the months go by I find my respect and love for him grows. He is always very kind and humble and continually inspires me to learn more about the world around me. I credit him with saving my life and I will always be thankful for his tireless efforts to learn what makes us healthy.

I am submitting this blog while living at Pangaia, a permaculture and raw food community on the Big Island of Hawaii with about 8 other people. Pangaia is offering me the chance to get truly “primal”. I have gone spear fishing, wild boar hunting, slaughtered goats and drank the fresh blood. I believe that I will never know the true power of food unless I find the best quality available, Pangaia is offering me that chance. I have found that everything people say can kill me actually makes me stronger. I have eaten 1 year old rotten meat, pig intestines, brains, raw organs, fresh blood, feces and I haven’t died yet. It is a constant effort to undue years of brainwashing and force myself to be open to eating things which, for lack of a better term, are revolting. However, if there is one thing that I have learned, it is that when it comes to my health, it is usually the last thing I want to do or the thing that I am most adverse to, that ends up being what my body needs to heal. The fact that thousands of others have blazed the trail before me, and that I am not the first raw astronaut, offers some hope and comfort.

Living experience on a raw food farm - acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

First and foremost I would like to thank Albert, his family and all the other Amish I hung out with who helped bridge the Amish/English cultural gap by allowing me, a raw meat eating, eccentric surfer from California into their homes and lives. I would like to thank my Mom, Dad and brother for putting up with my new choice of lifestyle once I came back from the Amish. I know raw chicken, 8 month old rotten buffalo meat and the multitude of scary and smelly jars that cluttered our house and refrigerators took some getting used to and I want you to know that without your love and support, it would have not been possible. Diane O’Connell for her continued love, support and help in editing the book. Mary Beth Clark and her son Mathew for being my kindred raw spirits, and motivating me to get it published. Manis and everyone at Pangaia for providing a loving raw food community for me to live, work and experiment at. James Steward and everyone at the Rawesome Co-op for providing a place for me to sell my book and by creating an epicenter of health and community. My current success with my diet would not have been possible without the Rawesome Co-op. Weston Price Foundation and Sally Fallon for getting me started on the path towards health and activism and for supporting so many local farmers. The Right To Choose Healthy Food Foundation for their activism and support of local farmers. Aajonus Vonderplanitz, my good friend and raw food compadre. I credit you with saving my life. Your attitude and love for the truth is a continual inspiration for me and I look forward to growing together in the future. Finally, I would like to thank all of the “astronauts” out there. Those people who are willing to dietarily boldly go where no one has gone before. When friends and family have turned their backs and said you were crazy and that eating raw pork, pig intestines, trichonosis, rotten meat, rat lung worm, brains, mongoose, baby mice was going to kill you, you still pushed forward because you needed to know the truth. Your persistence and dedication has helped thousands of people to get healthy. I hope all of the raw foodists realize that most of them would never have transitioned to a raw diet if it wasn’t for the pioneers who had tested the waters by eating things i.e. raw fish, raw dairy that at the time, were considered extremely dangerous and crazy. I have learned that the biggest obstacle to my health is my own prejudices and close-mindedness and I implore the raw food community to support scientific, unbiased and unorthodox research. You raw pioneers truly understand me and are my kindred spirits and I thank you for your inspiration. Everyone lives, some of us die trying.

And I would like to thank Mary Jo for editing and support. I would like to thank Jim Ellingson for his tireless efforts in getting my first book online and for believing in me."
Preface

So how does a “never worked a day in his life” white boy from the suburbs of Dallas, Texas end up living with a raw milk bootlegging Amish family in Lancaster, Pennsylvania? To put it simply, the common love of good food.

I first met Albert at a Weston Price conference in Long Island, New York. I was volunteering for the event and one of the event organizers, a kindly old man named Harry was allowing me to spend the night with him. Albert as well as another Amish named Mathew Fischer were selling their wares at the event and needed a place to stay. So Harry invited them to stay the night also and we had a big sleep over party.

It was the next day that I truly began to fall in love with the idea of living with Albert. His booth was a veritable buffet of life. Cheeses, yogurt, eggnog, creams, eggs, breads, kvass. This was the first time in my life where I was truly able to eat anything I wanted without fear of ill consequences. I remember eating a cup of one of his homemade egg-nogs, then being so overcome by the flavor and nutrition that I asked for 2 more. The more I ate the better I felt (usually the more I ate, the worse I felt with food). My stomach was bulging but I was fat, happy and felt no pain. I was starting to believe that I found the answer, that I could actually feel good for once in my life. Years and years of praying to God to make me better were finally coming true. Then it hit me, I was graduating cooking school in a couple of months and I was required to do an internship. Why not ask Albert? He agreed immediately and that is how The Amish Diaries began.

What follows is nearly the exact transcription of my diary entries of living with Albert from December 13, 2004 to January 14, 2005. If it was up to me, I would have left it exactly as I had written it. However due to reasons of clarity I have been advised to do some minor edits, add foot notes and an index of names. Also, names and places have been changed in order to protect Albert and the other people mentioned in the book. As you will find out, the Amish are a private people and I wish to respect that. Besides what I have mentioned, everything that you are about to read is exactly as I have written it. It is my intention to preserve the soul and “rawness” of my experience and have the reader be able to experience the excitement and newness just as I was experiencing it.

There are many reasons I wrote The Amish Diaries. I wanted to bring to light the extraordinary struggles that ordinary people go through in order to make healing food available to the masses. In this day and age, nutrient-dense food is a luxury and not a right and I want readers to see that without the continued efforts of people like Aajonus Vonderplanitz, Sally Fallon, Albert and many others, their access to healthy food will be become more and more restricted. To this day, Amish Farmers are still being illegally harassed by the PDA and other government organizations and whether it keeps happening or not is up to you. You the reader must not expect others to do it for you, or as the old story goes, once everyone else is gone, no one will be left to stand for you.

I also wanted to share the journey that I went through as I was figuring out “which diet is right for me”. I often tell my friends and clients who are in the process of changing their diets that they need to be aware of how big a shift they are making in their lives. Friends, habits, lifestyles, living situations and relationships will all be drastically affected, for better and for worse, simply by changing what we put in our bodies. The public is generally not aware of the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual pain that people like myself and others must go through when we change our diet. We don’t do it because it is a fad or we are [hypochondriacs]; we do it because we must in order to live. There is an intense amount of self-reflecting that goes one. A continual building up and breaking down of the ego that must be done in order to rid oneself of the self-imposed mental barriers that much of the time are the real cause of our unhealthiness. I want others to see that they are not alone and it is normal for these feelings and situations to happen. If my suffering can help a few people transition easier in their diet, then I am doing something right. It has been said that it is easier to change ones religion than one’s diet and in my experience this has been true.

I hope you enjoy The Amish Diaries as much as I did writing them. When you have finished reading please check out Right To Choose Healthy Foods [an organization set up by my good friend Aajonus Vonderplanitz, that fights for us to get the foods we need to be healthy] and make a generous contribution. .

Living experience on a raw food farm - memories of the Amish

Day 33 1/14/05

A cheerful light skinned, plump, black man just walked into the train car. He announced, “Tickassss Out! Take ya ‘tam!” I asked, “How ya doin?” He said, “Fine, sounds like the train’s fawlling apaaaart.” The train was making a lot of noise. I said goodbye to everyone today. I didn’t stop to say bye to Elizabeth, Naomi, Peter or Susan. The driver was ready and I felt bad making him wait. I shouldn’t have felt bad, I should have said goodbye. I played a final best 2 out of 3 in Ping-Pong with George. He beat me both times. He is the official “Grass Fed Farm Ping-Pong Champion.” He is the “Organic Ping-Pong Champion.” I told him that I am going to come back and surprise him one day and ask for a rematch. I want to catch him off guard so I might have an advantage. I’m going to miss them, not in a huge way. Enough to make me think fondly of them. I’m sitting on a train with all of these English. I feel different, even more different from them now. I don’t want this feeling to end. I only want it to grow stronger. I don’t want to watch TV, radio, music or movies. I don’t want to want to do those things¹. I think of all the years that I’ve wasted watching TV with my family. We could have been out taking a walk, throwing the Frisbee, talking, creating memories. I feel angry at a society that has taken this from me. It has warped the minds of the people I love, destroyed their health, cheapened our relationships. I don’t know how to feel or who to be angry at. I just want everything to be okay. I want my family to be okay. I want my dad to not die soon and have his health². I want him and my mom to make money and feel secure. I want them to have occupations that are meaningful and help people. I want them to be fulfilled. I want to have a loving relationship with my brother. I want him to love me and want to spend time with me. I want to make my parents happy and proud of me. I want to make money doing something that I love and that helps people. I want to surf, in warm waters, really, really well. I don’t know how many of these things are going to come to pass. I’ve been finding out that generally, what I feel, comes to pass. Half of me is confident and filled with purpose, the other half is scared, timid and has low self-esteem. Am I going to make money? Am I going to have to go to another school and learn more? Am I going to have to learn about astrology and start doing that? Am I going to have to start eating raw food all the time? I don’t want to be anything else. Massage therapist, Nutritionist, Chef, Astrologer. I just want to be Nate, surf and help people. The train just passed a parking lot where I saw a kid doing BMX jumps.

1 That feeling still remains, but the willpower doesn’t! I fell right back into my own habits as soon as I got back home. Society is just too addictive for me.

2 Several years before that, my dad almost died in the hospital from a “heart infection”. The doctors had to saw through his chest and replace part of his heart with a pig’s. The doctors said that he probably got the infection from flying on a plane. I do not agree with their theory. I have eaten raw chicken brains, poop, raw meat, raw dairy and 5 month of buffalo kept in a glass jar on my stairwell at room temperature since I was at that Amish farm. I have not died and have only gotten stronger because of it. I know hundreds of people who eat that same food and they are healthy. How could “some bacteria on a plane” have almost killed my dad, if I eat bacteria and pathogenic-laden food every day and feel great! No one has been able to answer that for me yet. Healing my father has been one of the driving forces behind my quest for health.

Living experience on a raw food farm

Day 31 1/12/05

I woke up at 5:00 am this morning. I got picked up at 6:00 am to be taken to Christian Ackerman's to butcher a pig. The driver almost left without me. Peter didn’t know I was getting picked up and told her it was the wrong house. I had to run after her. She was fat and pimply. It was still dark out and extremely foggy. We started talking about the Amish. She drives a lot of them around. She thought I might be Amish. She found it surprising that I was able to live with them and they let me. She asked if they have running water or take showers much. I said, “Yes, they do take showers.” She said, “They smell a lot of the time when she drives them.” She asked, “Is it going to be hard for you to butcher a pig?” I said, “Not really.” She said that she doesn’t eat too much meat and that whenever she does she usually feels gross and will stay away from it for months. She doesn’t eat read meat, eats a little chicken, fish and usually turkey. I asked her if she feels good when she eats organic grass-fed meat. She didn’t know what that was. I explained to her what they did to cows in factory farms. She said, “That’s mean.” Christian I met at the conference a week ago. He’s a young guy, about 23. He has a wife, two kids and a whole farm to take care of. I ate breakfast with him and he made some eggnog with coconut kefir. I thought it was funny and neat that this Amish guy knew about and liked coconut kefir. Breakfast was good. We went to the butcher shop. I helped out his brother Michael in the barn a little bit, sweeping the hay etc. Christian has 15 Jersey cows. One has a crooked face. They killed about 2-3 pigs yesterday. They were Homer’s and he was going to come by and help today. I spent a couple of hours cutting them up. I talked with Christian a lot about Weston Price, Amish and English, etc. He said he used to have his own construction business and had a cell phone. He said he needed the cell phone in order to run a successful business but he is glad that he doesn’t have to have it anymore. He said it would never stop ringing and he felt that the radiation caused cancer. He had a friend who used to always chew on the antenna and ended up getting a blister on the inside of his lip. He talked about how the Amish aren’t perfect like everyone thinks and how they are human too. It was a good time. Michael, his brother, is 15. He was making beef jerky and gave me some. Christian had a bite and said, “Hmmmmm, RAW” It was funny, like a Raw Meat Commercial. They used whole garlic, whole onion and naturally fermented soy sauce. It was good. I cut up the pig into different sections for scrapple, bacon and sausage. I was working on grinding up the lard in a meat grinder and Homer came in with his son Andrew. Andrew was crying a lot. Later as we were cutting up pork, Andrew would take the bone and eat the raw meat off the bone like it was nothing. Homer said they gave Andrew raw meat every once in a while and he loves it. I thought that was great. They don’t like giving him raw pork though.¹ We took some of the cooked bones and some organs out of the wood-fire oven and I saw Andrew walking around munching on a liver. I hope my kids are like that. The kidneys were the delicacy that day. As soon as we took them out of the wood fire oven, everyone went after them. We added some salt and they tasted incredible. I felt really good, a little bit like when I eat a raw liver. We went to eat lunch, it was the best meal I’ve had since I’ve been here: extremely decadent spare ribs, tender and fatty beef, sweet potatoes cooked in cream and butter, peas and carrots, fermented salsa, cottage cheese, yogurt with raspberry sauce, milk and of course, butter. I showed them how it is possible to eat the spare rib bones if they are cooked long enough. They fell apart in my mouth. They tried it too and seemed to like it. It’s funny how a lot of these Amish people who are into the Weston Price stuff are open to just about anything, even raw meat. I feel I could get them to eat anything if I told them Sally or Aajonus said it was okay. I ate till I was stuffed. I still felt decently good. When we finished eating, we went back to the barn to make scrapple and sausage. Scrapple is pork scraps, organic lard and fermented grain (Christian does corn, wheat and oats with a kefir culture). I mixed it in the wood-fired kettle, it was great. I was addicted to Scrapple when I first came to live with Albert. I left with Homer Adams. We stopped to get some gas and Homer stepped out of the car. The driver turned around and said, “I’m trying to figure you out, are you Amish or what?” I told him, I was helping them out with some stuff. He told me how he thought they were weird cause they live like it’s the 1800’s. He said he drives a lot of them around. On the weekend, he’ll take a bunch of Amish girls to the beach and they will put on two-pieces. He said he’s had a couple over at his house swimming before. He said on weekends, there will sometimes be these huge Amish parties that 100 kids will go to. He said he used to have a 12 passenger van and the he would charge Amish kids $12 a pop to take them home. He said he would make $200 a night sometimes and would be up to 3 am. I stopped at Homer’s; he had his nephew drive me home in a carriage. He was about 12 years old². It was extremely foggy. It felt like a Disney land ride with fake fog. I already said what I ate today.

1 Sometimes, people have funny rationalizations. So raw beef and fish is okay, but raw pork? GROSS! I think people believe too much that they read. People freak out about salmonella in chicken, but maybe the salmon industry made that up to get people to eat more salmon. Then, the chicken industry retorted by creating the “mercury in salmon” theory. The chicken and salmon industries both attack the beef industry by saying that red meat is bad for cholesterol and the heart. But the beef industry counters by promoting the image, “Real men eat 10 oz steaks!” Beef, chicken and salmon all gang up on pork. The Pork industry needs to hire better PR people. “The other white meat”, just doesn’t cut it.

2 Many of the Amish that I was with, would give their children responsibility at young ages. For example, teach them how to drive horse and buggies before they were 12 years old. I like this way of parenting and felt it was more beneficial. Among the English, it’s like, “You are such a cute baby, look at the cute baby. We do everything for our baby.” Then the kid starts going through puberty and isn’t as cute anymore and the parents say, ‘Get a job! Get some responsibility!” The kid doesn’t know what to do because his parents never showed him how and he gets blamed for it. That is how it was for me. When I went to college, I didn’t even know how to do laundry. Parents need to take more responsibility.

Living experience on a raw food farm

Day 25 1/6/05

We woke up earlier today. I had to leave early to go to Homer’s to slaughter 30 chickens. I had to do everything. I had to catch them today. It was hard at first, I found the trick was to go for the feet, then they can’t fight me as much. It was raining slightly, it was slippery. I kept reciting the Lord’s Prayer while I was catching them and stuffing them in cages. I felt like Samuel Jackson in Pulp Fiction when he was reciting Biblical Verses before he whacked people. I was saying the prayer because I still feel like I need to do something spiritual when I’m killing animals. I feel that it’s wrong for me to get used to it. I definitely see animals differently now that I’ve killed them and seen them be killed. They seem more like animals instead of animals that have human characteristics. I feel differently too. After pulling out nearly a hundred intestines from chickens, I now feel that I have an idea what mine are like. I played George in Ping-Pong today. I did not have my glasses and it was dark. He won 2 out of 3. Someday before I leave, I will beat him best 2 out of 4. I put the chickens 15 to a cage. They were crammed pretty tight. There was a little drop of blood on the wagon from one or more of the chickens. We tied the cages on top of the wagon, to the back of the horse and buggy. It was George’s buggy. George definitely has the pimped out buggy. It has all the bells and whistles. It has a wooden dash board with knobs and dials. It was a horn which he hasn’t hooked up yet. He has 3 or more different key-chains. Two of them have stuff like, “I’m innocent and cute” or those stupid ones that I see high school freshmen girls have on their backpacks. He has one that has his birthday horoscope (which is a big no-no for Amish) on it. It says on one side. “I am timid and shy” and other personality traits. On the other side it has things that happened on that date throughout history: First escalator was patented, Julius Caesar was assassinated 44 B.C., and Hitler began his Third Reich. I looked in the back and I saw that he had a boom box. I started laughing and said, “George, what’s this?” He started laughing too and said, “Shhhhh”. We got out on the road and I got it out. We put in a tape of a Christian Country band called, Breakthrough. They sounded pretty good, for a Christian Country band. Lisa and Lucy are majorly whining right now. Marie is trying to put them to bed. They whine so much. They’re super-whiners, they need to eat better. When they say, “Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaa”, they really say “Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa”. George said him and two other friends chipped in to buy the boom box. They all ride together on the way to church, so that’s when they listen to it. His friend brings a cd case then and they listen to “country and rock n’ roll”. He was pretty polite; when we were passing houses he would turn it down and say, “Well, the neighbors don’t need to hear it.” I killed several chickens and two turkey’s today. Warm blood on my hand, same as before. I’m getting better and swifter at it. Homer’s chickens were young and small. They had beautiful red to dark reddish-purple livers. The turkeys livers’ were almost purple they were so good. Albert’s hens were older, some had weird stuff inside them. Richard King, the guy who was helping me butcher them said they could be cancer or tumors. That usually happens in older chickens. Richard makes really good fermented vegetables. Some of the chicken livers were brownish, I didn’t want to eat those. I ate the unborn eggs though. They taste awesome. Homer said, “Noah Noosewingers wife (he is a great raw cheese guy) eats raw meat sometimes. Richard was cutting a chicken and showed me how its beak was cut. He said they do that to them when they are young at the chicken farms so they don’t end up eating their own eggs when they are older. He says that makes it so they can’t eat grass as well. He says if they are de-beaked, then they are vaccinated as well. He said before, a farmer had to ask the chicken selling place to debeak and vaccinate them and they charged extra. Now he says, they do it automatically unless you ask them not to and they will still charge the same price. I did some spying for Albert today. I told him how Homer makes some of his stuff like cottage cheese and yogurt. It was fine because Homer told me anyway. I told Albert and Marie that I was going to start eating raw meat at their house. He has a refrigerator full of fresh and unfrozen meat. I figured now would be a good time to try. Marie laughed, Albert seemed a little weirded out by it. I hope it’s my imagination. Maybe I’m being a dick by telling them I am going to eat raw meat at their house, or maybe it will be good. Maybe if they or one of their kids get really sick and nothing works to make them feel better, they’ll try some raw meat and it will help them. I hope I didn’t offend them. In a way, I also don’t care. For breakfast I had raw, unfrozen veal cubes and eggnog. Lunch: sprouts, lettuce and chicken soup. Dinner was lard cooked potatoes and sweet potatoes with Sauerkraut, cream, whipped cream and bananas plus cooked string beans.

Living experience on a raw food farm

Day 20 1/1/05

Aaahh, the New Year. New things, new possibilities. It doesn’t feel like something new. It feels like the same old stuff. Holidays, special occasions, new years, etc. don’t really mean too much to me out here. When I was living in the real world, I always knew when something “special” is going on. Here, the cows don’t care, the Amish kind of care, and I really don’t care at all. I’m getting comfortable here, I’d be more comfortable if there was a warm ocean nearby and I could surf. English people think the Amish are weird or cultish for some of the things they do. Now that I’m living with them, I understand the benefit. Amish don’t allow records, cds, instruments, etc. That may seem weird, and since they’re not spending their time up in their room with their headphones on, when they want music, they sing or play the harmonica. Which is tons more fun than listening to a record. That’s probably why people are always hard up for the live version of cds, because they want the feeling and energy of actually being there. I’d rather be singing or playing the harmonica with a bunch of good people than listening to a cd any day. Amish people don’t go out and buy a bunch of extravagant clothes. They get to learn how to make their own. If they want a new dress, they just make it. People like to think the Amish are weird or strange and they forget to look at how fucked up their world they live in is that they think is “normal”. Albert took the two Jerseys over to his dad’s farm yesterday. It was too much trouble bringing their milk over all the time. I miss them. I wonder if they miss me, probably not. It was summer in full effect today. Sun was shining, slight breeze, birds were chirping. I had to take a lot of layers off. It felt great; I decided to take a walk out onto the field where the cows were. They were all staring at me as soon as I walked out there. One or two of them came over to me, which was slightly unusual; one of them sniffed my hand. I bent over and one of them sniffed my butt. It was beautiful out there. I started walking towards the other end of the field, the cows behind me started following. I thought it was cute. I saw the bull up and to the left a little ways. He had about 3 girl cows around him. He was pimping it. He would try to hump some of the cows. They usually wouldn’t let him. The girl cows tried to hump him a couple of times, he wouldn’t let them. The girl cows tried to hump each other, the “humpee’s” didn’t like that too much. It was like a big cow orgy, it was funny. A girl cow would be standing there and another one would come up from behind and try to hump the other one. The other one say, “Uh-uh” and try to get away. It looked like the cow was trying to hump with her udders which looked like a bulky 4 pronged penis. The further I walked down the field, the more the cows would follow me. I would stop sometimes and they would literally surround me. I thought it was cute, and then started getting freaked out. Did cows attack? They wouldn’t take their eyes off of me. The bull would come over sometimes and paw the dirt and growl. I’m not as afraid of him as I used to be. I had to get him inside to mate with the blind cow that Albert keeps in the barn to give milk to the calves. He wouldn’t come. I was standing in above ankle deep field of cow poop, only a couple of feet away from him, saying things like. “Hee-Yaw” and waving my arms. I wouldn’t have been able to run very fast. He was angry too, sometimes he didn’t back down. I wonder if he can see in the dark better than me. I slept a lot today. Albert usually takes New Year’s off. He was too busy to do that today. He works a lot, and still spends time with his kids. They hang out with him when he’s working sometimes. They need to quit whining big time. Lisa and Lucy whine all the time, sometimes I want to smack them. Marie says she needs to begin disciplining more¹. I hope they start soon. For breakfast I ate scrapple, an apple (that rhymes), kim-chee, some cheese, and sweet potato hash browns. I made the family that and awesome omelets. For dinner I had and made hamburgers, creamed spicy corn (the twins were confused, they like corn and couldn’t figure out what was wrong with this one, they kept on rubbing their tongues because it was spicy), mashed potatoes and something fermented. For a snack in the midday, I had yogurt colostrum, an apple and honey.

1 Some Amish are really hardcore with their kids and rule with an iron fist. Others, like Sara and Albert, let their kids run the show a little more. That is how it was with me and my parents. I could and would manipulate my parents to get anything that I wanted. It ended up really hurting me socially; when I went to college, I didn’t even know how to do my own laundry. Now that I am a man, and trying to establish myself, there is the unconscious feeling in the back of my mind that says, “Hey Nate, if you fuck up, you can always just stay with mom and dad.” I hate that. I don’t have a sense of self sufficiency in me. This is what I am trying to do with my life now. Learn how to rely on myself and not be a leech.

Meet Aajonus personally within the next few weeks...

If you can get to southern California, you will have the opportunity to meet the author and world class nutritionist Aajonus Vonderplanitz. You will also be able to meet Nathan Donahoe the author of these Amish Diaries. Get the details here.

Living experience on a raw food farm - what nobody will tell you

Day 10 12/22/04

It felt like a pretty standard day today. This morning while we were having breakfast, an English named Bobby knocked on the door. He was Albert’s feed supplier. He had bad teeth, thick glasses, a mullet and cowboy boots¹. He was talking to us when someone else knocked on the door. It was a man and a woman from the PDA (Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture). They came to talk to Albert about his chickens. They said if you have over 3000 birds and you sell to retail stores, that you are required to have the PDA check on you. Plus, they’ve found manure on Albert’s eggs before, so they need to make sure they are being packed well. The man did most of the talking, he sounded kind of nervous. Bobby would stop them and ask questions even though he wasn’t the reason they were there. It seemed like Albert and Marie just wanted to enjoy their breakfast. The PDA-Holes left, Bobby hung around for a little bit. Albert really doesn’t want the PDA around, he doesn’t want them finding out about him selling raw milk and meat². On all of Albert’s meat the butcher has to put “Not For Sale” on them. I think because he is either not USDA certified or Albert is selling meat that he is not allowed to sell. Albert said if he goes to the USDA butcher, there are only certain things they will let him have. They won’t let him have the hooves, the brain or other parts that a lot of people want now. I helped Albert pack for about 4-5 hours today. They’re really busy. Marie wishes he would get someone else to take care of the cows so he wouldn’t be so stressed. It was a beautiful night tonight, it smelled magical. It was autumn warm the whole day today and the night was crystal clear. I squirted some milk from the udder straight into my glass today and drank it. I think I like milk straight out of the cow best. I had some fresh Jersey milk today also, I like Jersey. I’ve been making this song in my head called, “Jersey Girl.” The Weston Price people would probably love it. It’s kind of a propaganda song. One of the lines is, “Cause Brown Swiss don’t give enough, and the Holstein gives way too much, Jersey Girl you’re the one for me.” In a deep country voice, “you really moooooooo-ve me, Jersey Girl.” Cheesy stuff like that. I climbed the corn silo tonight after we milked the cows. I don’t think I was supposed to, but they didn’t know. It wasn’t scary. It was so beautiful tonight I had to. I had a great view, I was closer to the moon. For breakfast I had scrapple, country ham, toast, sauerkraut, snacked on cheese and whey throughout the day, had green beans with ham mashed potatoes and hamburger meat for dinner.

1 Bobby had a lot of interesting things to say about chicken feed. It is a common misconception among people that the brighter or more orange the yolk, that the more nutrient dense it is. This is not always true because, as Bobby told me, he puts special ingredients in the chicken feed to brighten the yolks. Marigolds is the most common, red peppers is another. Bobby said that sometimes they add to much red pepper to the feed and it actually turns the yolks bright red. Most “organic” chickens are fed highly processed soy. Soy bean in it’s natural state is very difficult for poultry and humans to digest. Most of the soy added in chicken feed has been bathed in acidic baths, high temperature treated and has even had arsenic added to it. After all of this processing, can these chickens still be considered organic? With such nutrient poor eggs, marigolds and red peppers must be added or else no one would buy them!

2 Nearly every Amish and Mennonite farmer that I spoke with said the PDA (Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture) has a history of harassing farmer’s who sell raw milk. Several months after I left Albert’s, I was told something very disturbing. The PDA was visiting Amish Church Bishops in the area, telling them to pressure raw dairy farmers to stop selling raw milk. The PDA recited passages from the bible that they felt showed that it wasn’t right to sell raw milk because it was against the law. I heard this independently from not only Amish, but other Mennonite farmer’s as well. I am told this is still happening to this day.

living experience on a raw food farm - after one week

Day 8 12/20/04

So I have been here for exactly one week now. It seems like I’ve been here for a month. It wasn’t hard for me to adjust. There aren’t any distractions or artificial lights to keep me up. I fall asleep relatively easy at 8:30 or 9:00. I’ve bonded really well with almost everyone here. It wasn’t that hard, at first there was a lot of polite conversation and small talk. Now we laugh and joke and there are a lot more smiles. I’m around the whole family 24/7 so it happens more quickly. I had to wake up at 5:30 this morning. Usually I wake up at 6:30 or 7:00. Albert usually wakes up at 6:00. A bunch of them were going to the chiropractor to get adjustments. It was insanely cold. It was so cold that the hot water pipes froze in the house, ironically, the cold water ones didn’t. The wind was howling, making it seem even colder. This was the first time I did not have fun milking cows. It didn’t run smooth as it normally does. The barn was freezing inside. No one expected it to get that cold that quick so most of the windows were left open, making the barn really cold. It was cold, windy and smelly and the cows were angry because the water pipes froze and they couldn’t get water. We had to spend half an hour closing the windows putting bales of hay in place where cold was getting in, etc. Even the milkers were frozen and had to be thawed. Everything took a lot longer today than usual which made it frustrating. Plus I was super cold, my face was numb. I am going to start growing a beard. A funny thing that happened today was that Albert had put a big flat board over part of the entrance where the cows come in. The other half was nailed to it to prevent the cold coming in. This was loosely put over it so we could move it. I was taking the milker off the cows when all of a sudden I hear a large crash. I turn around and the bull that always messes with me and two cows are charging through (not super charging but fast enough charging) the entrance down the lane. I’m thinking “Cows Gone Wild” and I start screaming “Albert, Albert!” I was scared. Then I saw that he was behind them and I felt okay. I worked three hours this morning before I had breakfast from 5:30 to 8:30 in the freezing windy cold with mad cows. I felt okay. After milking the cows I piled in a van with Albert, Marie, the kids, some of the Fischers and two other Amish women. Amish don’t drive cars they have English or Mennonites to drive them¹. It was a 2 hour drive to the chiropractor. The driver was a nice guy. Old, tall and fat, he asked us to pray for a safe journey before he left. He would make extremely small, small talk from time to time like, “So you have twins huh?” Every once and a while he would sneak a pinch of tobacco and place it between his lip and gums. I offered him some milk that I had but he said he didn’t eat breakfast in the morning so he wouldn’t have to go to the bathroom as much. Every once and awhile Barbie would start to cry, Marie would start playing her harmonica to quiet her down. It was that same song she often plays that sounds like a cross between “Oh, Susanna” and “Whiskey in a Jar.” It always makes me start singing “Whiskey in a Jar” in my head. We went to the office and were all waiting in the waiting room. Albert paid for a session for me even though I didn’t really want it. It was nice of him to offer it to me. We joked that since I am his horse that this will only help me work harder. He always calls me “Gouda Gao” (Good Horsey). It was interesting to go to a western health practitioner again. I haven’t been to one in years because I usually find myself unsatisfied with the quality of care I receive. I haven’t been to a chiropractor in years. I had a bad experience last time I went. This guy was very charismatic and had a wham, bam, thank you ma’am approach. He entered the room full of energy with his hand extended. I told him I generally have some low back pain on the right side but just wanted a tune up. He sat me on the table and asked me to put my arm up. He told me to resist as much as I could. He pushed really hard and my arm went down. He looked at me really seriously and said “Power Loss.” He then cracked some part of my back, pushed down half as hard on my arm again and looked at me like it was better. I’ve had muscle testing done before and he wasn't doing it right; he wasn’t really checking to see if my “Power was regained.” He did a couple of my body parts. Pulled my legs, cracked my neck and jaw. He talked about “power” and “energy“ a lot. When he would move from one side of the table to the other he would do a little 360 move around me. It seemed he was following a familiar game plan. When we were done he asked me how I felt, I told him, “Great” which was true. I then asked him what I could do to help myself on my own, like stretching. He looked up thoughtfully for a couple of seconds then with total seriousness said, “Stretch, get plenty of rest, eat well and you’ll be just fine.” He patted me on the shoulder then left the room. The whole experience lasted under 5 minutes. I felt good though. For breakfast I had a scrapple sandwich with milk on the van, some cream with honey and leftover mashed potatoes and some chicken. For dinner I just had some home grown spearmint tea with some cream. Marie didn’t help us in the barn tonight, she needed to tidy up the house and watch the kids. It’s a lot harder to breath in there with all the windows closed. I was really tired. I saw Elizabeth and she asked me why I didn’t go to church Sunday. I told her “Because Albert was sick and I had to milk the cows. She said “Oh, yes.” “Vas en schlofen” (Were you sleeping?)

1 Many English make their living driving Amish around. Sometimes, the drivers try to do it under the table. One of the drivers who got paid under the table told me that he got fined one time when an Amish turned him in.

Living experience on a raw food farm - Rumspringa

Day 7 12/19/04

I felt a little bit better this morning, but not that much. Albert knocked on my door to let me know he was milking the cows, he knew I wasn’t feeling too well. He said I didn’t need to come if I didn’t want to. After about 30 minutes I felt like I could get up. I stretched and went downstairs. Marie was there dressing the girls for Church. Everyone had to get up earlier so we could milk the cows before church. She said Albert was feeling sick and he was back in bed. The cows hadn’t been milked yet. She said she couldn’t because she was dressing the girls. I asked her if she wanted me to do it. She said to go see if Peter could help me. Church started in about an hour so we needed to hurry. I found George and he said he would help. We rushed over there and started milking and cleaning the cows, we had to work fast. I remembered which ones were dry and which ones had an infected udder. George left when we had two cows left. I tried to milk them but couldn’t get the machine to stay suctioned. I took care of the milk, hayed the cows, cleaned up the poop and came back in. Albert was still in bed sleeping. I made him a vegetable stew with some beef broth so he would feel better. I ate some too. It felt good to help out. I’m still feeling sick. I don’t know if it is because of all the kefir I drank yesterday or the raw meat. The pain was in my intestine so that couldn’t have been from the raw meat or fat because it happened too soon afterwards; I don’t know. I was talking to Albert about
Aajonus Vonderplanitz, the raw meat, rotten egg guy. Albert said, Aajonus gets angry if he sends him eggs which have been cleaned. Aajonus likes them dirty and will even partially crack them to make them rotten before he eats them. Albert also sends eggs to Organic Valley and they will send them back if there is a speck of dirt on them or if there is a slight crack you can only see with a flashlight. He said it can be confusing sometimes. I understand. They had church at Peter’s house this Sunday at night, all of the Amish teenagers got together and sang Christmas songs in German. Marie wanted to go, but then I made her a fat omelet and she decided to stay. Albert and I went. It was snowing slightly and the wind was picking up. We were sneaking around outside like we were up to no good. Albert didn’t want to “get caught,” it would have been fine if we did. There were about 30 girls and 30 boys sitting across from each other with some adults on the side. Most were singing, a lot were goofing off, talking and laughing. We saw one Amish teen through the window. He was talking on his cell phone but hiding it behind the song book¹. I asked Albert if that was okay. He said it wasn’t. I asked if I could shine the flashlight on him. He said no, but that he would. We were shining the flashlight on him for about 30 seconds but he didn’t notice. We hung out inside for a little bit. I asked him about rumspringa² and he seemed to get slightly offended. He said producers came around looking to put Amish teens on rumspringa on a TV show. He said Amish people like to isolate for reasons like that. We walked back to the house. It was getting colder and windier. We came home. The kids were asleep. We started talking about life and death, food, etc. We started getting too serious so I asked Marie to play us a song on the harmonica. She did and it was nice. For breakfast I had vegetable stew (onions, carrot, potatoes) cooked in beef broth. It helped Albert and I not be sick. For lunch I had bread, cream and honey. I made them omelettes for dinner, filled with sweet potatoes, onions, hamburger meat and cheese. “Ni Bicsch Dum Mwa?” “How are you this morning?” Schlof Goot.

1 It is becoming more common for Amish teenagers to break their religious rules by using technology.

2 From what Albert told me, Rumspringa is the Amish “Rite of Passage”. The Amish don’t baptize at birth, because they believe that people need to be at a mature age to accept Jesus as their personal lord and savior. Rumspringa is the time of adolescence where they decide if they want to accept Jesus and remain in the Amish church. Different Amish communities have different customs. In the media and on TV, it has been popularized as a “Sin Free For All” where Amish engage in sex, drugs and, yes, rock n’ roll. According to the Amish I spoke to, this is not the norm; they even find it amusing. This type of rumspringa is more common among the New Order Amish; a sect that broke away from the original or Old Order because they wanted more access to technology. In Albert’s community, at the age of sixteen, the Amish teenagers join a church group. This is like a “singles club” where the teenagers meet each other and decide who they want to marry; after which they leave the church group. George said that his church club was pretty good; they would do a little drinking but they didn’t get too crazy. An interesting side note. The Amish remain in the church group until they get married. It was interesting
because there were some Amish in their late 20’s who were in that group who hadn’t gotten married yet. Everyone else was 16-19.

living experience on a raw food farm - the work that goes into good food

Day 5 12/17/04

I can’t believe this is only Day 5; it feels like I have been doing this for weeks. I’m bonding pretty well with everyone even Elizabeth, Albert’s mom¹. She’s funny, she’s hardcore Amish. She walks stiffly and slightly bent over, but she’s super tough. She’s refused my help a couple of times. She always talks to me about church. I’ll say “Hi, Elizabeth, how are you doing today?” She’ll say “Are you going to church with us Sunday?” Today I was talking with Naomi (they pronounce it “Yomo” in Penn Dutch) about a Fed Ex delivery she was getting ready for tonight. Elizabeth pipes in and says, “Are you getting ready for church?” I said, “Isn’t it Friday?” Naomi laughed. I spent 2 hours packaging and bottling kefir today. I drank so much. No mas kefir for a little while. I have unlimited access to food here. Anything, I want, I can have instantly, I just need to go to the freezer. Sour cream, crème fraiche, cream, butter, piima cream, whenever I tire of one dairy fat, I move to the other. The cows are letting me pet them more now. I kind of screwed up today. I was alone and was letting the cows in. I forgot to put grain in their stalls beforehand and they got all snooty. They wouldn’t listen or go to their stalls, they just milled around like a bunch of lemmings². And that bull got in again. He loves sniffing the gutter and the cows’ vaginas. He scares me, Marie says they can sense fear. Marie just runs at him and yells and he moves. She says she wouldn’t do that in a field though. Amish women are tough³. Peter was moving hay tonight while we were milking. He had hooked up two of the Belgians (big horses) to this strange gasoline powered contraption. It was a forklift in front, horses in middle, and him at the back with levers and a flashlight. He looked like Merlin or Gandalf. His black Amish hat, his gray, long, wispy beard shining eerily in the light of the moon and backwash of the flashlight. He looked regal, commanding this horse/man/machine mixture⁴. I saw the same look on George’s face (Albert’s Brother) earlier in the day as he was commanding four of the horses with a large manure container thing on wheels. Quick funny memory of a couple of days ago, when I was at the Amish farmer’s meeting, there was an English there who was a constitutional scholar who was giving advice on legalities and loopholes. He was explaining the difference between legal and lawful. He said legal is obeying the government’s laws, and lawful is obeying God’s laws. He said to all the Amish there, “Which one are you going to do?” It was awesome, he was calling the Amish out to see what they really believed. I think that guy could help them a lot. These Amish farmers truly are heroes. Some of them are selling raw milk and raw milk products event though it’s illegal because they know it is helping people and saving people’s lives. They could lose their farms, go to jail, but they are doing it anyways because they truly care⁵. More people should be like them. Goot-Nag. For breakfast I made French toast, onion and cheese omelettes and scrapple. Marie got a break cooking and everyone loved my food. First time making French toast. I let it sit overnight in the marinade. Gave the leftovers to Peter, he loved them too. Lunch was cream and kefir. Dinner was hamburger meat, roasted potatoes and garden fresh frozen peas, sour cream and sauerkraut.

1 Elizabeth is hardcore Amish. She is around 50, looks like she is 60-70. Has a little mustache, stooped over, walks with a limp and always suspicious/slightly paranoid. Works her ass off and doesn’t complain. She was always very kind to me.

2 Grain is the “worm on the hook” for cows. The only reason that they let me get “all up in there” is because they are happily munching on grain. It’s kind of like human females. If I show the cows a good time (dinner, dancing, etc) I’ll be getting some (milk) by the end of the night!

3 Marie was never afraid of the bull. She would run straight at him, grab the chain attached to his nose, etc. I was too much of a sissy.

4Driving a fork lift is hard enough. Imagine driving a forklift attached to 3 horses!

5 The Amish are hardcore. The Amish don’t go to public school. Instead each community has their own one room schoolhouse. After 8^th grade, the children are usually taken out of school to work at home and learn their family’s trade. In the early 1990’s the government began forcing Amish children to go to high school. Albert said that they were sending Amish to jail over it. He said he had a little old lady neighbor who had 15 year old and an 8 year old. She refused to send them to school after 8^th grade because she needed them to help around the house or they would starve. So they threw the old lady in jail and the 15 year old ended up taking care of the 8 year old. Albert gets calls every day from new people, “they want good food”. Never seen it grow like this, people want stuff that they have never had aaj (Aajonus) and Sally are doing best job, educating people.”

Living experience on a raw food farm - day 1

I’m writing this first journal entry by the light of a kerosene lantern. Becky, Albert’s wife, gave me an electric one, but I told her I didn’t want to be a weenie so she got me the kerosene one. I still have the electric one as back up just in case. I got dropped off somewhere in Amish Country in Lancaster, PA. The taxi driver and I spent 45 minutes trying to find 759 Grass Fed School Road. Imagine our confusion when Grass Fed Road ended at the 500 block (which we thought might be the same as Grass Fed School Road). She (the cabbie) was starting to get frustrated so I told her to just drop me off somewhere and I would walk around. I was dropped off in the middle of Amish country, 50 degrees and windy with an hour left till darkness. I had no idea where to go and couldn’t phone Albert because the only phone he has is in a shed on the road by his house and his voice mailbox was full. Suddenly, down the road I see a black horse and buggy. Maybe they will know where I can find Grass Fed Farm. As the buggy gets closer, I notice a young Amish woman in it. I try to make eye contact and she looks at me briefly, then continues down the road. It’s getting colder and I have no idea where I am. I see another vehicle, this time a white van. As it gets closer, I see that it is owned by the fire department of Lancaster. I flag him down and tell him my dilemma. He lets me hop in and we drive about a block until we see Grass Fed School Road. The farm was only a block away from where I was. I see Albert and we talk about my trip, etc. I hang out for awhile watching him fill out orders. It’s his father’s farm, and after a few minutes we head to his farm, right down the road. We enter his house and he introduces me to his wife Marie, his dog Sparkle, and his daughters, Barbie (10 months) and the twins Lucy and Lisa (1.5 years old). His daughters look at me shyly and his wife greets me warmly. They pull out dinner that they were warming for me in the oven. It was chicken croquettes. Some kind of green beans with brown sweet stuff and some shredded potatoes with cheese and butter I think. Good stuff. I eat about half of it. A little later he takes me to the barn and puts me to work. The first thing I do is “clean the gutters” which consists of helping push a shovel down a gutter filled with cow poop and piss. It’s pretty glamorous. Albert’s father, Peter, is there too helping out. He introduces himself and makes polite conversation. That night I end up milking the cows (with machines), clean up poop and feed them hay¹. The cows seem half oblivious, half freaked out, by the new face. Maybe they’ll get used to me. I’m slightly tired sore and I’m starting to get a migraine. At least I’m not in Manhattan.

1 Milking Holstein cows is very scary. They are a million and one ways they could kill me in an instant. Kicking in the head, crushing against the metal bar, etc. Steps to milking cows the Grass Fed Farms way:

1. Approach from behind, a little to the side. If I approach directly from behind, they probably will kick my head in. Say, “Whoa” so they know I am there.

2. Put my hand on flank. Start wiping feces and what-not off udders while hand is on flank. Throw paper towel in gutter.

3. Attach milking hoses to udders. Come back when the cow is dry. Try not to get kicked in the nuts backing out.

4. Hurry! The other cows are leaking in anticipation!

Living experience on a raw food farm - preface

My name is Nathan Donohoe. I am telling you my experiences with raw food and living and working on an Amish farm where this wonderful food is produced. Before I start, here is a preface so you understand where I am coming from.

So how does a “never worked a day in his life” white boy from the suburbs of Dallas, Texas end up living with a raw milk bootlegging Amish family in Lancaster, Pennsylvania? To put it simply, the common love of good food.

I first met Albert at a Weston Price conference in Long Island, New York. I was volunteering for the event and one of the event organizers, a kindly old man named Harry was allowing me to spend the night with him. Albert as well as another Amish named Mathew Fischer were selling their wares at the event and needed a place to stay. So Harry invited them to stay the night also and we had a big sleep over party.

It was the next day that I truly began to fall in love with the idea of living with Albert. His booth was a veritable buffet of life. Cheeses, yogurt, eggnog, creams, eggs, breads, kvass. This was the first time in my life where I was truly able to eat anything I wanted without fear of ill consequences. I remember eating a cup of one of his homemade egg-nogs, then being so overcome by the flavor and nutrition that I asked for 2 more. The more I ate the better I felt (usually the more I ate, the worse I felt with food). My stomach was bulging but I was fat, happy and felt no pain. I was starting to believe that I found the answer, that I could actually feel good for once in my life. Years and years of praying to God to make me better were finally coming true. Then it hit me, I was graduating cooking school in a couple of months and I was required to do an internship. Why not ask Albert? He agreed immediately and that is how The Amish Diaries began.

Throughout the next several days, I am posting nearly the exact transcription of my diary entries of living with Albert from December 13, 2004 to January 14, 2005. If it were up to me, I would have left it exactly as I had written it. However due to reasons of clarity I have been advised to do some minor edits, add foot notes and an index of names. Also, names and places have been changed in order to protect Albert and the other people mentioned in the book. As you will find out, the Amish are a private people and I wish to respect that. Besides what I have mentioned, everything that you are about to read is exactly as I have written it. It is my intention to preserve the soul and “rawness” of my experience and have the reader be able to experience the excitement and newness just as I was experiencing it.

There are many reasons I wrote The Amish Diaries. I wanted to bring to light the extraordinary struggles that ordinary people go through in order to make healing food available to the masses. In this day and age, nutrient-dense food is a luxury and not a right and I want readers to see that without the continued efforts of people like Aajonus Vonderplanitz, Sally Fallon, Albert and many others, their access to healthy food will be become more and more restricted. To this day, Amish Farmers are still being illegally harassed by the PDA (Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture) and other government organizations and whether it keeps happening or not is up to you. You the reader must not expect others to do it for you, or as the old story goes, once everyone else is gone, no one will be left to stand for you.

I also wanted to share the journey that I went through as I was figuring out “which diet is right for me”. I often tell my friends and clients who are in the process of changing their diets that they need to be aware of how big a shift they are making in their lives. Friends, habits, lifestyles, living situations and relationships will all be drastically affected, for better and for worse, simply by changing what we put in our bodies. The public is generally not aware of the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual pain that people like myself and others must go through when we change our diet. We don’t do it because it is a fad or we are [hypochondriacs]; we do it because we must in order to live. There is an intense amount of self-reflecting that goes one. A continual building up and breaking down of the ego that must be done in order to rid oneself of the self-imposed mental barriers that much of the time are the real cause of our unhealthiness. I want others to see that they are not alone and it is normal for these feelings and situations to happen. If my suffering can help a few people transition easier in their diet, then I am doing something right. It has been said that it is easier to change ones religion than one’s diet and in my experience this has been true.

I hope you enjoy The Amish Diaries as much as I did writing them. When you have finished reading please check out some of the organizations listed below and make a generous contribution. These organizations are dedicated to making healthy food available and they desperately need your support. I am donating %5 of all profits from the sales of this book to Right To Choose Healthy Foods. An organization set up by my good friend Aajonus Vonderplanitz, that fights for us to get the foods we need to be healthy.