I understand where you are coming from, Mr. Putin. The birth rate in all western countries is declining, particularly so in Russia, and no country can move forward when the young are taking care of an expanding elder population. But urging women to have large families–“Many of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers had seven or eight children, and maybe even more,” Putin recently declared—is not going to work, simply because very few modern women are patriotic enough or healthy enough to have large families; in fact, many women—both in Russia and in the West–don’t want to have any children at all.
The goal of every national leader should be to support women—rather, to support couples—to have healthy children.
Here in the U.S. an estimated one child in two has a health problem—from allergies to asthma, to ADHD to autism. We also have an ever-increasing rate of infertility. There are many reasons for this including environmental toxins such as fluoride, mercury, cadmium, xenoestrogens and vaccinations, but the number one reason we have a health crisis that threatens to drastically reduce the world’s population is the substitution of industrial seed oils for animal fats, starting about one hundred years ago and accelerating after the Second World War.
Seed oils are a slow toxin that interferes with hormone production—so much so that many young people today don’t know which sex they belong to–reduces brain function, causes chronic disease, especially cancer, and—over several generations—widespread infertility. We cannot make sex hormones without the nutrients found uniquely in animal fats, including hormones that support the desire to have children in the first place.
Industrial seed oils have been foisted on the population by filthy capitalist swine, first in America and then the whole world, Russia included. Fast food—fried in toxic seed oils–is ubiquitous in Russia, and their supermarket shelves look just like ours.
Only getting rid of industrial seed oils will save us. In American this will be a slow process, as those who use cooking oils and eat margarines and spreads, and who consume processed food (loaded with seed oils) will eventually die out, while the few families wise enough to use butter, lard, tallow and poultry fat will survive and have healthy children, a process I call the Natural Selection of the Wise.
This could be accomplished much more quickly in Russia, Mr. Putin, because you have the power to get rid of these toxic oils. Start by forbidding their use in fried foods—your people will not mind because food fried in tallow or lard tastes so much better. Have your bureaucracy gradually phase out their use in processed foods (use stable palm oil and coconut oil instead), and export all your sunflower oil—one of the oils highest in unstable polyunsaturates–to your enemies.
Then, institute a program of real, science-based nutrition in your schools. Teach your young people, including the boys, how to have healthy children through a diet of nutrient-dense, traditional Russian foods, rich in minerals and fat-soluble vitamins, not the food-like substances of the degenerate West. And while you’re at it, encourage the consumption of raw milk, send the vaccine-pushers to the Gulag, and warn your people about the dangers of hormone-blocking statin drugs. Think of the legacy you would leave, Vladimir! Healthy Russian children! Healthy, happy families!
However, let me just add, dear Vlad, that age eighteen is not the ideal age to start having babies. The best outcomes occur between ages twenty-five and thirty-five. That gives young women time to get training or an education so that she has a profession.
My father was a very wise man; he said to myself and my sister many times, “You must get an education and have a profession, just like your brothers. You can’t count on your husband being able to support you—you may get divorced, or find out he is a n’er-do-well, or he may even die, and then you’ll have to support your family. You don’t want your children to grow up poor.” How much better for you to give the women of Russia fatherly advice like this.
And as for having very large families. . . wouldn’t it be better to encourage Russian women to give birth to three or four healthy children, approximately between the age of twenty-five and thirty-five, rather than suggest that women should be saddled with large broods, each child less healthy than the last? You see, in traditional cultures, it was considered shameful for women to have a child less than once every three years. This allowed the mother to recover her nutritional stores and also ensured that her children each got the maternal attention they needed as infants. It also ensured that each child was as healthy as the previous one—something that greatly reduces friction and jealousies between siblings, making family life a joy rather than a chore.
Modern science provides validation for these traditional practices. Close-together pregnancies result in greater numbers of pre-term births, more low birth weight, more maternal anemia, more emotional and physical strain, and higher likelihood of complications such as uterine rupture. These risks are highest if the interval between pregnancies is six months or less, something bound to happen if mom is determined to have eight or ten children. She may even die of nutritional exhaustion, leaving her eight to ten children without a mother.
Dear Vlad, I don’t think this is what you want for Russia. If Russian women are inspired—not pressured–to have three or four well-spaced healthy children before the age of thirty-five, your population will increase soon enough.
This message is not just for you, Mr. Putin, but for all world leaders. The greatest challenge in our modern world is the tanking fertility and the declining health of our children. Persuading—or forcing—women to have large families will not solve the problem, but teaching our young people the principles of healthy diets, the dangers of industrial seed oils, the ravages of vaccination and the importance of child spacing—only this will avert the crisis. Maybe Russia will lead the way?
The Weston A. Price Foundation is your source for accurate information on diet and health. Become a member to receive the quarterly journal and support our work.
Sally, Well done! but I’m sure the ragtag censors will now call you a communist sympathizer. I just listened to a long interview by Tucker Carlson of Casey and Calley Means. They have written a book called Good Energy. Casey is a Stanford trained doctor, who figured out how sick we are and how we are not addressing the root causes, so she dropped out of the system after 9 years of training. She and her brother, who was also at Stanford, but who was a lobbyist for Big Food industry companies, describe in detail the unholy alliance between the food industry and big pharma also citing big Ag Monsanto buying a company that sells a chemical that causes non-Hodgkins leukemia and then going into an alliance with a company that makes drugs supposedly to cure non Hodgkins leukemia. At the end Casey tries to answer Tucker’s question about what to eat but I wanted to shout at them, “Read Sally’s books!” Then you will know what and how to eat. 🙂
There are no Price.org chapters in Russia. Maybe getting someone to start one would help the Russian women think about making babies and eating healthier and without junk/fast food.
Well done Sally. Now if they will listen.
It’s nice seeing a leader who cares for the people and the future of the nation. And really appreciate your message and advice. Makes so much sense
I love your article. If only all Americans Would read it and learn about the traditional ways and how critical a nutrient, dense diet is. I once suggested to a woman who was trying to conceive without success that she eat Plenty of bacon and eggs, raw milk, and cream. In about two months she was pregnant.
This is awesome. It’s just what the world needs. And to give the “heave ho” to the frauds pushing pseudo-science in the forms of vaccines, seed oils, avoidance of saturated fats, overpopulation myth, the supposed need to end the eating of meat, etc. Unfortunately the cult pushing these things currently rules the world.
Did Mr. Putin actually receive this message? Did you really send it to him? Did you translate the message into Cyrillic for him to read?
An awesome and greatly needed messge!
Thank you!
For Putin, he simply wants cannon fodder. Motherless children are no problem for the State who is raising them to go stand in front regardless, unless they’re selected as brilliant and can be useful to the State engine that way.
I don’t have any problem with mothers who married at 20 and are well nourished— and starting having babies. Traditional breastfeeding (no pacifers, co sleeping, on demand) leaves vast majority of moms infertile a good stretch. 2yrs apart is plenty if mom is well nourished. Careful training also leads to helpful children, not burdens. Moms who are not told how much drudgery children and home keeping is, actually love being with kids and don’t want to work outside the home. Homeschooling is a natural extension of this. Now we’re saving the State tons of resources & $! And the kids are the premium education they deserve.
Right Hélène! Putin doesn’t actually care at all for the wellbeing of his people, he just wants more numbers.
And as the mother of more than several healthy, smart, strong, capable, caring, and happy children, I wholeheartedly agree with all that you said. God bless.
I am a long time reader of Nourishing Traditions & member of the Weston A Price Foundation. I, for one, am very disappointed in some of Sally’s responses. I disagree with & am saddened with her father’s advice to her when she was growing up. Having personally made the choice to leave a professional career to stay home with my soon-to-be growing family, I am convinced it was the best thing I have ever done (we have 7 children). And to go into marriage with the thought that one should have a fall-back “in case it doesn’t work out” goes against the very idea of the vows of a marriage, especially a sacramental marriage. This thinking indicates an immaturity towards marriage. I am also disappointed in Sally’s conclusions that a woman choosing to have any more than a few children is putting her health at risk. Sally, you need to come visit the people I have as friends & acquaintances. These women/mothers are women of joy (no, not every minute; they are real women.) & feel blessed to have 5, 6..9, 10 children. They would not choose to be without any one of them. It has been said, that at the end of a father’s or mother’s life, no one ever says, “I wish I had worked more, been at the office more.” In the same token, more women than not, at the end of their lives or even their child-bearing years, say “I wish I had had more children. Never have I heard a woman say ” I wish I had had fewer children.” Sally should stick to recommending nutrient-dense diets for women in their child-bearing years so they can be as healthy as possible for the number of children they accept to bear.
Thank you for speaking up about this, Julie. I couldn’t agree more!
Bravo Julie. I totally agree with you. Sally’s father gave her very bad advice but it has been the advice of our materialist, contraceptive/abortion/divorce mentally for decades.
Completely agree Julie! Was also saddened by this post and the misguided conclusions Sally came to. Seemed to demonize a traditional woman with a large family as much as our crooked “food” system. I wish you and your family the best.
How do we know seed oils are toxic? Because when people avoid them assiduously, they heal from chronic disease. I love Sally Fallon and her work at WAPF. You all helped my family member heal from rheumatoid arthritis.
Hello! Okay, so I have a few things that I think are important to consider: first off, I 100% agree with your nutrition advice. I have all of your books and love your methods of nutrient dense eating. So my issue not at all with the advice you gave. I would ask you consider for a moment that Russians are deep into MANY generations of physical deterioration. People alive in Russia have a very high likelihood to have many generations surviving severe famine. 77% of Russia (currently) lives without indoor plumbing. Alcoholism runs rampant in families. I promise you, Vladimir Putin only wants women to have more children because he literally throws bodies at the frontlines. My husband is a war analyst and Russia’s combat strategy is extremely low-tech & involves throwing body after body at the frontlines. The last 2 years have lost them a lot of bodies. Putin could not care less about the health of Russians. I do think this is good advice for all world leaders, but I promise you, Vladimir Putin is not a champion for best health practices in his country.
It is extremely difficult for young people to form a commitment to another person in a life long marriage today because our culture is antagonistic to both marriage as it advocates promiscuity, living together without marrying and divorce and has been in a war against children since the sexual revolution of the 1960’s.
If you advocate for more births, you will have to change the hearts and minds of the majority of young people to understand how they have been conditioned to destroy themselves and their futures.
Thank you so much for this article. I also really appreciate, as someone who is childfree, and wants to take a virgin vow, (not necessarily an unmarried vow), that you pointed out that not everyone wants to have children. And even then, heath should come first.
While diet is part of spirituality, and many women find that starting a family is a spiritual journey, it’s not the right path for everyone. Early first century Christians understood this, and that some people, even some married couples were meant to take virgin vows (contrary to what the Catholic church says, though I deeply respect them as some of their theology is correct). When you look deeply into what was going on, and how power that Christian women originally had was wrested away from them, beginning in the late first century, part of it was the mentality that President Putin is showing in this statement, by forcing women to have families who didn’t want them.
Originally, you could be married and have a virgin vow (thus the Blessed Mother Mary who was married as evidence shows she was actually under a virgin vow prior to her marriage), and you didn’t have to be celibate. You could also be celibate. Or you could start a family. Later, the faction that came into power made it so that you had to be either celibate or you had to be married, and if you married, you had to have children. They went to the two extremes and there was no middle ground. This was only one way that power was taken away from women.
I see the same thing with Putin here, going to the extreme, with no middle ground in this. I love how you present the reasonable middle ground, so desperately needed in our world where extremes are raging.
Large families aren’t necessarily healthy, either, from an emotional standpoint. One has to be able to spend quality time with their spouse and with their children. I’ve seen those that have large families and many of them find it hard to give their children the attention and emotional care they need, because they have so many children that they can’t meet the emotional needs of all.
Diet wise, though, I fear it would be the undoing of our nation to produce so many unhealthy children rather than healthy children.
Trivia tidbit, the societies that were having around six to eight children historically? A little over half of the children didn’t survive. Every couple expected to loose children, the mortality rate was so high. So while you may have had six to eight, only around three to four would have survived to adulthood and had children. And they found their population increasing, with three to four surviving children. That’s the same number of children you pointed out having in this article here, except pointing out that they could be healthy instead.
That, and it tramples the right of couples to decide how many children to have. Not everyone can handle the same number of children. Some can handle more, some can handle less. Some may only be able to handle one child.
I also love how you pointed out that a woman needs a profession just as much as a man. Very true.
LMFAO, the wording on this reminds me of this scene from the beginning of the first Austin Powers movie: they unfreeze him from his cryogenic slumber, and Austin’s liaison Basil is standing at his feet with a Russian soldier and Austin proceeds to freak out, so Basil reassures him:
Basil Exposition:
Austin, the Cold War is over!
Austin Powers:
Finally those capitalist pigs will pay for their crimes, eh? Eh comrades? Eh?
Basil Exposition:
Austin… we won.
Austin Powers:
Oh, smashing, groovy, yay capitalism!
Also, the comments are great, lol.