Performance Without Pain: A Step-By-Step Nutritional Program for Healing Pain, Inflammation and Chronic Ailments in Musicians, Athletes, Dancers

So often our modern medical world is labeled as health care, when in fact it is, at best, "crisis management" or "sickness care." Ms. Pirtle presents not only a do-able alternative to sickness and degeneration, but one that, in her personal experience, has been proven to reverse them. Basing her own healing story on well-founded research, she has laid out a systematic approach to well-being that is a must for anyone who truly cares to flourish. If you are familiar with the recent story and work of Jordan Rubin, or that of Dr. Weston A. Price from earlier in the 20th century, you know that much of the degeneration experienced by modern day human beings is a result of our "SAD" Standard American Diet of processed foods and chemically-damaged soils. Through the use of more traditional food preparation techniques with organic vegetables and clean, pasture-fed meats, we still can create healthy bodies like our parents and grandparents did. The information on fats shared in this book builds on a lifetime of research by Mary G. Enig, PhD, an expert of international renown in the field of lipid biochemistry. (Know Your Fats : The Complete Primer for Understanding the Nutrition of Fats, Oils and Cholesterolby Mary G Enig, PhD.) Ms. Pirtle emphasizes that food preparation deserves care and attention if we are to live long, healthy, productive lives. I have particularly benefitted from the bone broth soups she describes, enjoying the simmering aromas from my crock pot. Simple to prepare, and a joy to eat, they truly nourish both body and soul. I also have enjoyed a quick preparation of raw sauerkraut that provides essential enzymes, using a Cuisinart and Kitchenaid mixer to make 4 quarts or more at a time--about 1 hour's effort to provide 1 or 2 months' supply of this highly nutritious and tasty condiment. I use it on fried egg whites, using the yolks as part of a kefir smoothie for a nutritious and delicious breakfast. It takes trial and error to find the recipes that appeal to you most, but Ms. Pirtle's book gives you the information and inspiration you need to get started. I take true enjoyment in knowing that I am preparing REAL food. Start with this book to learn the basics. Go on from there to get more ideas, recipes, stories, and interesting background in Sally Fallon's "Nourishing Traditions."(Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats) It is worth investing your time and interest in nutritional support for a lifetime of health.

While conventional nutritionists continue to follow unscientific, never been proven, recommendations like: 1. fibre for everything from constipation to heart disease 2. eat low fat foods and replace animal fats with vegetable oils like corn and soy (even though no human has done so before) 3. unfermented soy foods, high fructose corn syrup and refined sugar are safe 4. and so by the way are formeldehyde forming artificial sweeteners and food colourings and preservatives.. Kathryn Pirtle guides you in a very different direction. One which, in her personal experience, leads to near miraculous health outcomes. "Performance Without Pain" belongs with the growing record of experiences of those who turn their backs on modern nutritional dogma and follow the food ways of our ancestors. Nina Planck in her great "Real Food" gives us new science which is contrary to corporate agendas, however, Pirtle's book simply tells her story of redemption from the hell of constant illness and pain to enjoying her body again. Much like "A Life Unburdened" by Richard Morris, this is simply a story about turning your back on what our society dictates is good food and finding your way back to real food. The foods she recommends requires a rethink of what is important in your life and a reshuffle of your timetable but if robust health is your goal, you'll enjoy the wisdom borne of Pirtle's experience.

Most disease and health problems start with the wrong food, bad quality of the food, bad digestion and trouble with a leaky gut, leading to inflammation and pain. Kathryn Pirtle presents this on the background of her own experience in an easily understandable way, helping the reader to a full understanding of the basic facts. This will free the reader from symptom treatment with potentially dangerous drugs ad lead the way to remove the causes of inflammation and pain.

Performance Without Pain is a remarkable book about surviving prevailing medical "wisdoms", dogmas, and devastating ailments caused not by bad genes or bad lack, but by foods which are, amazingly, considered "wholesome" and "healthy". If you are a concerned parent, promising professional, aspiring artist, successful executive, or simply a health-conscious and responsible individual, you must read this book to assure yourself and your children productive and disease-free future. Unlike most books about health and nutrition, Performance Without Pain is beautifully written and edited, concise, honest, and up-to-the point. And it is also inspirational: if the author had been able to overcome her career-breaking illnesses with, literally, a right menu, so can you! At the end, it all boils down to this: food can kill and food will heal. Kathy Pirtle had suffered a great deal to tell which food does what. Get to know her story, so you too can eat without fear, live without disease, and perform without pain!

This is a great new addition to the Weston A, Price/Nourishing Traditions literature. "Performance Without Pain: A Step-by-Step Program for Healing Pain, Inflammation and Chronic Ailments in Musicians, Athletes, Dancers...and Everyone Else" is a long title for a book that is a modest 132 pages, but it lives up to its billing. The author is Kathryn Pirtle, who is a clarinetist with the respected Orion Ensemble, and has a long list of professional credits. Co-authors of the book are Sally Fallon, President of the Weston A. Price Foundation and Dr. John D. Turner, DC, CCSP, DIBCN and former National Qualifying Gymnast. The author tells her story of increasing pain and physical disability related to her profession as a musician, and her search for answers. As her very successful musical career unfolds, she develops pain in many areas of her body, stiffness, nausea and other digestive disturbances, as well as something called "embouchure shaking" (shaking in the area of the mouth) which is apparently quite a serious condition, especially for a clarinetist. Ms. Pirtle seeks help from all sorts of alternative and medical professionals. Finally, someone identifies that she has celiac disease, and extreme sensitivity or intolerance to grains. What's interesting in her tale is that all along the way, she seems to be doing all the `right' things, such as including supplements, massage, lots of fruits and veggies and whole grains, but it wasn't until she discovered the Weston A. Price (WAP) approach to nutrition that things really began to turn around for her. After this quite compelling true story, most of the book is a very succinct, clear explanation of the basic principles of the WAP diet, its relation to people who use their bodies in the special ways of dancers, athletes and musicians, and the extra problems of those with grain sensitivity. There are good recipes, suggested readings and helpful ways to "make it practical". This book would make an excellent gift for anyone as an introduction to WAP principles and especially to any musician, dancer or athlete. As a university dance teacher and former ballet dancer, this book came along at a great time. I will be teaching a course in Dance Alignment, in which I try to cover many topics related to basic body care for dancers. I always try to include information about Weston A. Price, and the Nourishing Traditions approach to eating, but I feel that having this book available to show my students will make the information that much more credible. (I know they'll like the testimonial in the front of the book by Daniel Duell, a former New York City Ballet soloist.) I also know that this approach to eating (it's not a 'diet' per se) works, as it has, over the past five years, changed my life dramatically for the better also. You can do yourself a wonderful favor by reading this book, and trying it!