We’re mid-way through a discussion of the work of Dr Weston A. Price, who studied the diets of traditional people and found them to be almost entirely responsible for their near-perfect health.

Activator X: a missing nutrient

In his research, Dr Price discovered a fat-soluble vitamin he called ‘Activator X’, which we now know to be vitamin K2. He referred to it as an activator because, as we discussed last week, like vitamins A and D, it’s an important catalyst which helps the body absorb and utilise minerals.

Price observed that “people of the past obtained a substance that modern generations do not have” and that its absence from the diet could explain many of our modern diseases. He was able to reverse dental decay and cure degenerative conditions in his patients by supplementing foods rich in this nutrient – the foods that all traditional cultures revered as sacred: animal fats, eggs, concentrated forms of dairy like butter and cheese,...

Bitter: the abandoned flavour

It’s a flavour that is universally associated with harshness, pain and the downright intolerable, yet bitter foods (and especially greens like radicchio, endive and dandelion) are an overlooked and very essential food group. It’s possible that many of the health complaints that plague us in the modern era, such as reflux, indigestion and type 2 diabetes, may in fact be traced to a deficiency of bitters in the diet.

For the health conscious folk among you, who probably prioritise getting enough fibre, vitamin C, iron and calcium – and for the finger-on-pulse types, probably also bone broth, liver, kale and chia seeds – when was the last time you pondered whether you’re including sufficient bitter foods in your diet? Did it ever make your checklist, I wonder?

Certainly not mine, until several years ago when my all-time favourite food author, Jennifer Mclagan penned the modern classic “Bitter: a taste of the...