I bought this book when I was a student at Wellpark College in New Zealand. It was 2001, I had fled the U.S. of A in 1999 after working for Clean Water Action and reading several books about the amount of genetically modified foods being unwittingly consumed in America. I was taking classes on nutrition. I had just completed a certificate course with the Institute of Optimum Nutrition in UK and was unsatisfied by the conflicting information various groups promoted.

Nourishing Traditions is in a certain sense equivalent to The Joy of Cooking which is a book home-cookers have relied on for years. It has comprehensive information about all the food groups and also brings attention to the importance of conscious cooking and the transmutive powers that cooking with love and respecting where the food comes from has on healing our bodies.