London-based Nick Barnard has debuted a new cookbook, Eat Right: The Complete Guide to Traditional Foods, With 130 Nourishing Recipes and Techniques that throws aside any current diet trends and instead encourages us to take our eating back to how our ancestors prepared their meals. From raw dairy to pickling the season’s produce, the book dives into how to have a balanced diet, while eating delicious food. Here are some of our favorite tips from the book:
Dairy
Search out raw milk and dairy products. The flavor is far superior and you benefit more from its nutrients. If you are unable to eat or find raw products, then be sure to find milks that are not homogenized.
Meat
Eat meat only on occasion. Try to buy grass-fed meats that will be higher in heart-healthy fats and you’ll know the animals had a healthy existence. The book shares a recipe for an ultimate burger that is absolutely perfect, but remember, our ancestors did not eat burgers everyday. Foods like that (with meat and cheese) were a treat. Check out the recipe below. 
Fats
Seek out traditional animal fats like your ancestors used to use, think lard, butter and tallow. Also incorporate olive oil and coconut oil into your cooking. Stay away from any refined fats. The book teaches you how to properly render pork, lamb, poultry and beef fat. Good lard or butter from a pasture-raised animal come with more benefits than just normal, refined fat or low-quality animal fats. Instead of taking omega-3 vitamins, just eat pasture-raised animals fats and dairy like our ancestors did.
Water Kefir
Fermented Foods
Get back to our roots and increase the intake of fermetnted foods that help create a healthy microbiome in our body. The book goes into how to make your own kefir, yogurt, sauerkraut and kombucha, just to name a few.
Sprouted Sourdough Pizza
Sprouting
Sprout your seeds, nuts, and legumes in order to bring out even more nutrients in the germinating life form. The foods become even more flavorful and nutrient rich.
Ultimate Oats
Search out oat groats for your morning oatmeal, sprouted oats or steel cut oats to make sure you’re getting the most nutrients for your buck. Stay away from quick or instant oats. Always soak your oats the night before you plan to cook them so you can speed up the process in the morning, but also to neutralize their phytates which block mineral absorption.
Add Beef Heart
Once you find a good butcher, have then add some beef heart to your ground beef mixture. Beef heart is a sneaky way to increase nutrients like iron, zinc, thiamine and much more.
Seafood
We all know that fish are loaded with so many beneficial nutrients. However, we have to be sure that the fish we are catching and eating are not harming the environment. Nick suggests staying away from all farmed fish unless you can prove the establishment is using sustainable practices and to choose your wild fish based on checking with a seafood watch like the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch. Once you have selected an environmentally friendly fish to cook, check out the book for easy preparations of the seafood.
Sugars
When buying a sweetener, skip the usual refined white sugars. Instead, use raw honey, maple syrup, unrefined cane juice sugar, coconut sugar or jaggery. They should be used sparingly still, but help our bodies become less addicted to the sweet stuff. Our ancestors ate sugar sparingly and mostly for special occasions, we should too.
Nick Barnard’s Gourmet Hamburgers
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 4 burgers 1x
- Diet: Omnivore
Description
Elevated burgers made with high-quality ingredients. A simple recipe for a restaurant-worthy meal.
Ingredients
- 1 lb (454 g) freshly ground beef from aged chuck or shin cuts (with 10-20% beef heart, optional)
- 2 or 3 cloves garlic, smashed and finely chopped
- Sea salt, to taste
- Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- Extra virgin olive oil or tallow, as needed for cooking
- 4 buns (brioche style), halved
- Butter (preferably raw), for spreading on buns
Toppings (use any combination):
- Sliced Gruyère or aged Cheddar cheese (raw milk preferred), as desired
- Kimchi, as desired (optional)
- Sauerkraut, as desired (optional)
- Pickled or lacto-fermented gherkins, as desired
- Fresh arugula or other strongly flavored green (like watercress or radicchio), as desired
- Slightly fermented tomato sauce and/or homemade mayonnaise, as desired
- Onion rings or sliced onions sautéed in ghee until lightly caramelized, as desired
Instructions
- Mix the garlic into the beef, along with a couple of big pinches of salt and some freshly ground black pepper. Form into 4 patties, slightly smaller in diameter than the buns. If your buns are small, make the burgers no more than 1-inch thick.
- Smear the burgers with a little olive oil or tallow.
- Slice and butter the buns, and prepare any condiments, such as the onions.
- Heat your frying pan over medium-high heat. When it is about to smoke, lower the heat to medium.
- Cook the burgers two at a time, pressing them down lightly. Leave alone for 3–5 minutes per side, depending on their thickness, for a medium-rare finish.
- Place another frying pan, preferably a grill pan, over medium heat.
- Once you’ve flipped the burgers, put the buns butter-side down onto the frying pan and remove when they are lightly browned.
- Once you’ve flipped the burgers, press them down lightly again and cook for another 3–5 minutes. Add cheese if desired.
- Serve immediately with an array of toppings.
Notes
Handle the meat as little as possible — overworking makes the patties dense. Cook in batches of two so the pan stays hot. Add cheese in the last minute of cooking so it melts without overcooking the patty.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Category: Main Course
- Method: Pan-Frying
- Cuisine: American
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 burger
- Calories: 600
- Sugar: 5
- Sodium: 800
- Fat: 40
- Saturated Fat: 15
- Unsaturated Fat: 20
- Carbohydrates: 30
- Fiber: 5
- Protein: 40
- Cholesterol: 150
Frequently Asked Questions
What cut of beef makes the best burger?
This recipe calls for aged chuck or shin, ground fresh with a 10-20% fat content for juiciness. Freshly ground beef from a butcher produces a noticeably superior burger compared to pre-packaged ground beef.
What does adding beef heart do to a burger?
Beef heart adds a denser, slightly mineral flavor and boosts the protein content. It is optional here, but in small amounts (10-20%) it does not make the burger taste strongly of offal.
Should I use butter or oil to cook these burgers?
This recipe specifies extra virgin olive oil or tallow. Tallow (rendered beef fat) is the traditional choice for cast iron cooking and complements the beef flavor.
How do I prevent homemade burger patties from falling apart?
Handle the meat as little as possible and keep it cold. Form patties with a light hand rather than compressing them, and make sure the fat content is at least 15-20% to help the patty hold together.
What is the best internal temperature for a burger?
160°F (71°C) is the food safety standard for ground beef. For a slightly pink center with fresh, known-source beef, many chefs cook to 145-150°F (63-65°C) and rest briefly.
