Many people have said to me over the years that they eat a “Weston Price type diet.” I’ve seen that this can mean just about anything. The one thing everyone saying this has in common is an acceptance that animal foods and especially animal fats are okay to eat. That’s fine as far as it goes.
But consideration of what the native people Price studied actually did and did not eat gives us some insight about what we might accurately describe as eating according to the principles Price discovered. The great majority of cultures Price studied were hunter-gatherers living on wild animals and wild plants….with no grains, no dairy products, and outside of the tropics, little or no fruit. That eliminates a great deal of what most people, including those aware of Dr. Price, eat. What you are left with is basically the foods I described in my first blog post about my diet.
The Swiss culture Price studied used raw dairy as part of a healthy diet, and this indeed can fit into the type of diet I find optimal. But for many months of the year, cows in temperate and northern climates eat no grass, and the milk is not of the quality found in the summer months of rapid grass growth. I have found grassfed raw meat, fish and raw eggs to be superior foods in the months when the grass is not growing.
What Price’s hunter-gatherer cultures did eat was plenty animal food with lots of fat, with an emphasis on a variety of organs and glands, often eaten raw. Seacoast cultures used lots of fish and fish oils. This is an indication that traditional cod liver oil is of great benefit and is best used liberally. The diets were rich in iodine, another nutrient I believe we should supplement.
I’ve always found that fresh greens were very beneficial, and this is a food that was widely available to hunter-gatherers. Fresh greens in the form of salads and organs and glands in the form of freeze-dried supplements are foods I include in my diet every day.
So, when I say I eat a “Weston Price type diet,” I mean…lots of raw and lightly cooked animal foods, mostly meat and fish and eggs, with some raw cream (more in the summer) and lots of raw summer-made butter all year long; big raw vegetable salads (with extra virgin olive oil and raw apple cider vinegar, which have proved healthy in my years of experience with them); and liberal use of supplements modeled on the foods used in hunter-gatherer cultures, like cod liver oil, freeze-dried organs and glands, and iodine. And no concentrated carbs – no grain foods, fruit, or sweeteners.
Here’s a great way to enjoy fish, called “Eskimo style:” cut a skinless fillet into chunks about 3/4 inch on each side. Boil some water. Drop the fish into the boiling water and in about thirty seconds, pour the water off. The fish chunks should be just barely cooked and kind of raw in the middle. Add lots of butter and salt and pepper. Three-quarters of a pound or so of that, and you won’t even care that there are no cookies for dessert.
