Weston Price and Traditional
Wisdom About Nutrition
Several other important principles
emerged from the work of Price and other nutritional
pioneers. Native diets were made up entirely of
whole, unrefined foods. Many foods, including
animal foods, were often eaten raw. Vegetables
were important, but fruits were eaten in very
limited quantities. Milk products where available
were used raw and carefully prepared in ways that
preserved the enzyme content.
A healthy diet follows these principles
and incorporates carefully designed pure supplements
to best provide optimal amounts of critical nutrients.
Weston Price's work gives us a basis for understanding
this. Price was an incredible person. He was a
dentist, and that led to his interest in native
diets. He noticed that the children of his dental
patients were having problems the parents never
had – decay, crooked teeth and crowding
of the dental arches. The specialty of orthodontics
was invented because of this! Price wondered why
this happened in children of people who had all
32 teeth, perfectly straight. He knew from his
studies of anthropology that native people everywhere
were renowned for their splendid, beautiful teeth.
He began in 1928 to search the world to learn
if something in their diets was responsible.
He kept meticulous records and
photographic accounts of all he saw. His work
shows that nearly everyone in traditional cultures
had all 32 teeth, perfectly fitting into the dental
arch, perfectly formed, as long as the people
had no access to refined foods. Eating refined
foods invariably caused dental decay and systemic
diseases, and in the next generation, crooked
and crowded teeth.
Price collected over 10,000 samples of native
foods. He sent them back to America for analysis
in his laboratories. Price was a pioneer in developing
assays for vitamins A and D in the 1920's. He
wrote a textbook on dentistry that was on every
United States naval vessel. His studies of problems
associated with root canals were rediscovered
70 years later, and became the basis for the recent
book Root Canal
Cover-Up. His articles appeared in dental
journals throughout the twenties and thirties.
His classic book, Nutrition
and Physical Degeneration, was required
reading in Harvard anthropology classes for many
years.
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