During the 1930s, a dentist named Dr. Weston Price and his wife studied different people around the world and their diets. They concluded that natural local diets tended to make people healthy while artificial diets especially those high in sugars and white breads made people sicker. Dr Weston was the former head of the American Dental Association. His findings, documented in his book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, are astounding.
Natural Medicine by Suite 101 says “Price and his wife documented through photos and research several key findings. Being a dentist, Price observed things like dental arches, the shape and health of teeth and gums, and the overall health of the people. His book is quite lengthy, but his findings may be summed up as follows:”
- Groups eating their native diet tended to be healthier, more resistant to all diseases, and have overall better dental health than groups who switched over to a modern diet.
So-called degenerative diseases such as arthritis were almost non-existent. Almost all groups ate a combination of fruits, vegetables, and animal products such as meat or milk, but not in the combinations we think of as ‘healthy’ today. Some groups, such as African tribes, subsisted almost entirely on milk, meat and animal blood, while other groups in the Pacific ate fish, other seafood, sea vegetables and plants harvested in the wild. - When groups began eating white sugar products, overall health declined especially dental health. In the group of Swiss villagers, for example, he noted that mothers asked him
to fit their daughters with dentures so they could get married – their teeth were already rotted and falling out before the age of 30! - Even though many groups had no source of toothbrushes, toothpaste or fluoride, if they abstained from white sugar and white flour products, they had few to no cavities or dental problems
- The diets eaten by groups varied considerably, but all groups consumed unadulterated products with a good portion of the foods harvested from the wild or from animals grazed in the wild. For example, the Swiss villagers eating their ancestral diet consumed mostly rye bread and rye flour products and dairy. The dairy products were especially rich in Vitamin A, since the cows grazed on fresh grass on the hillsides of the Swiss valleys. Children eating this diet were healthier and more robust than their counterparts in the so-called modernized Swiss cities.
Jul 07, 2011 @ 11:25:32
His primary focus became teaching people what he realized that the health vitality and well-being of our society are directly related to the types of food that we are eating. Searching for the causes of dental decay and physical degeneration that Doctor Price observed daily in his dental practice Doctor Price went to study people with fine teeth the isolated primitives..
Aug 08, 2012 @ 16:21:10
Yes, this book is fascinating. I am curious what you think about these isolated people groups that Dr. Price studied. He stated that every group he encountered ate meat and/or dairy, AND these people had superb facial structure and dental arches with no dental caries along with no rampant disease like tuberculosis. Do you think perhaps it’s the quality of meat they ate? Grass-fed foraging animals as opposed to grain/corn fed animals cooped up in crowded barns. Yes, we are what we eat. We are also what we eat ate. And what we eat ate ate. You advocate vegetarianism and Dr. Price’s research found not one healthy isolated group of people that were vegetarian (as you stated in your first bullet point). I, being a former vegetarian, am interested in learning more about epigenetics and this is how I stumbled across this blog!
Aug 09, 2012 @ 09:57:05
Clearly how an animal is fed affects its impact on those that ate it. The study here is by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and is the largest ever done on diet and health. They found that animal protein (milk, meat, cheese and eggs) have a bacteria in them that inflames our arteries. It takes about 5 hrs for the inflamation to go away but most Americans eat another meal of animal fat in 5 hrs. They live most of their lives with inflamation. Inflamation is leading cause of cancer and heart disease. I would recommend watching the video (anout 55 mins) and drawing your own conclusion. I don’t preach to people to become vegetarian or vegan but I list the evidence as I find it. The choice is yours. If I were going to still eat meat it would be grass fed and onlt once or twice a week. The opposite side of that coin is that as people eat more animal protein they eat less fruit and vegetables. Every medicine comes from plant based foods. Which ever way you go, enjoy life. As I say in my book, epigenetics is affected by diet but also by thinking and belief.