Nutrition and Physical degeneration, Weston Price, 2006

Price,Weston. 2006. Nutrition and Physical degeneration. Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation.

Dr Weston A. Price, was a dentist who, in the 1920s and 30s studied several populations such as Irish fishermen, tribal Africans, Pacific Islanders, Eskimos, North and South American Indians and Australian aborigines. Those groups that followed their traditional nature based diets had good health and vigor, while those who turned to ‘civilised diets’ of processed, sugar-laden foods soon developed misshapen bones and teeth, with the situation worsening with each generation.

Price’s research proved conclusively that dental caries is caused primarily by nutritional deficiencies, and that those conditions that promote decay also promote disease. Price found 14 tribal diets that, although radically different, provided almost complete immunity to tooth decay and resistance to illness. Contact with civilisation, followed by adoption of what Price termed the ‘displacing foods of modern commerce’ was disastrous for all groups studied.

Rampant dental caries was followed by progressive facial deformities in children born to parents consuming refined and devitalised foods. These changes consisted of narrowed facial structure and dental arches, along with crowded teeth, birth defects and increased susceptibility to infectious and chronic disease. Significantly, when natives returned to their traditional diets, open cavities ceased progressing and children now conceived and born once again had perfect dental arches and no tooth decay.

The diets were diverse. Some were based on sea food, some on domesticated animals, some on game and some on dairy products. Some contained almost no plant foods while others contained a variety of fruits, vegetables, grains and legumes. In some, mostly cooked foods were eaten, while in others many foods, including animal foods were eaten raw. None of the foods contained refined or devitalised foods such as white sugar and flour, canned foods, pasteurised or skimmed milk and refined and hydrogenated vegetable oils. All diets contained animal products of some sort and all included some salt.

Preservation methods among primitive groups included drying, salting and fermenting, all of which preserve and increase nutrients in the food. All the foods contained at least four times the quantity of minerals and water-soluble vitamins of the American diet. And ten times the amount of fat-soluble vitamins found in animal fats including vitamin A/D and the Price fact or Activator X. Price considered these fat soluble vitamins to be the key component of healthy diets. He called these nutrients activators or catalysts on which the assimilation of all other nutrients - proteins, minerals and water-soluble vitamins depend. It is possible to starve for minerals that are abundant in the foods eaten because they cannot be utilised without and adequate quantity of fat-soluble activators.

According to him, the amounts (of nutrients) utilised depend directly on the presence of other substances, particularly the fat soluble vitamins. It is at this point probably that the greatest breakdown in modern diet takes place, namely in the ingestion and utilisation of adequate amounts of the special activating substances including the vitamins needed for rendering the minerals in the food available to the human system. The foods that supply the vital fat-soluble activators include butterfat, marine oils, organ meats, fish, shellfish, eggs and animal tallow, most of which our modern pundits of diet and nutrition have unfairly condemned as unhealthy.

The groups provided special foods to prospective parents both mother and father before conception and to women during pregnancy as well as growing children.

They practiced spacing of children so that mothers could replenish nutrient stores for subsequent children. People must restore the soil to health through non-toxic and biological farming methods.

The diets of studied by Price were diverse. Some were based on sea foods, some on domesticated animals, some on game and some on dairy products.

Some contained almost no plant foods while others contained a variety of fruits, vegetables, grains and legumes. In some mostly cooked foods were eaten while in others, many foods including animal foods, were eaten raw. However they shared several characteristics. None contained any refined or devitalised foods such as white sugar and flour, canned foods, pasteurised or skinned milk and refined or hydrogenated vegetable oils. Preservation methods include drying, salting and fermenting which preserve and even increase nutrients.

All the diets studied contained at least four times the quantity of minerals and water-soluble vitamins of the American diet of the day. These diets contained at least ten times the amount of fat-soluble vitamins found in animal fats including vitamin A/D and the activator X or price factor.

The foods that supply vital fat soluble activators include butter fat, marine oils, organ meats fish and shellfish, eggs and animal tallow - most now condemned as unhealthy.

Price factor or activator X which is a catalyst to mineral absorption is found in liver and other organ meat, fish liver oils, fish eggs and butter from cows eating rapid growing grass from spring and fall pasturage.

In the past 200 years, the natural fertility of soil has rapidly declined. At first when the crop failures settlers abandoned their farms and moved west to virgin areas. Later the application of manure composed of animal or crop residues and the rotation of crops were effective in maintaining fertility.

More recently the increasing availability of artificial fertilisers of high nitrogen content had enabled the grower to harvest one crop after another without allowing the land to lie fallow - a custom which encouraged the multiplication of soil organisms that in turn would release soil nutrients as needed by plants. Often against his better judgement, the modern farmer has been forced to use monoculture, artificial fertilisation, pesticides, herbicides and mechanization in order to keep ahead of ruinous taxation, inflation and ever-increasing costs of production. The result has been production for quantity rather than quality and the gradual destruction of precious top soil and mineral reserves in or beneath the soil. The protein content of wheat and other grains has steadily declined and is a reliable index of soil fertility.

Animal foods such as fowl and meat reflect similar changes. Fowl are usually raised in cramped quarters and their food limited to that prescribed by man. Both groups are frequently treated with antibiotics, anti-thyroid drugs and hormones which produce castration, myxedema . they are designed to stimulate more weight gain on less feed.

Humans are also increasingly exposed to thousands of chemicals in air, food, water. They are also being dosed or dosing on several drugs. Chemical contacts include food additives, pesticides, herbicides, nitrates and effluents from modern industry.

Many of these are coal tar products or their derivatives and other synthetic compounds. Long lasting chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides such as DDT have even penetrated our food chain. In some areas at least, herbicides such as 1.4-D and 2.4,5-T contaminated by the highly toxic and teratogenic 3,4,6,7-tetrachloro-p-dibenzodioxin - have entered our food and water supplies. This is also true of other chlorinated diphenyls which are products of modern industry. Residues of DDT and related chemicals are now found in most living creatures form the Arctic to the Antarctic, including phytoplankton which not only provide basic food for fish but much of the oxygen essential for our survival.

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