Weston Price was a dentist who traveled to various parts of the world in the 1920s and 30s (his book was originally published in 1939) to try to determine why modern societies had so many health problems, especially of the gums, mouth and teeth. His findings went far beyond dentistry.

His method was to visit and study relatively primitive people in remote areas who had not yet been exposed, or were only partially exposed, to modern society. These people acted as his "controls" for scientific purposes. A sampling of the people/places he visited: Swiss in remote Switzerland mountain valleys, Gaelics on islands northwest of Scotland, Alaskan eskimos, North American indians in northern canada, Seminole indians in the southern Florida everglades, over 10 African tribes, Australian Aborigines, Peruvian indians, etc.

Price noted that nowhere were people doing entirely without som

These two beautiful girls were born to mothers whose nutrition had not been optimal during their growing years. However, they were able to reverse the trend of physical degeneration by eating a rich diet during pregnancy and by feeding their daughters whole, nutrient-dense foods including animal protein, whole milk products, butter, whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, and cod liver oil. This diet allowed these girls to reach their optimum genetic potential. Both mothers had crowded teeth, while these two girls have naturally straight teeth, needing no orthodontics.

e form of meat. Out of necessity, all of these people had been eating according to what they had available to them for centuries. Dr. Price noted (and photographed) many times the fine health that these folks enjoyed. Great bone structure and teeth , absence of chronic disorders, great physical prowess even at advanced ages, etc. With very few exceptions, Price was also able to confirm the healthy skeletal structures of their ancestors (several pictures here also).

Price found that when these people started consuming modern foods (refined flour, processed foods, sugar, etc.), their health started to deteriorate. This happened in EVERY location (dozens). Offspring in subsequent generations fared even worse. Some of the problems that started occurring were skyrocketing cavity rates, tuberculosis, lowered reproductive capability, birth deformities and INFLAMMATORY ARTHRITIS. Dr. Price provides photos of both healthy and diseased/deformed people to substantiate his findings.

Lest you think Dr. Price made all of this up, he was sure to take along with him one modern invention that would forever chronicle his research and startling conclusions: a camera. Dr. Price and his wife took pictures — 18,000 of them. Many of the pictures are contained in Price's masterpiece Nutrition and Physical Degeneration (available from the PPNF website). The pictures show native peoples from all over the world smiling, their perfect teeth shining bright.



Dr Stephen Byrnes explains:
WHAT THE PEOPLE ATE
In addition to examining the natives, Dr. Price also gathered considerable data about their distinctive cultures and customs, and these descriptions fill many of the pages of his book. Price took great care to observe what these people were eating for he suspected the key to good health and good teeth was in good food. He was surprised to find that, depending on the people in question and where they lived, each group ate very differently from the other. For example, the Swiss mountain villagers subsisted primarily on unpasteurized and cultured dairy products, especially butter and cheese. Rye also formed an integral part of their diet. Occasionally, they ate meat (beef) as cows in their herds got older. Small amounts of bone broths, vegetables and berries rounded out the diet. Due to the high altitude, not much vegetation grew. The villagers would eat what they could in the short summer months, and pickle what was left over for the winter. The main foods, however, were full fat cheese, butter, and rye bread.

Gaelic fisher people of the Outer Hebrides ate no dairy products, but instead had their fill of cod and other sea foods, especially shell fish (when in season). Due to the poor soil, the only grain that could grow was oat, and it formed a major part of the diet. A traditional dish, one considered very important for growing children and expectant mothers, was cod's head stuffed with oats and mashed fish liver. Again, due to the extremely inhospitable climate, fruits and vegetables grew sparsely. Price noted that a young Gaelic girl reeled in puzzlement when offered an apple: she had never seen one!

Eskimo, or Innu, ate a diet of almost 100% animal products with hefty amounts of fish. Walrus and seal, and other marine mammals also formed an integral part of the diet. Blubber (fat) was consumed with relish. Innu would gather nuts, berries, and some grasses during the short summer months, but their diet was basically all meat and fat. Price noted that the Innu would usually ferment their meat before eating it. That is, they would bury it and allow it to slightly putrefy before consuming it. Innu would also eat the partially digested grasses of caribou by cutting open their stomachs and intestines.

The Maori of New Zealand, along with other South sea islanders, consumed sea food of every sort — fish, shark, octopus, sea worms, shellfish — along with fatty pork and a wide variety of plant foods including coconut and fruit.

African cattle-keeping tribes like the Masai consumed virtually no plant foods at all, just beef, raw milk, organ meats, and blood (in times of drought).

The Dinkas of the Sudan, whom Price claimed were the healthiest of all the African tribes he studied, ate a combination of fermented whole grains with fish, along with smaller amounts of red meat, vegetables, and fruit. The Bantu, on the other hand, the least hardy of the African tribes studied, were primarily agriculturists. Their diet consisted mostly of beans, squash, corn, millet, vegetables, and fruits, with small amounts of milk and meat. Price never found a totally vegetarian culture. Modern anthropological data support this: all cultures and peoples show a preference for animal foods and animal fat (Abrams, The Preference for . . .).

Hunter-gatherer peoples in Northern Canada, the Florida Everglades, the Amazon, and Australia, consumed game animals of all types, especially the organ meats, and a variety of grains, legumes, tubers, vegetables, and fruits when available.

Price noted that all peoples, except the Innu, consumed insects and their larvae. Obviously in more tropical areas, insects formed a more integral part of the diet. Price noted that: The natives of Africa know that certain insects are very rich in special food values at certain seasons, also that their eggs are valuable foods. A fly that hatches in enormous quantities in Lake Victoria is gathered and used fresh and dried for storage. They also use ant eggs and ants. Bees, wasps, dragonflies, beetles, crickets, cicadas, moths, and termites were consumed with zest also, particularly in Africa.

Price also noted that all cultures consumed fermented foods each day. Foods such as cheese, cultured butter, yogurt, or fermented grain drinks like kaffir beer (made from millet) in Africa, or fermented fish as with the Innu were an important part of native diets.

Curiously, all native peoples studied made great efforts to obtain seafood, especially fish roe which was consumed so that we will have healthy children. Even mountain dwelling peoples would make semiannual trips to the sea to bring back seaweeds, fish eggs, and dried fish. Shrimp, rich in both cholesterol and vitamin D, was a standard food in many places, from Africa to the Orient.

The last major feature of native diets that Price found was that they were rich in fat, especially animal fat. Whether from insects, eggs, fish, game animals, or domesticated herds, primitive peoples knew that they would get sick if they did not consume enough fat. Explorers besides Dr. Price have also found this to be true. For example, anthropologist Vilhjalmur Stefansson, who lived for years among the Innu and Northern Canadian Indians, specifically noted how the Indians would go out of their way to hunt down older male caribou for they carried a 50 pound slab of back fat. When such animals were unavailable and Indians were forced to subsist on rabbits, a very lean animal, diarrhea and hunger would set in after about a week. The human body needs saturated fat to assimilate and utilize proteins and saturated animal fats contain high amounts of the fat soluble vitamins, as well as beneficial fatty acids with antimicrobial properties.

The great challenge for the Australian Aborigine was to obtain enough dietary fat. They were close observers of nature and knew just when certain animals were at their fattest. For example, kangaroos were fat when the fern leaf wattle was in flower; possums when the apple tree was in bloom. Other signs indicated when the carpet snake, kangaroo rat, mussels, oysters, turtles and eels were fat and at their best. Except in times of drought or famine, the Aborigine rejected kangaroos that were too lean – they were not worth carrying back to camp.

Of course, the foods that Price's subjects ate were natural and unprocessed. Their foods did not contain preservatives, additives, or colorings. They did not contain added sugar (though, when available, natural sweets like honey and maple syrup were eaten in moderation). They did not contain white flour or canned foods. Their milk products were not pasteurized, homogenized, or low fat. The animal and plant foods consumed were raised and grown on pesticide-free soil and were not given growth hormones or antibiotics. In short, these people always ate organic.


THE ROOTS OF DISEASE
When Dr. Price visited the various primitive groups, he noted that white European civilization had begun making inroads into the areas where they lived. Some of the native peoples opted to leave and move into areas where it was more modern. Dr. Price also had the opportunity to compare white colonialists who were living alongside, or close to, the native peoples he was studying. What he found was what he thought he would find: disease and dental decay.

When people read Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, it often changes their lives because not only does it describe how healthy people look, feel, and eat, it also shows in painful detail what happens to those people when they abandon their native eating patterns and adopt modern foodstuffs. The pictures Price took of natives and moderns on what Price disdainfully called the displacing foods of modern commerce are horrifying and stand in stark contrast to the pictures next to them of healthy, smiling natives.

Nutrition writer and Price enthusiast Sally Fallon explains:
His photographs capture the suffering caused by these foodstuffs — chiefly rampant tooth decay. Even more startling, they show the change in facial development that occurred with modernization. Parents who had changed their diets gave birth to children who no longer exhibited the tribal patterns. Their faces were more narrow, their teeth crowded, their nostrils pinched. These faces do not beam with optimism, like those of their healthy ancestors. The photographs of Dr. Weston Price demonstrate with great clarity that the ëdisplacing foods of modern commerce' do not provide sufficient nutrients to allow the body to reach its full genetic potential — neither the complete development of the bones in the body and the head, nor the fullest expressions of the various systems that allow humankind to function at optimal levels — immune system, nervous system, digestion, and reproduction (Nasty, Brutish, and Short? 8).

The "primitive" Seminole girl (left) has a wide, handsome face with plenty of room for the dental arches. The "modernized" Seminole girl (right) born to parents who had abandoned their traditional diets, has a narrowed face, crowded teeth, and a reduced immunity to disease.

And what were the offending foods that these unfortunate people consumed? Why everything we find on our grocer's shelves: sugar, white flour, jams, jellies, cookies, condensed milk, canned vegetables, pastries, refined grain products, margarine, and vegetable oils.

Price noted in several places that where modern foods had displaced traditional ones, suicide rates from dental caries were high. As most of us know, dental pain can be excruciating. With no drugs to ease their pain, and no dentist around to pull the dying tooth, people took their own lives to escape the torture.

White Europeans who lived in Africa had to leave periodically for health reasons. Children born there had to be sent away several times during their youth in order to survive. Such was the hardy effect of modern foods on these people. Native Africans, of course, had no such problems as long as they stayed on their native diets.

As noted earlier, the major infectious disease at Price's time was tuberculosis, the White Scourge. Price took several photographs of children, usually the children of either Europeans or natives who had adopted the modern foods before their children were born. They are disturbing in their depictions of suffering. Some of the children were too sick to be moved to better lighting for photographing. Others had pus visibly draining from their lymph glands and abscessed teeth. Invariably, parents and children who had adopted modern foods were highly susceptible to tuberculosis and other degenerative diseases.

The native Hawaiians are a tragic example of this shift. Price did visit the Hawaiian islands on his journeys. He, of course, noted that Hawaiians who ate their traditional diet of coconut, fish, shellfish, taro, sweet potatoes, and fresh fruits were healthy and strong. Today, however, the health of native Hawaiians is frightening. Obesity and diabetes are rampant. Because canned meats with nitrates in them are popular there, rates of stomach cancer are high (nitrates convert into carcinogens in the stomach — vitamin C halts the conversion). Hawaiians today eat their fair share of sugar, soft drinks, vegetable oils, macaroni salad, white flour, and white rice. Coconut is sometimes eaten, but usually as part of a sugary snack. High blood pressure and heart attacks are common. Rates of Alzheimer's are elevated as well. Such is the effect of processed foods on a beautiful race of people.

In the last decade or so, however, a diet was proposed called the Hawaii Diet. Though it is a little low in fat for my tastes, it advocates a full return to traditional eating patterns: fish, taro, sweet potatoes, fresh fruit and vegetables, and, occasionally, pork (wild boar and feral pig are native to the islands). Specifically avoided are white rice, sugar, Spam, and processed foods in general. The change is dramatic: people lose weight, they have more energy, and their health problems dissipate or become more manageable. Their teeth invariably improve as well.

Price noticed this pattern also. If a native abandoned his ancestral eating habits in favor of modern foods, ill health and dental caries followed. If that same person switched back to the original eating pattern, however, health returned and the progression of dental decay stopped and reversed itself. This is perhaps the most uplifting aspect of Price's work: one can always reverse the trend; there is always hope.

Price accurately and ominously predicted that as Western man consumed more refined sugar and substituted vegetable oils for animal fats, disease would increase and reproduction would be more difficult. Today, some 25% of Western couples are infertile, and rates of cancer, diabetes, and heart disease have skyrocketed. Price was truly a modern Cassandra of Troy — prophesying the truth, but with no one listening.

A RETURN TO SANITY, PLEASE?
For many decades, Price's work has been buried and forgotten. Due to the efforts of the Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation, however, and the republication of Price's book for the public, that is fortunately starting to change. Several prominent nutritional doctors have traced their philosophical heritages back to Weston Price and his work. Abram Hoffer, founder and developer of orthomolecular psychiatry, Jonathan Wright, noted author, Alan Gaby, medical columnist, Melvyn Werbach, nutritional author, and other medical doctors all sing the praises of this ingenious dentist. Nutritional anthropologist H. Leon Abrams, associate professor emeritus at the University System of Georgia and author of over 200 papers and 8 books, points to Price as a giant, ahead of his time with a message relevant to us all.

Price's conclusions and recommendations were shocking for his time. He advocated a return to breast feeding when such a practice was discouraged by Western medicine. He urged parents to give their children cod liver oil every day. He considered fresh butter to be the supreme health food. He warned against pesticides, herbicides, preservatives, colorings, refined sugars, vegetable oils, in short, all the things that modern nutrition and agriculture have embraced and promoted the last few decades. Price believed that margarine was a demonic creation. Let me tell you, with recommendations like these, he was REALLY unpopular! But the result of his research speaks for itself.


DR. PRICE'S MESSAGE
The obvious conclusion of Price's research is that for humanity to survive, it must eat better. And the foods it must eat must be whole, fresh, and unprocessed. More and more, people are beginning to see this and have been changing their eating patterns. But for the majority, however, the continuation of negative dietary habits will inevitably lead to decreased vitality, unhealthy children, in short, the degeneration of the human race. In this world of survival of the fittest, we need to take every opportunity to bolster our position or we risk going the way of the dodo bird: into extinction.

Besides, eating whole foods tastes good! The first happy lesson to be gleaned from traditional diets and Price's work is that good food can and should taste good. Its OK to saute vegetables and meats with butter. Its OK to consume whole milk, meat with its fat, eggs, shrimp and lobster, and liver with onions and bacon. Its OK and healthy to eat home made soups made from gelatin-rich bone broths and sauces made from drippings and cream.

Eating whole foods is good for the environment as well. The building blocks of a whole foods diet are pesticide-free plant foods raised on naturally enriched soils, and healthy animals that live free to graze and manure the paddocks of their farms, as opposed to standing in a cramped stall, never seeing sunlight, being fed soybeans and corn meal, and being shot up with steroids and antibiotics.

Eating whole foods is better for the economy as well. Organic foods are usually raised by small farms. Each time you buy an organically raised plant or animal product, you are helping someone to earn a living. Isn't that preferable to giving your money to a multinational food company that mass produces its product, not caring about the health of the soil, the planet, the animals, or ourselves?

Finally, eating whole foods is healthier. We humans evolved eating certain food stuffs in certain ways. You did not see a caveman trimming the fat off of his meat — he ate the whole thing. You did not see a Swiss Alps villager eating low fat cheese — she ate the whole thing. You did not see Maori fishermen avoiding shellfish for fear of cholesterol — they ate the whole thing. Foods are packaged in ways that Nature intended: they contain all the nutrients within themselves for optimal assimilation by our bodies. Eating whole foods insures us the highest amount of nutrients food has to offer. Tampering with them is ill advised.

OUR OPPORTUNITY
Westerners live in countries where food is readily available, unlike other parts of the world where people routinely starve or are malnourished. Further, we live with a choice between two ways of eating: the way of whole foods, and the way of processed, new fangled junk. With such a privilege, we owe it to ourselves and our children to choose the way of life: the way of whole foods. By making this decision, we can stem the tide of chronic disease that threatens to consume our bodies and minds. Let us make that decision and embrace the ways of our ancestors. It is only by turning to the wisdom of traditional diets that we can find our biological salvation.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Stephen Byrnes is a nutritionist and naturopathic doctor. His books Overcoming AIDS with Natural Medicine, Digestion to the Max! and Healthy Hearts: Natural Medicine for Your Ticker, are available off of www.amazon.com. Email: sbyrnes@chaminade.edu

WORKS CITED
Abrams, H. Leon. Vegetarianism: An Anthropological/Nutritional Evaluation, Jnl of Applied Nutrition, 32:2, 1980.

The Preference for Animal Protein and Fat: A Cross-Cultural Survey, Food and Evolution, Marvin Harris and Eric Ross, eds., Temple University Press, 1987.

Diorio, L.P., et al The Separate Effects of Protein and Calorie Malnutrition of the Development and Growth of Rat Bone and Teeth, Jnl of Nutrition 103:856-865, 1973.

Fallon, Sally. Nasty, Brutish, and Short? The Ecologist, Jan/Feb 1999.

Menaker & Navia Jnl of Dental Research, 52:680-687, 1973.

Navia, J. Nutrition, Diet, and Oral Health, Food and Nutrition News, 50:1-4, 1979.

Price, W. Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, Keats Publishing, 1943.

Spencer & Kramer Factors Contributing to Osteoporosis, Jnl of Nutr, 116:316-319, 1986.

Further Studies of the Effect of a High Protein Diet as Meat on Calcium Metabolism, Amer Jnl Clin Nutr, June 924-929, 1983.