Who is Weston A. Price?

I frequently refer to the work of Weston A. Price, so I thought I would include a short description of him and his work.

Following is an excerpt from Ancient Dietary Wisdom for Tomorrow's Children by Sally Fallon of the Weston A. Price Foundation.

More than sixty years ago, a Cleveland dentist named Weston A. Price decided to embark on a series of unique investigations that would engage his attention and energies for the next ten years. Possessed of an inquiring mind and a spiritual nature, Price was disturbed by what he found when he looked into the mouths of his patients. Rarely did an examination of an adult client reveal anything but rampant decay, often accompanied by serious problems elsewhere in the body such as arthritis, osteoporosis, diabetes, intestinal complaints and chronic fatigue. (They called it neurasthenia in Price's day.) But it was the dentition of younger patients that gave him most cause for concern. He observed that crowded, crooked teeth were becoming more and more common, along with what Price called "facial deformities" -- overbites, narrowed faces, underdevelopment of the nose, lack of well-defined cheekbones and pinched nostrils. Such children invariably suffered from one or more complaints that sound all too familiar to mothers of the 1990s: frequent infections, allergies, anemia, asthma, poor vision, lack of coordination, fatigue and behavioral problems. Price did not believe that such "physical degeneration" was God's plan for mankind. He was rather inclined to believe that the creator intended physical perfection for all human beings, and that children should grow up free of ailments.

Price's bewilderment gave way to a unique idea. He would travel to various isolated parts of the earth where the inhabitants had no contact with "civilization" to study their health and physical development. His investigations took him to isolated Swiss villages and a windswept island off the coast of Scotland. He studied traditional Eskimos, Indian tribes in Canada and the Florida Everglades, Southsea islanders, Aborigines in Australia, Maoris in New Zealand, Peruvian and Amazonian Indians and tribesmen in Africa. These investigations occurred at a time when there still existed remote pockets of humanity untouched by modern inventions; but when one modern invention, the camera, allowed Price to make a permanent record of the people he studied. The photographs Price took, the descriptions of what he found and his startling conclusions are preserved in a book considered a masterpiece by many nutrition researchers who followed in Price's footsteps: Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.

All the diets of the traditional people whom Dr. Price visited had the following in common:

1. No refined or denatured foods.
2. Every diet contained animal products.
3. Every diet was nutrient-dense. Including large amounts of vitamins and minerals. Especially the fat-soluble vitamins A&D.
4. All cultures ate some raw animal food.
5. All cultures ate food content high in enzymes.
6. Seeds, grains, legumes are soaked, fermented or naturally leavened.
7. Total fat content varied from 30% to 80% of calories. Only 4% from polyunsaturates.
8. Nearly equal amounts of Omega-6 and Omega-3 fatty acids.
9. All diets contain some salt, ranging from sea salt to blood and urine.
10. All traditional cultures used bones from the animals for broth.
11. All traditional cultures made provisions for future generations. An example is diets for parents expecting a child to consume liver and bone broths.

While membership in the Weston A. Price organization has grown dramatically over the last few years, he is virtually unknown to today's medical community and modern parents. I have a feeling this will change as the interest in traditional foods gains more traction and as nutrition becomes a bigger part of western medicine.

Comments

[Longevity Science]

Thank you for your clever comments on this book!
I wonder what do you think about some remaining controversy on this book, which is described here:
"Nutrition and Physical Degeneration"
http://science-library.blogspot.com/2007/06/nutrition-and-physical-degeneration.html
shorter link:
http://tinyurl.com/2cx8vt
Perhaps you could please post your expert opinion there for other readers.
Thanks!

[chronic fatigue]

Nutritional supplements and vitamins are frequently used by people with CFS for symptom relief. While there have been few clinical trials and many CFS patients report symptom relief with supplements, these products are unregulated, and information on potency and side effects is frequently unknown. The health care professional needs to question patients about supplement use and OTC products to determine safety, efficacy and possible negative interactions with prescribed medications and therapies