Weston Price, DDS was a dentist who in the 1930’s
studied native populations around the world who were still eating
a natural, whole foods-based diet. He found that they were not
only healthier than others eating a more refined foods diet, but
they had far fewer cavities and straighter teeth. He found that
the healthiest of these peoples that he studied had diets rich
in fat soluble vitamins like A and D from animal foods such as
butter, eggs, animal fats and shellfish. These vitamins, he discovered,
were catalysts to mineral absorption and protein utilization.
These findings are explained in detail in his book, Nutrition
and Physical Degeneration.
The Weston A Price Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded
in 1999 to disseminate the research of Weston Price. It is dedicated
to restoring nutrient-dense foods to the American diet through
education, research and activism. They publish a uarterly magazine, Wise
Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts, and
have local chapters that help consumers find healthy foods available
in their communities.
Weston Price discovered many common characteristics of traditional
diets, including;
- The diets of the healthy natives he found
contained NO refined foods, such as white
sugar or flour, no corn syrup, no pasteurized,
homogenized or low fat dairy products,
no refined or hydrogenated vegetable oils,
and no artificial vitamins, flavors or
colorings.
- All healthy traditional cultures consumed
some type of animal food, like meat, eggs,
raw dairy products or fish. There were
no healthy vegan groups that he found.
- Traditional, nutrient-rich fats have
nourished healthy non-industrialized groups
of people for thousands of years. These
include butter, duck fat, coconut and palm
oil, cold pressed olive oil and marine
oils such as cod liver oil.
Weston A. Price Foundation Dietary Guidelines
include:
- Eat whole, unprocessed foods.
- Eat meats and eggs from pasture-fed
animals.
- Eat wild fish (not farmed), and shellfish
from unpolluted waters.
- Eat full-fat dairy products from pasture-fed
cows, raw if possible.
- Use animal fats, like butter, liberally.
- Use traditional vegetable oils only – extra
virgin olive oil, expeller-expressed sesame
oil, small amounts of expeller-expressed
flax oil, and the tropical oils – coconut
oil, palm oil and palm kernel oil.
- Take cod liver oil on a regular basis.
- Use only whole grains, legumes and nuts
that have been prepared by soaking, sprouting
or sour leavening to neutralize phytic
acid, enzyme inhibitors and other anti-nutrients.
- Use enzyme-enhanced lacto-fermented vegetables,
fruits, beverages and condiments in your
diet on a regular basis.
- Use filtered water for cooking
and drinking.
- Use unrefined salt.
- Use natural sweeteners in moderation,
such as raw honey, maple syrup, date sugar
and dehydrated cane sugar juice (sold as “Sucanat” & “Rapadura”).
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