Special to the News: Many Don’t Realize Importance of Food Choices

Dear Dr. Meinig:

You have mentioned about the research of Dr. Price among primitives. What is so important about savages? – P.F.

 

Dear P.F.:

The growing interest of the public about diet and nutrition indicates people are now beginning to see a connection between what one eats and their health. However, most individuals still fail to recognize the relationship that everyday food choices have to the majority of diseases that devastate society.

Just one observation of a few of the 18,000 incredible pictures taken by Dr. Weston Price during his research studies among 14 races of modern-time primitives clearly demonstrates the role nutrition plays as the principal cause of most degenerative illnesses.

Price’s study leaves a never-to be-forgotten lesson of the dramatic and disastrous effect diet can have on health status. Modern fabricated foods prove to be the important detrimental link in the creation of abnormal disease changes that take place in bones, body tissues and teeth.

Although the Price research covered a nine-year period during the 1930s, the message it brings to us today is more important and realistic than when it was first published.

These revelatory studies were undertaken because Price, a leading scientific researcher, became tormented and distressed at his profession’s failure to find the cause of dental caries and periodontal (gum) disease. While it had been known for a long time that savages had excellent teeth and civilized man terrible ones, Price felt it was extraordinarily stupid that so much effort was spent on why our teeth are so poor without first trying to find out why primitives’ teeth were so good.

In spite of the skin color and genetic variables of the natives involved in his extensive pursuit, the research clearly demonstrates that not only was freedom from dental diseases common on their traditional diets, but they had exceptional vibrant health as well. No matter where located, the natives were successful in maintaining their tribal pattern from one generation to another on a wide assortment of natural foods.

The shocking discovery was the extent of physical degeneration that began within six months of the adoption of modern foods, but even more startling was the severe skeletal and body maldevelopment and deterioration that took place.

Keep in mind that while the primitive parents’ genetic inheritance was unprecedented in its excellence, their children promptly fell heir to a large number of our typical diseases when introduced to but a few modern foods.

Price’s investigations were assembled in his volume Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.

In reading it you will quickly become aware that finding the causes of dental caries and other oral diseases, while a great achievement, was small compared to the myriad of other health benefits that are involved. In addition, as the pages unfold, one surprising revelation after another dispels most of the nutritional conflicts that are so prevalent today.

Heading the list as the most obvious were the severe skull and skeletal malformations and deformities that became commonplace when the primitives adopted modern foods. Secondly, Price’s natives proved way ahead of us in their practice of mother-to-be preconception and pregnancy food selections. In some instances, even fathers-to-be were given special foods to enhance the coming pregnancy. This will dispel any thoughts that these people were unintelligent savages.

In that light it should be mentioned that Price was the first to observe and disclose that certain nutrient deficient foods were responsible for criminal and delinquency behavior. In addition, he reviewed the absence of vegetarianism in their diets and its implications.

The kinds of afflictions that occur to us and did so to the primitives are usually blamed on heredity. We must now realize these illnesses, for the most part, are really due to environmentally chosen food selections, not to inheritance.

 

You can obtain a copy of Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by sending $39.95 and $4.75 for shipping to The Price Pottenger Nutrition Foundation, P.O. Box 2614, La Mesa, Calif. 92044-0702. The book is shipped UPS, so include your street address.

 

Editor’s note: Since the era in which this article was written, society’s understanding of respectful terminology when referring to ethnic and cultural groups has evolved, and some readers may be offended by references to “savages” and other out-of-date terminology. However, this article has been archived as a historical document, and so we have chosen to use the author’s exact words in the interest of authenticity.  No disrespect to any cultural or ethnic group is intended.