Good Nutrition Is Essential for Perfect Health
Weston A. Price's Nutrition Book Still a Major Influence
Sep 26, 2008
Weston Price’s historic work in “Nutrition and Physical Degeneration” is still considered by many natural health care providers to be one of the most valuable and informative works ever written regarding nutrition and its effect on health.
Nutrition and Dental Health
After an exhaustive study of numerous “primitive” societies, Price concluded that almost immediately upon “primitive” people adopting modern man’s refined flour and sugar habit, their dental health deteriorated dramatically. By “primitive” Price was referring to societies and people who were physically isolated and separated from the modern world and who still maintained a diet of natural, wholesome local foods.
Price traveled extensively, from secluded valleys of Switzerland, to remote islands of South Pacific, to Eskimo and Indian villages of the far north, to African settlements, Aborigines in Australia, etc. In every instance the people of these regions were almost 100% devoid of dental caries and were superbly healthy and remained so unless they adopted modern society’s white flour and sugar based diets.
Within one generation of changing diets, there were marked changes in children’s dental arches, tooth health and facial and body development.
This part of Price’s study is most probably the most solid in terms of his research and analysis of the chemical and nutritional composition of food and his first hand observations of the people studied.
Nutrition and Birth Defects
Price concludes that birth defects, both physical and mental, result from nutritional deficiency more than from heredity. He posits that Vitamin A deficiency in either parent is responsible for deformities ranging from cleft palates to blindness and so on. His analysis is based on numerous animal studies demonstrating that a lack of Vitamin A, which affects the pituitary gland, is not only responsible for animal deformities, but is also largely responsible for deformities and disease types in humans . The diet of “primitives” is richer in vitamin and mineral sources, partly because soils are not depleted of phosphorous and other essential nutrients, thus giving these individuals a “…high level of immunity to many of our modern degenerative processes, including tuberculosis, arthritis, heart disease, and affections of the internal organs” ( 296).
Indeed, according to Dr. Price, almost 100% of the individuals suffering from tuberculosis, also had dental arch deformities and a high number of diseased teeth.
Physical, Mental and Moral Deterioration
Not content with his work showing dental and physical degeneration from lack of nutritious food, Price claims that dental caries and facial deformity are present almost all of the time in criminal and delinquent people, and that the occurrence of delinquency coincides dramatically with the advent of dental caries.
Diet and Nutrition Key Points
While there may be a goodly number of medical professionals who would refute much of what Weston A. Price claims, almost all alternative medicine practitioners adhere to many of his beliefs that nutrition, and the lack of adequate nutrition, is largely responsible for most individual and societal ills.
Price insists there is much one can learn from the “primitives,” from family planning, to natural, painfree childbirth, to cavity free teeth, to societies in which crime and mental illness are almost nonexistent. No “primitive” society that he visited had the need for institutions like jails or mental wards.
For anyone seriously interested in health and nutrition, Price’s book is well worth reading. The fact that this text was researched and written seventy years ago yet still remains extremely influential and studied, is a recommendation in itself. From soil depletion to vitamin analysis, to recognizing the components of a healthy diet, Price’s book covers a wide range of topics still debated in medical circles. While not everyone wholeheartedly agrees with Price, his observations and research are persuasive.
