Nutrition and Physical Degeneration

The proof of the pudding is in the eating!Either Dr. Price was right, or he wasn't, but every person can test his recommendations out for themselves - on themselves. Dr. Price studied many populations throughout the world on a search for the root cause of good health. He found it. The Weston A Price Foundation (WAPF) was founded upon his principles of eating for health; not for convenience, not for the cheapest meal a person could find, but for something that truly matters - one's own health.If you have health issues, particularly chronic disease which is the result of chronic inflammation, it can often be reversed by eating according to Dr. Price's observations and recommendations. If you don't have time to read this book, check out the Weston A Price (dot org) Foundation site - just google it, it will be at the top of the first search page. There is an article which is a mini-version of this book titled: Principles of Healthy Diets - just type it into the search bar on the right of the main page. Then read all 28 pages!I warn you, it’s crazy simple, and it’s not a diet. Here are the one page guidelines, called Dietary Guidelines, from the westonaprice site, my comments are in [brackets].1. Eat whole, natural foods.2. Eat only foods that will spoil, but eat them before they do.3. Eat naturally-raised meat including fish, seafood, poultry, beef, lamb, game, organ meats and eggs.4. Eat whole, naturally-produced milk products from pasture-fed cows, preferably raw and/or fermented, such as whole yogurt, cultured butter, whole cheeses and fresh and sour cream.5. Use only traditional fats and oils including butter and other animal fats [lard, tallow, goose, chicken], extra virgin olive oil, expeller expressed sesame and flax oil and the tropical oils—coconut and palm.6. Eat fresh fruits and vegetables, preferably organic, in salads and soups, or lightly steamed.7. Use whole grains and nuts that have been prepared by soaking, sprouting or sour leavening to neutralize phytic acid and other anti-nutrients.8. Include enzyme-enhanced lacto-fermented vegetables, fruits, beverages and condiments in your diet on a regular basis.9. Prepare homemade meat stocks from the bones of chicken, beef, lamb or fish and use liberally in soups and sauces.10. Use herb teas and coffee substitutes in moderation.11. Use filtered water for cooking and drinking.12. Use unrefined Celtic sea salt and a variety of herbs and spices for food interest and appetite stimulation.13. Make your own salad dressing using either fresh lemon juice or raw vinegar, and extra virgin olive oil or sesame oil or a mix of the two. [Do not use flax oil, after a 15 month study I found all to be at some degree of rancidity. Grind the seeds and eat within 15min as they start to become rancid (oxidized) at that time limit.]14. Use natural sweeteners in moderation, such as raw honey, maple syrup, molasses, dehydrated cane sugar juice [rapadura, sucanat (sugar cane natural) date sugar (ground dates)] and stevia powder.15. Use only unpasteurized wine or beer in strict moderation with meals. [Pasteurization kills all the probiotics!]16. Cook only in stainless steel, cast iron, glass or good quality enamel. [No non-stick.]17. Use only natural supplements.18. Get plenty of sleep, exercise and natural light.19. Think positive thoughts and minimize stress. [prayer, meditation, yoga, EFT]20. Practice forgiveness.Here, too, are the WAPF Dietary Dangers:1. Don't eat commercially processed foods such as cookies, cakes, crackers, TV dinners, soft drinks, packaged sauce mixes, etc.2. Avoid all refined sweeteners such as sugar, dextrose, glucose and high fructose corn syrup.3. Avoid white flour, white flour products and white rice.4. Avoid all hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated fats and oils.5. Avoid all vegetable oils made from soy, corn, safflower, canola or cottonseed.6. Do not use polyunsaturated oils for cooking, sauteing or baking.7. Avoid fried foods.8. Do not practice veganism; animal products provide vital nutrients not found in plant foods.9. Avoid products containing protein powders.10. Avoid pasteurized milk; do not consume lowfat milk, skim milk, powdered milk or imitation milk products.11. Avoid battery-produced eggs and factory-farmed meats.12. Avoid highly processed luncheon meats and sausage containing MSG and other additives.13. Avoid rancid and improperly prepared seeds, nuts and grains found in granolas, quick rise breads and extruded breakfast cereals, as they block mineral absorption and cause intestinal distress.14. Avoid canned, sprayed, waxed, bioengineered or irradiated fruits and vegetables. [Eat organic!]15. Avoid artificial food additives, especially MSG, hydrolyzed vegetable protein and aspartame, which are neurotoxins. Most soups, sauce and broth mixes and commercial condiments contain MSG, even if not so labeled. [make your own nutrient dense broth.]16. Avoid caffeine-containing beverages such as coffee, tea and soft drinks. Avoid chocolate. [Decaf your own tea by first steeping loose tea in a mug of boiled water for 10-30 seconds and tossing that steep out, then re-steep as usual. For teabags, only 5-10 seconds is necessary.]17. Avoid aluminum-containing foods such as commercial salt, baking powder and antacids. Do not use aluminum cookware or aluminum-containing deodorants.18. Do not drink fluoridated water.19. Avoid synthetic vitamins and foods containing them.20. Do not drink distilled liquors.21. Do not use a microwave oven. [It changes food in ways that slow cooking does not.]The research and rationale for eating for health are in this book, but the guidelines are simple and easy. You very likely don’t need a doctor or a therapist, you just need to eat real food, and ignore the fake foods and fad diets of the day. It is our processed, sugar laden, non-nutritive, chemically loaded modern diet that is at the root of much of our modern diseases. It can be reversed and you can do it yourself.Read this book, save your own health and life. I did, my husbands heart disease reversed, it works.Blessings to all!

This book opened my eyes and introduced me to a whole world of nutrition and health that I didn’t even know existed. It was extremely thorough and well written. There was also extensive research put in to making this book.

This is an updated edition of Price's seminal work. Below is my review of that earlier book:This book distills the research of Weston A. Price, a dentist and independent nutrition researcher. In a decade of travel around the world, Price and his wife studied the health, dietary habits, and chemical composition of food of dozens of traditional peoples of various racial backgrounds. His research was done at a time when many such groups still lived free of the influence of Western civilization and what he called "foods of commerce," i.e. heavily refined and denatured foods.One could question whether 60 plus year old research is relevant today, but I found his work powerful and persuasive for a very simple reason.Health problems sent me on a quest to find the best dietary information, but I soon found myself mired in contradictory claims, opposing research and special interest groups, as well as outright deceit. First I would read about how one vitamin or mineral was good for this. Then I would read that the very same item was bad for that. You shouldn't combine X with Y, or needed to add tons of Z or W, except on Sundays when the moon was almost 3/4 full. I became very disillusioned with the incredible complexity of nutrition. As I read more and more deeply, I also became annoyed at all the disinformation and profiteering behind much of the so-called research.I reached this bottom line: While we understand proteins, carbs, and fats reasonably well, and have a pretty good handle on most vitamins and about a dozen minerals, there is simply an immense amount we just don't know. We are researching minerals at about 5 per decade (around 50 to go - a hundred more years at our current rate). There are around 5000 enzymes in bee pollen alone, and few of them have been researched. There are an unknown number of phytochemicals and other things we have yet to discover that have been constituents of our food for perhaps millions of years. Science moves very slowly, and it could easily be several hundred or 1000 years before we get it all sorted out. And that doesn't take into consideration the power groups who insist on muddying the waters for profit's sake. Modern science is quite obviously incapable of giving us complete answers to our nutritional questions. It just plain doesn't have them to give, nor will it for a long, long time.Then I found Price's work. Basically, he was the Tony Robbins of diet - he sought out the healthiest people on Earth and studied what they had done for hundreds and thousands of years to stay healthy. He looked at their Traditional diets as well as what happened when they adopted Western diets. The results are in this book, and it is well worth your taking the time to read. While others have followed his work, the changing nature of the world now make it impossible to duplicate his research today. His work stands as a pivotal piece in science and health as well as in history. This represents the cumulative knowledge of millions of people over thousands of years in a laboratory that includes the entire world. Definitely non-trivial.There are also books by Ronald Schmid and Sally Fallon that introduce and give overviews of Price's work. I recommend them also. Today, when we must all become advocates for our own health, arming yourself with the best information is vital.update December 2008A recent article published by the Weston A. Price Organization not only validates Price's X-Factor research, it also clearly illustrates the point I make above about modern scientific method and nutritional research failing to provide adequate information.Vitamin K2 has been identified as the X-Factor, and recent research into K2 shows that it is an extremely essential nutrient, not the throw-away that it has long been considered. It is a vital factor in bone and tooth health, heart health, nerve health, and so on. It turns out to be a critical part of so many body processes that physiology texts will have to be rewritten in major ways.Here is a vitamin discovered nearly 100 years ago, and yet science is just beginning to understand how terribly important it is. The main reasons for this serious error are; a lack of understanding of the chemical tests involved, lack of reading research in other countries, and a lack of interest on the part of researchers. (No money in vitamin research, you can't patent vitamins.)The article is available from the Weston A. Price Organization and is a very interesting read.UPDATE August 2009:The figure of 5000 enzymes has been bothering me, as the source of that info was not well cited. I have been looking around for a hard figure on the number of enzymes, and guess what? There is no such hard number. All the sources I have found vary widely (1,000 to 80,000), and do not cite references. Some sources say that there are 5,000 named enzymes, and up to 20,000 possible.This is yet another reason why current nutritional research is such a poor source of decision making data - they just don't have enough hard data to trust.