Nutritional Degeneration

Last Saturday I wrote about what factory animals eat and this spring I’ll address the nutrients produce absorb from the earth. How these topics affect the quality of our food was addressed back in 1939 by Dr. Weston Price,^[1] an anthropologist, dentist, and author who was nicknamed the “Isaac Newton of Nutrition.” [He graduated from the University of Michigan Dental School in 1893 – Go Blue!] Price addressed in great detail how decreased quality of natural, native foods around the world affected communities from gang activity to skeletal structure and dental cavities. For example, in many populations with an abundance of local plants and meats like native Indians in northern Canada, tooth decay was virtually nonexistent. He includes the importance of having an active outdoor life compared to restricted sedentary lives, not imaging that 75 years later children would choose sedentary activities.

The Weston A. Price Foundation (WAPF) provides information on Dr. Price’s recommended diet that he prescribed after studying the history of aboriginals and cultures worldwide. He stressed that the modern American diet focused on low-fat led to the onset of degenerative dental, learning, and behavior disorders. He noted that while modern medicine decreased diseases of bacterial origin, modern man has become more susceptible to degenerative diseases. His prescribed diet recommends real food: nutrient-dense versions of animal and plant foods – with particular emphasis on healthy traditional fats such as butter, lard, egg yolks and coconut oil – while people with high levels of physical activity take in more carbs.

There is a WAPF Find Real Food app for the iPhone. The subscription is $2.99 for six months and there are 13,000 “WAPF-approved” listings. I have an android so I cannot review it, but I think we know real food now when we see it.