His message is especially important to hear today. The fact is that we are dying of malnutrition. There are some in the medical community that would have us believe that we are healthier than people have ever been, but it is not true. Humans today are far unhealthier than most humans who have lived in most any place in the world more than 150 years ago.



Dr. Weston A. Price saw it changing back in the 1930's and tried to warn the world. He was a successful dentist practicing in Cleveland, Ohio in 1935, when he became very concerned at the rapid rise of terrible dental problems, massive tooth decay and even serious deformities of the face and jaw in many, if not most, of the children who were now coming to his office. There were major changes from their parent's generation. And bad health was always closely linked to these people with dental problems.

So Dr. Price decided to do a lengthy study that took him around the world for several years, to find out why the health of the people in America was declining. He had a theory that it was the introduction of modern processed foods that was causing the decline, but I think even he was amazed at what he found out. For several years he studied thousands of people all over the world. He was particularly interested in comparing people who were still living in their traditional culture, relatively untouched by modern life, and people of the same racial stock who had adapted modern foods and ways.

He wrote a fascinating book on his findings, which fortunately has been saved and is still being published for us by a foundation called The Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation ( http://www.price-pottenger.org ). This foundation was created after his death to save his research so that it will be available to us, and so the world will not forget it.

There is not room in this article to explain all his intensive scientific research and findings, but some of the things he found flys in the face of what the medical community is still telling us about nutrition today.

He found that people who lived traditionally, no matter where they were in the world, were of far superior health. They had perfect teeth and almost no tooth decay (and they didn't even brush!) They were strong, mentally alert, and free from deformities. They didn't suffer from heart disease, cancer, or obesity-- the plagues of modern society. But when they adapted a modern diet with white flour, white sugar, white polished rice, processed oils, powered milk and canned goods, they rapidly declined in health. They became quickly susceptible to diseases and their children suffered from terrible deformities.

He carefully studied each of the traditional diets and compared them to each other and to modern diet, to find out what we were lacking. Some of the things that all the traditional diets had in common besides not eating our processed foods were:

1) They ate whole foods, such as freshly ground whole wheat flour or oats.

2) They ate a much higher ratio of saturated fats than we do. The diets of the healthiest people all over the world contained 10 times the nutrients found in saturated fat than the American diet of his day. (And ours is even lower now!)

3) They ate fresh fruits and vegetables when they could get them.

4) They ate a lot of naturally fermented foods and drinks, such as cheese, yogurt, sauerkraut, and homemade low alcohol beer.

The Weston A. Price Foundation ( http://www.westonaprice.org ), another nonprofit organization dedicated to spreading the word about Dr. Price's findings, believe that modern technology should be harnessed as a servant to the wise and nurturing traditions of our ancestors rather than used as a force destructive to the environment and human health; and that science and knowledge can validate those traditions.

More and more people are rediscovering Dr. Weston A. Price's important work. Check into the solid research these two foundations offer. It may be just the missing information you need to move you and your family towards a happier, healthier lifestyle.

Dianne Ronnow 2006 Mohave Publishing. All rights reserved.