“Primitive” diets for a modern world

Weston A Price DDS

Westin Price was a dentist who traveled around the world in the 1930’s studying native, indigenous people consuming the natural diet appropriate to their environment. His search for isolated, primitive groups, living entirely on indigenous foods, took him to remote Swiss villages, islands off the coast of Scotland and the south seas, Eskimos in Alaska, traditional American Indians, African tribes and Australian aborigines.

Price’s research proved conclusively that dental decay is caused primarily by nutritional deficiencies and those conditions that promote dental decay, also promote disease.
No matter where he went, no matter what group of indigenous people he studied, he found teeth as hard as pearls, nice wide dental arches, and very little tooth decay.

When the groups abandoned their native diet, and went to a diet of modern, refined foods, the results were disastrous. Rampant dental decay was followed by progressive facial deformity in children, born to parents consuming these refined and devitalized foods. These changes consisted of narrowed facial structure and dental arches, along with crowded teeth, birth defects, and increased susceptibility to infectious and chronic diseases. Interestingly, when some of the primitive people returned to their traditional diet, open cavities ceased progressing and children now conceived and born once again had perfect dental arches and no tooth decay.
It was discovered that when the native, indigenous diet was replaced by what he called “foods of modern commerce” dental decay and overall disease states soon followed.

The diet of these indigenous people were diverse. Some were based on seafoods, some on domestic animals, some on wild game, and some on dairy products. Some contained almost no plant foods, while others contained an abundance of fruits, vegetables, and grains. In some mostly cooked foods were eaten while in others, many foods, including animal foods, were eaten raw. However, all these diets contained no refined foods, such as white sugar and flour, canned foods, pasteurized milk, and refined and hydrogenated vegetable oils. All the diets contained animal products of some sort, and all included some salt. Preservation methods among primitive groups included drying, salting and fermenting, all of which preserve and even increase the nutrients in the food. Price analyzed the primitive diets and found that all contains at least four times the quantity of minerals and water soluble vitamins of the American diet of his day. These diets contained at least 10 times the amount of fat-soluble vitamins, found in animal fats, including vitamin A, D and a special factor he called activator X.

Price considered these fat-soluble vitamins to be the key component of healthy diets. He called these nutrients activators or catalysts, upon which the assimilation of all the other nutrients in our food such as protein, minerals and vitamins depends. The foods that supplied the vital fat-soluble activators, included butter fat, marine oils, organ meats, fish and shellfish, eggs and animal tallows, most of which our modern diet experts consider unhealthy. Activator X was found to be an extremely powerful catalyst for mineral absorption and occurred in food, sacred to the primitive groups, such as liver and organ meats, fish liver oils, fish eggs, and butter from cows, eating rapidly growing grass in the spring and fall.
Price felt that if civilized man is to survive, he needed to incorporate the fundamentals of primitive nutritional wisdom into our modern lifestyle.
He wrote an excellent book, called “Nutritional and physical degeneration”. Highly recommended.
An excellent website with abundant articles and resources is westonaprice.org

Activator X has since been proven by science to be Vitamin K2. K2 activates proteins that deliver calcium in the body and work alongside vitamins A and D. K2 is responsible for laying down calcium in bones and teeth. It is responsible for also removing excess calcium from soft tissues including the heart, kidneys and brain. In other words, putting calcium where it belongs, in the bones and teeth and removing it from where it does not, in internal organs like the kidneys, heart and brain. So where does one get Vitamin K2 from? Kerry Gold Butter (Butter from grass fed cows), dark orange yolks (from high quality, organically grown chickens, pasture raised), fish eggs (with Sushi), raw, organically grown cheese and Cod Liver Oil- 1 capsule a day. We also periodically swish liquid Cod Liver Oil in our mouths to coat the teeth and stimulate regeneration of the dentin/enamel of the teeth. Reading and understanding Activator X better with articles from westonaprice.org would be a great learning experience.

E. Rosencross