Even though my mom has been a member of Weston A. Price for over a decade now, I don’t think I ever really got it. Sure, my mom would tell me all about why raw milk is awesome and butter is supposed to go on everything (I’m talking about a good quarter of an inch spread on your bread), but I never fully understood why. I think it mostly had to do with being a teenager and being socially obligated to roll my eyes at anything and everything my parents ever mentioned. I mean, heck, parents could never be cool, so clearly everything had to go in one ear and out the other.
Photo Copyright © Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation®, All Rights Reserved, http://www.ppnf.org
This past weekend, at my first Weston A. Price Wise Traditions Conference, my mom told me I had to hear Sally Fallon Morell speak. It was a 5 hour long lecture introducing the work and mission of Dr. Weston A. Price and the work of the foundation named after this amazing man. Within the fist minute of the presentation, everything I had ignored from the mom lectures in the kitchen to the cod liver oil I lied about taking came rushing back in full force, and this time it all made sense.
Dr. Weston A. Price was a dentist who lived from 1870-1948. Intrigued by the increasing number of individuals with dental deformity, Dr. Price hypothesized the malformed dental arches were the result of malnutrition.
Dr. Price turned to studying “primitive” cultures, or isolated cultures that had not yet been breached by the western world. He found diets rich in whole foods, fermented foods and foods dominated by nutrient dense animal fats such as butter, oil, shell fish, fish eggs, and liver. He also found that the overwhelming majority of those “primitive” peoples had no dental deformity or decay, even those who didn’t practice any type of oral hygiene. The “primitive” peoples’ perfect tooth alignment were made possible by the strong, broad, fully developed facial structure and flawless dental arches.
Dr. Price continued to travel the world, finding all of the isolated cultures living on their traditional diets were perfectly formed and healthy through and through. At a time in which many cities were plagued by tuberculosis and other diseases, these people had no signs of these deadly illnesses that had to be attributed to westerners’ new, highly processed diets. (www.westonaprice.org)
Photo Copyright © Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation®, All Rights Reserved, http://www.ppnf.org "Primitive" Seminole girl has a wide, handsome face with plenty of room for the dental arches.
Photo Copyright © Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation®, All Rights Reserved, http://www.ppnf.org "Modernized" Seminole girl born to parents who had abandoned their traditional diets, has a narrowed face, crowded teeth, and a reduced immunity to disease.
The Weston A. Price Foundation mission statement can be summed up in Dr. Price’s last words, “You teach, you teach, you teach.” Sally Fallon Morell has taken these words to heart. Her cook book, “Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats” shows how to eat as our ancestors did and explains why we need to change the way we eat. The images and breakdown of the nutritional values in their “sacred” foods, allows you to thoroughly understand that the foods of the average western diet lack the nutrition our bodies require.
We, the 20 somethings, need to start eating better. Why? Because we are the future. We are the ones who are going to wind up bringing the next generation into this world, and if we keep eating highly processed food, our children are going to continue to be born with developmental deficiencies. Humans have only been eating a commercialized, processed, western diet for about three generations. We have the ability to devolve, to be able to return to a healthier, stable physical state. We can do this by changing the way we eat before, during, and after pregnancy. It’s time to step up to the plate and strive to eat wholesome, humane foods that support our bodies and life force.
Even though I still have a rebellious side, I’m finally beginning to heed the advice of my milk smuggling mom. I’m excited to join her on this journey, to begin to heal my body and live in harmony with mother nature’s preserves.
A video of Dr. Weston A. Price.
A Milk Smuggler's Daughter 