In the early 1930s, a Cleveland dentist named Weston
A. Price (1870-1948) began a series of unique investigations.
For over ten years, he traveled to isolated parts of the globe to
study the health of populations untouched by western civilization.
His goal was to discover the factors responsible for
good dental health. His studies revealed that dental caries
and deformed dental arches resulting in crowded, crooked
teeth are the result of nutritional deficiencies, not inherited
genetic defects.
The groups Price studied included sequestered villages
in Switzerland, Gaelic communities in the Outer
Hebrides, indigenous peoples of North and South America,
Melanesian and Polynesian South Sea Islanders, African
tribes, Australian Aborigines and New Zealand Maori.
Wherever he went, Dr. Price found that beautiful straight
teeth, freedom from decay, good physiques, resistance to
disease and fine characters were typical of native groups
on their traditional diets, rich in essential nutrients.
When Dr. Price analyzed the foods used by isolated
peoples he found that, in comparison to the American
diet of his day, they provided at least four times the watersoluble
vitamins, calcium and other minerals, and at least
TEN times the fat-soluble vitamins, from animal foods such
as butter, fish eggs, shellfish, organ meats, eggs and animal
fats—the very cholesterol-rich foods now shunned by the
American public as unhealthful. These healthy traditional
peoples knew instinctively what scientists of Dr. Price’s day
had recently discovered—that these fat-soluble vitamins,
vitamins A and D, were vital to health because they acted
as catalysts to mineral absorption and protein utilization.
Without them, we cannot absorb minerals, no matter how
abundant they may be in our food. Dr. Price discovered an
additional fat-soluble nutrient, which he labeled Activator
X, that is present in fish livers and shellfish, and organ meats
and butter from cows eating rapidly growing green grass
in the Spring and Fall. All primitive groups had a source of
Activator X, now thought to be vitamin K2, in their diets.
The isolated people Price photographed—with
their fine bodies, ease of reproduction, emotional stability
and freedom from degenerative ills—stand forth in sharp
contrast to civilized moderns subsisting on the “displacing
foods of modern commerce,” including sugar, white
flour, pasteurized milk, lowfat foods, vegetable oils and
convenience items filled with extenders and additives.
The isolated groups Dr. Price investigated understood
the importance of preconceptual nutrition for both parents.
Many tribes required a period of special feeding before
conception, in which nutrient-dense animal foods were
given to young men and women. These same foods were
considered important for pregnant and lactating women
and growing children. Price discovered them to be particularly
rich in minerals and in the fat-soluble activators
found only in animal fats.
The isolated people Price photographed—with
their fine bodies, ease of reproduction, emotional stability
and freedom from degenerative ills—stand forth in sharp
contrast to civilized moderns subsisting on the “displacing
foods of modern commerce,” including sugar, white
flour, pasteurized milk, lowfat foods, vegetable oils and
convenience items filled with extenders and additives.
The discoveries and conclusions of Dr. Price are
presented in his classic volume, Nutrition and Physical
Degeneration. The book contains striking photographs of
handsome, healthy primitive people and illustrates in an
unforgettable way the physical degeneration that occurs
when human groups abandon nourishing traditional diets
in favor of modern convenience foods.
). You're probably going to have to call farmers in your area, go to farmers markets and ask what they feed them, because just about everyone uses some type of feed these days and they don't even know what's in it. Anyway, the feed based eggs can be two-thirds lower in protein and 3-times higher in cholesterol, while being devoid of many of the great nutrients found in good eggs. Bottom line, it's all about food quality.
