Can anyone give me a summary of the weston price diet???

[kurite]

Hi sorry but i am currently reading well over 5 books and need to catch up on school work to so could somebody please just summarize this diet?
thanks

[cherimoya_kid]

Price didn't really recommend any one diet.  He wasn't particularly anti-grain, although he definitely recognized that grains are not a necessary human food. He was pretty pro-dairy.  I'm not sure he really understood the concept of lactose intolerance very well.  That might be cultural, for him. 

It's kind of hard to sum up that diet.  Who cares, anyway?  What matters is the data he found about crooked teeth, cavities, and native diets, not Dr. Price's interpretation of it.

He realized that high-quality animal products like organ meats, fish eggs, shellfish, and seafoods in general are very important for health.  He also realized that animal products are not necessarily the cause of heart disease, strokes, and cardiovascular issues and cancer.

Again, Price's conclusions are not nearly as important as Price's data.

[kurite]

So whats prices data say?

[TylerDurden]

If you believe the WAPF, a Weston-Price diet includes hefty amounts of fermented grains and raw dairy with lots of cooked meats, and a little raw meat. There is an emphasis on  organ-meats and a minor emphasis on a little raw animal food, such as raw liver, on occasion. A few WAPFers eat a much higher proportion of raw, which is why we have this forum - plus, to give Weston-Price some credit, he did mention that the healthiest tribes he saw all included some portion of raw animal foods in their diet.

[cherimoya_kid]

So whats prices data say?

Crooked teeth are largely a result of poor nutrition. The tribes he studied all had great teeth, few to no cavities, and very little crooked teeth, until they switched to store-bought foods, or, as Dr. Price called the, "the foods of commerce."

[invisible]

Although not WP, William Bates found that many primitive people not only have no need for braces but no need for glasses. He attributed that to eye muscle habits, though I suspect diet is the main cause (diet likely allows for better eye muscle function). Less than 1%, I have read one report citing only 0.02% of primitive Inuit tested had detectable myopia. Apparently another study of 1200 Eskimo found no myopia amongst traditional inuit. Myopia is highly prevalent amongst young Inuit today.

[NaturalHealthDoctor]

Price didn't really recommend any one diet.  He wasn't particularly anti-grain, although he definitely recognized that grains are not a necessary human food. He was pretty pro-dairy.  I'm not sure he really understood the concept of lactose intolerance very well.  That might be cultural, for him. 

It's kind of hard to sum up that diet.  Who cares, anyway?  What matters is the data he found about crooked teeth, cavities, and native diets, not Dr. Price's interpretation of it.

He realized that high-quality animal products like organ meats, fish eggs, shellfish, and seafoods in general are very important for health.  He also realized that animal products are not necessarily the cause of heart disease, strokes, and cardiovascular issues and cancer.

Again, Price's conclusions are not nearly as important as Price's data.


Like this person said, he didn't recommend a diet.  He merely saw that all different indigenous diets were much healthier than modern diets and he found some common denominators in them.  One was that they sought out concentrated sources of nutrients, shellfish, organ meats etc.  He found various groups on different ends of the animal-plant food wpectrums but found that they all ate some animal procucts.  He was expecting to find some vegetarians but found none.  So it is more about principles than a specific diet.

[magnetic]

Although not WP, William Bates found that many primitive people not only have no need for braces but no need for glasses. He attributed that to eye muscle habits, though I suspect diet is the main cause (diet likely allows for better eye muscle function). Less than 1%, I have read one report citing only 0.02% of primitive Inuit tested had detectable myopia. Apparently another study of 1200 Eskimo found no myopia amongst traditional inuit. Myopia is highly prevalent amongst young Inuit today.

I have read that Omega-3 fatty acids, in addition to being needed for optimal sperm, brain and cardiovascular function is also important for the eye.  I can't remember where I read it but I am sure I can dig something up...

Here is something:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101201123235.htm

Ryan

[CitrusHigh]

WAP's work can be summed up thusly. People living on traditional, nutrient dense foods have excellent health, easy child birth and none of the degenerative diseases of civilization.

He was especially interested in what gave these people strong teeth and bones. He found that vitamins A, D and K worked synergistically to make healthy teeth and bones. He found the sources of these vitamins in traditional people's was raw milk, especially butter and cream, and animal foods, especially organ meats.

Like Aajonus, I owe my health to WAP. He didn't have the whole puzzle figured out, but he had more of the pieces than anyone at that point and more importantly, he knew to model on successful cultures (in terms of health) instead of being arrogant like most in western medicine and relying on drugs and symptom-covering. He was an old school visionary, hopefully he's happy in whatever awaits us beyond the grave!

[FoxWoman]

If you believe the WAPF, a Weston-Price diet includes hefty amounts of fermented grains and raw dairy with lots of cooked meats, and a little raw meat.

In fact, the WASP diet recommends that HALF of the diet should be raw. On page 71 of Nourishing Traditions Sally Fallon writes: "Aim for a diet which is 50 percent raw or enzyme-enhanced. Raw foods include vegetables, fruits, meats, fats and milk products".

[TylerDurden]

In fact, the WAPF diet recommends that HALF of the diet should be raw. On page 71 of Nourishing Traditions Sally Fallon writes: "Aim for a diet which is 50 percent raw or enzyme-enhanced. Raw foods include vegetables, fruits, meats, fats and milk products".

Good lord, I'm surprised. I mean I had, ages ago, read a Sally Fallon essay attacking Aajonus rather strongly and stating, quite differently, that raw wasn't necessary. Well, maybe she just didn't want people to convert to Aajonus' diet.

[CitrusHigh]

I know that a lot of the people on the WAPF yahoo group for my area (mn) are pretty open to raw foods or already eating plenty of raw and lacto fermented foods. And they've already got the pastured thing down pat, so I've been pretty impressed with them.

[magnetic]

For those of you holding out and still eating a majority cooked food diet, this video is for you.  In a few short minutes this video will spark your interest that you can do better, that you owe it to your growing children to grow up in much better health than you did.  Wake up and break away from the dark ages of cooked and processed food.  There is no other way.  If you want to reverse the degeneration, the obliteration of your family tree, if you want a new golden age of health and fertility, this is the way it just has to be.  Humans are raw omnivores, humans are supposed to be eating raw organic / wild fruit, raw organic vegetables, raw organic / wild meat (raw animal foods including internal organs).

So... where's this promised video??

[TylerDurden]

So... where's this promised video??

He sounds like a spammer. Look at his link.

[Dorothy]

Sally Fallon in her book Nourishing Traditions interpreted the findings of Weston A. Price into a dietary suggestions. She is a the alpha dog of the Weston A. Price Foundation.

I have been reading AV and Fallon at the same time. Fallon takes bacteria in raw meat seriously and there in lies the discrepancy between the systems I think. Fallon says to freeze meat for 2 weeks before eating to kill the bacteria or to soak in whey or lemon/lime. Fallon is into sprouting grains/nuts/seeds to release enzyme inhibitors and anti-nutrients and heavily into fermenting. AV seems not to be as concerned about "bad" bacteria and does not include grains in his diet. Fallon's book is mostly a cookbook with a few raw recipes included.... but filled with interesting information.

Sally Fallon's suggestions are going to be more accessible and familiar to most people. She says we need to bring out diets back to more whole foods but there is a "sliding back towards wholeness" quality to her message that feels less extreme. She suggests whole-grain long-ferment sourdough, low-temp slow cooking of grass-fed and free range foods and many recipes for fermented foods etc. whereas AV is saying to go out and eat fresh raw meat, raw eggs, raw dairy and occasional piece of fruit. The whole basis of AV's approach is RAW. Not so with Fallon.

There is a very different feel to the two approaches....... but both offer a great deal to think about.

[PaleoPhil]

Freezing doesn't kill bacteria so much as it puts them into stasis and thus slows their reproduction (even the USDA admits this: "Safe Food Handling," http://www.fsis.usda.gov/factsheets/focus_on_freezing/index.asp#3). Thus to some degree it gives people a false sense of security and in the long run it pays to build up healthy gut microbiota and your immune system.

The thing that freezing kills is parasites. Jaspar Lawrence and others have demonstrated that certain parasites can actually be beneficial (mutuals and commensals).

From what I've seen, AV takes bacteria seriously. My understanding is that he recommends airing out high meat and avoiding using plastic containers to avoid botulism. He just doesn't believe in inhibiting healthy probiotic bacteria by freezing them. The benefit of freezing is slowing down the bad bacteria, and good meat bacteria are more resistant to cold temps than bad meat bacteria, but the downside is that the good bacteria are also inhibited. Just like there are good foods and bad foods (from a human perspective), good carbs and bad carbs, good parasites and bad parasites, there are also good bacteria and bad bacteria.

The way I summarize the Weston A. Price Foundation (WAPF) approach is that it tends to recommend foods that have been human dietary staples for more than 100 years or so, whereas the Paleolithic approach tends to recommend foods that have been staples for more than 10,000 years or so. The most important aspect of both is probably avoiding the dietary innovations of the last 30 years (such as consuming high fructose corn syrup and other processed sweeteners, vegetable oils, and lots of gluten-rich processed grain products) when the diseases of civilization really skyrocketed. Some people like myself find that they need to eliminate more than just the worst offenders from the diet.

The Weston Price Foundation's approach is a little different from that of Weston Price himself, so I recommend reading Price's book (you'll find that most of the peoples he studied did not consume milk, for example).

[Dorothy]

Ah yes Phil, we have discussed the slowing down of bacteria before. I'm still in the process of reading both authors. I do believe that Fallon does say in her book that freezing kills the bacteria though - which is either a mistake on my part or her part.

How you stated it is much more concise. She still incorporates the foods of the agricultural revolution, but uses techniques to make them as good as they can be with soaking and fermentation and the like. When I say Fallon takes bacteria more seriously - that was probably not the way to express my idea. I mean she takes people's deep fear of bacteria seriously. Fallon seems to me to give folks like me and my husband a way to side step and slide their way into starting to eat raw animal foods in ways that comply more with our brain-washing. If you use whey or lime/lemon, good bacteria or freezing it gives the sense of eradicating the danger of bad bacteria that is so ingrained in us about raw meat. She talks nothing so far about getting the body used to bad bacterias slowly to make the body more flexible and adaptable and stronger like AV does. But the Weston A. Price folks did get me used to raw milk being very safe and got us to try raw meats without which we might never have been willing to make the jump to AV's ideas. It's such a big jump when your entire life you have been told continually that eating raw dairy and meats was one of the most dangerous things you could do!

Fallon to me is a great stepping stone. It's a little bit like going back through time in increments instead of one big jump back to the paleolithic. It's more manageable and familiar to the way most people eat. First cut out the worst offenders she says. I mean - for so many just cutting out coke and processed sugar can have such wonderful affects. AV takes it even a step further and still incorporates raw milk, but not the grains etc. and no cooking like Fallon. He takes another big jump backwards in time.

But, what you say about paleo going all the way back to the time of how we have evolved to eat over millions of years instead of only since agriculture - that pretty much is the ace in the hole. I really like that way of thinking about it. 

[PaleoPhil]

... It's such a big jump when your entire life you have been told continually that eating raw dairy and meats was one of the most dangerous things you could do!

Yes, and the greater the leap, the more rewarding it tends to be. You could think of it as a leap forward. I found it eye opening and liberating once I realized that much of what I had been told about food and lifestyle was the enslaving brainwashing of Mother Culture.

Another food that Western culture tells us is dangerous is insects. It seems that the greater the taboo is, the greater the bliss can be once the fear is conquered:

Insect Dinners--Waiter, There's Soup in My Bug
www.nytimes.com/2010/09/22/dining/22bug.html

... Ms. Moorehead, who has such a potent phobia about the animal kingdom that she refuses even to pet dogs and cats — well, after having ingested that worm, it was clear that she had crossed a threshold. She beamed like someone who had just walked barefoot over hot coals.

“I’m so glad I did it,” she said. “Because that’s why I came here. I overcame something. If I can do this, I can do anything.”

Phil Ross, the San Francisco-based chef and artist who put together this and other insect smorgasbords, said he sees that kind of reaction all the time.

“People barely need help over the hump,” he said. “As soon as they taste them and they realize that the flavor is actually really good, all the other stuff just goes out the window very fast, and a whole lot of other things start entering. Transgression of one taboo leads to all kinds of other possibilities.”

...

Get Mr. Zimmern on the topic of bug-eating and he, like many other evangelists for the practice, can sound like Timothy Leary touting the consciousness-expanding properties of LSD. “Because the psychological handicap is so intense in our culture when it comes to food,” Mr. Zimmern said in a phone interview, “for people who flip the light switch and head on down the hallway with alternative foods, the bliss factor is quadrupled.”

[Dorothy]

Yep - bugs, blood, raw meat, raw milk, raw eggs - all taboo in our society. How on earth did it happen?