Page 18 - Fall2011

Understanding Weston Price

on Primitive Wisdom:

Ancient Doesn't Cut It

By Chris Masterjohn

n his book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, Weston
1
Price put great emphasis on the degeneration in human

Ihealth caused by the nutritional transition to modern
industrial diets. It can be tempting for us to simplify this obser-

vation into the easily digestible message that tooth decay and
other degenerative diseases are simply a result of the tran-

sition to modern life and diet, but if we do this, we wind
up missing the overwhelming emphasis that Price placed on

what he called primitive wisdom.
In fact, Price never claimed that tooth decay was simply a re-
sult of modern foods. Quite to the contrary, he wrote the following:
"I am frequently reminded that ancient skulls are often found with exten-
sive dental caries, thus disproving that the primitive groups were more
free from dental caries than modern groups. It must be kept in mind that
the fundamental laws of Nature have been in operation as long as ani-
mals and men have been on earth" (p. 297). Indeed, the modern scientific
literature corroborates the view that tooth decay is an ancient process.

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