Page 88 - Spring2018

All Thumbs Book Reviews

The Dental Diet: The Surprising Link tions (from the likes of Dr. Weston A. Price
between Your Teeth, Real Food, and and others) with his own personal experience
Life-Changing Natural Health as a practicing dentist, supplemented by wide
By Dr. Steven Lin swaths of research. Like Dr. Price before him,
Hay House, Inc. Lin knows that these three elements—dietary
wisdom and history, dental practice and mod-
Teeth are a strange thing in the modern ern research—point to one unavoidable truth:
world. We drill them, fill them and sometimes “The health of our jaw, facial structure and
remove them. Dr. Steven Lin has a great deal to airways starts with what we eat.” Lin quotes
say about what amounts to a form of standard- Weston Price a number of times, which serves
ized, culturally accepted insanity when it comes as a reminder that all dentists who are good and
to our teeth. real walk in Dr. Price’s footsteps, whether they
Lin outlines his general views by putting realize it or not, and benefit from Price’s work.
wisdom teeth extraction in a different perspec- In Chapter Five, where Lin discusses vi-
tive (on page 32): “Imagine that 10 million tamins, he gives both Sally Fallon Morell and
Americans really did have to have their defec- Chris Masterjohn the credit they deserve for
tive pinkie toes—or earlobes—amputated every keeping Weston Price’s work alive and con-
year. At some point, we'd start asking ourselves tinuing the hunt for the elusive “Activator X”
if there was anything we could do to prevent (vitamin K) that is so crucial not just to dental
our toes and ears from needing amputation in health but all health. In Chapter Six, titled “It’s
the first place. But when it comes to our wis- not Genetic,” our dear friend Francis Pottenger
dom teeth, we've simply never even had this and his cats even show up. It is here that Lin
conversation…and while it’s true that we can also goes to some length to discuss how maloc-
live basically healthy lives without our wisdom clusions (teeth not fitting) are not some random
teeth themselves, these molars in the back of lottery for which some of us get good tickets and
our mouth are a warning sign that something is others get bad ones. Rather, these problems are
going very wrong with our faces and bodies.” the result of our diet.
One of the Lin is a dentist who understands that the Lin says quite a lot about diet, all of it
main culprits teeth tell a story, a story that includes all the good. For example, he points out the superior-
in dental organs of the body. He points out that we need ity of grass-fed animals and the importance
to pay attention not just to our wisdom teeth but of fermented foods (multiple times), provides
problems— also to how our teeth relate to and reflect our basics on how to properly prepare grains and
a deficiency health overall. In other words, our mouths are emphasizes the need to build a diet around

of the a window and mirror into our general health. nutrient-dense, vitamin-rich foods. Lin also
Moreover, one of the main culprits in dental notes the superior benefits of traditional stocks
fat-soluble problems—a deficiency of the fat-soluble vi- and broths when compared to their modern
vitamins A, tamins A, D and K—is also a leading culprit mass-produced counterparts. Likewise, he

D and K—is in other health issues. Noting that “bacterial includes ample warnings against refined foods
imbalances that begin in our mouth during of all sorts: white flours and sugars, processed
also a leading tooth decay echo throughout our entire digestive vegetable oils, processed dairy foods and indus-
culprit in system and body,” Lin hopes to convince read- trially farmed and raised foods.
In Chapter Eight, as Lin continues to discuss
other health ers that real food is the only and right solution. food, he deals with fat and cholesterol phobia (a
I loved many parts of this book, and par-
issues. ticularly Lin’s mixing of historical observa- phenomenon that Dr. Price never encountered

86 Wise Traditions SPRING 2018