I recently posted about the problem of science which should help explain matters somewhat.

What if you dropped into a Vegan website with an armload of studies where they can’t run from you? Do they just ban your from the site or just shout you down?

Thanks for clearing up a nagging question I have had on why the AHA keeps recommending it’s diet which obviously flies in the face of reality. Grant whores and scientists just collecting a paycheck who don’t want to rock the boat with contradictory evidence. Or scientists like Campbell who go in to prove a point and ignore “flawed” evidence because he knows the real truth. Mix in some politics and the old boy network at it’s just like Gary Taubes layed out in his book.

Veganism is far newer than frankenoils.

http://freetheanimal.com/2009/11/vegan-trolls.html

But I suspect all you know about Weston Price is what you’ve read and heard in your vegan echo-chamber. You’re probably not aware that he travelled the wold in the 1920s to seek out indigenous populations that had had little contact with civilization and were still eating their traditional foods, and he also compared them to members of these populations who had moved away into contact with modern foods. The research was meticulously documented in journals and photographs and published in Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, which can be accessed here:

http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/price/pricetoc.html

Who did he study? From Wikipedia:

“Some of the cultures studied include the inhabitants of the Lötschental in Switzerland, the inhabitants of the Isles of Lewis and Harris in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, the Eskimos of Alaska and Canada, the Native Americans, among the inhabitants of New Caledonia, Fiji, Samoa, the Marquesas Islands, Tahiti, Rarotonga, Nukuʻalofa, Hawaii, the Masai, Kikuyu, Wakamba and Jalou tribes of Kenya, the Muhima of Uganda, the Baitu and Watusi of Rwanda, the Pygmies, and Wanande in the Congo, the Terrakeka, Dinka and Neurs of Sudan, the Aborigines of Australia, the inhabitants of the Torres Strait, the Māori of New Zealand, the Tauhuanocans, Quechua, “Andes Indians”, “Sierra Indians” and “Jungle Indians” of Peru.”

What did they eat? From a review of the book:

http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0203CAT/020305ppnf/price.html

“Curiously, all native peoples studied made great efforts to obtain seafood, especially fish roe which was consumed so that we will have healthy children. Even mountain dwelling peoples would make semiannual trips to the sea to bring back seaweeds, fish eggs, and dried fish. Shrimp, rich in both cholesterol and vitamin D, was a standard food in many places, from Africa to the Orient.

“The last major feature of native diets that Price found was that they were rich in fat, especially animal fat. Whether from insects, eggs, fish, game animals, or domesticated herds, primitive peoples knew that they would get sick if they did not consume enough fat. Explorers besides Dr. Price have also found this to be true. For example, anthropologist Vilhjalmur Stefansson, who lived for years among the Innu and Northern Canadian Indians, specifically noted how the Indians would go out of their way to hunt down older male caribou for they carried a 50 pound slab of back fat. When such animals were unavailable and Indians were forced to subsist on rabbits, a very lean animal, diarrhea and hunger would set in after about a week. The human body needs saturated fat to assimilate and utilize proteins and saturated animal fats contain high amounts of the fat soluble vitamins, as well as beneficial fatty acids with antimicrobial properties.

“Of course, the foods that Price’s subjects ate were natural and unprocessed. Their foods did not contain preservatives, additives, or colorings. They did not contain added sugar (though, when available, natural sweets like honey and maple syrup were eaten in moderation). They did not contain white flour or canned foods. Their milk products were not pasteurized, homogenized, or low fat. The animal and plant foods consumed were raised and grown on pesticide-free soil and were not given growth hormones or antibiotics. In short, these people always ate organic.”

Conclusions of the research from the Price-Pottenger website:

- Dental decay is caused primarily by nutritional deficiencies.
- Although radically different, 14 tribal diets provided almost complete immunity to tooth decay and resistance to disease.
- The diets contained no refined or devitalized foods.
- Laboratory analyses revealed that all of these diets were unusually high in protein, vitamins, minerals and especially in fat soluble factors found in animal fats.
- Contact with civilization, followed by adoption of the “displacing foods of modern commerce,” was disastrous for all groups studied.
- Rampant dental caries were followed by progressive facial deformities in children born to parents consuming refined and devitalized foods.
- These changes consisted of narrowed facial structure and dental arches, along with crowded teeth, birth defects and increased susceptibility to infectious and chronic disease.
- Significantly, when some natives returned to their traditional diets, open cavities ceased progressing and children subsequently conceived and born, once again had perfect dental arches and no tooth decay.
- If civilized man is to survive, he must incorporate the fundamentals of primitive nutritional wisdom into his modern life-style.

Based upon his findings, he came back and began curing cavities in his patients nutritionally. See, he found almost no tooth decay in his travels (often less than one cavity per 1,000 teeth or more examined) at a time when tooth decay was 30% in the modern world and even teens were having teeth extracted for dentures.

Prove it? Yep, you guessed, it. Re-calsifying tooth cavities was published in major medical journals as early as 1924.

http://freetheanimal.com/2009/04/cure-dental-cavities.html
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2009/03/reversing-tooth-decay.html

Finally, not all vegetarians are ignorant parrots when it comes to Price.

http://www.vegsource.com/news/2009/11/reflections-on-the-weston-a-price-foundation.html

Atkins? While I think a low-carb focus has merit, especially for radical weight loss, a whole food focus is more important.

http://freetheanimal.com/2009/07/atkins-lost-souls.html

I do not follow an Atkins diet. As to the controversy surrounding his death, I’ve never been interested. If someone else want’s to argue that, be my guest.

Saturated fat. I’ll bet you know nothing first hand, that you just parrot conventional “wisdom.”

I’ll bet you have no idea how healthful were the heftiest saturated fat consuming people on the planet. Bet you don’t even know who they are, or that saturated fat makes up full 50% of their total energy intake.

http://freetheanimal.com/2009/01/saturated-fat.html

More good, devastating stuff.

http://freetheanimal.com/2009/03/saturated-fat-and-heart-disease-deaths.html
http://freetheanimal.com/2009/03/low-cholesterol-to-die-for.html
http://freetheanimal.com/2009/03/saturated-fat-epidemiology-for-math-geeks.html
http://freetheanimal.com/2009/09/saturated-fat-intake-vs-heart-disease-stroke.html
http://freetheanimal.com/2009/11/drilling-down-saturated-fat-epidemiology.html

Last but not least, I wonder if you’ve been vegan long enough to experience the physical degeneration that eventually comes for most, as written by 20-yr vegan Lierre Keith in the recently published “The Vegetarian Myth.”

I’ve blogged about it here:

http://freetheanimal.com/2009/08/the-vegetarian-myth.html
http://freetheanimal.com/2009/08/and-we-soaked-up-animal-protein-and-fat-like-parched-ground-in-the-rain.html
http://freetheanimal.com/2009/09/the-moral-vegetarians.html
http://freetheanimal.com/2009/10/the-vegetarian-myth-revisited.html