Fundamental Keys to Human Health: Found in isolated communities a hundred years ago.

 Western A Price was no ordinary dentist. In the 1930's he traveled the world with his wife looking for healthy human populations untouched by the modern western diet. Travel in the 1930's wasn't what it is now, particularly to the isolated places he sought out. Price and his wife weren't so much travelling as undergoing an extreme expedition.  

Price sought out isolated groups of people: Australian aboriginals, African tribes, Eskimos and Swiss mountain villagers to name a few. These communities ate their traditional diets. No mass manufacturing, no refined foods. Just traditional food and preparation methods handed down through generations uninfluenced by the modern diet. 

It's the knowledge that Price documented in his book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration that influences the way I choose to eat.

Why am I so interested in this alternative approach? Because health is everything.  In my mind, there really is nothing else. You can retire at an early age but if you don't have your health, there is no wealth.

This system we have of modern medicine and the modern diet has failed so many people in an unfathomable devastating fashion. Yet it is these same people that will defend this system of medicine as they don't know there is an alternative. 

Price figured out the fundamental keys to human health with no huge amounts of funding, no grants or expensive lab equipment, no genetic coding. Just him and his wife embarking on an expedition to observe traditional communities that had long since figured out what works. Vibrant, healthy, happy people eating nutrient dense traditional food. 

Each community Price visited had it's own sacred foods. Foods that were prized above all others. From seal liver, to shrimp paste, to the deep yellow butter that can only be collected from the cows grazing from the lush green pastures in spring. Price researched the common denominators to these sacred foods. The diets varied enormously in what types of foods these communities ate, however the vitamin compounds isolated in the foods were found to be the same. 

What were these vitamins? Vitamins D, A (retinol) and K2.    These are the three key vitamins that Price found in the sacred foods in traditional communities. These vitamins are all fat soluble, therefore found in abundance in saturated fat based foods. Price also noted the absence of certain foods in these traditional diets noting no refined sugar or refined flour to be found in these communities. 

This knowledge is no secret. Price documented his work almost a hundred years ago yet is doesn't appear to be commonly known information. Unfortunately we in the west have grown accustomed to a modern diet high in sugar and refined flour. A heavily processed diet within a culture that no longer prizes sacred traditional foods. 

There are however many ways to get these vitamins. This food is still accessible, just not quite as readily as the morning latte and muffin. The best sources are fermented cheeses like gouda and cheddar, grass fed butter, shrimp paste, any kind of liver, whole sardines and grass fed eggs.

The main point here is to illustrate the difference between our current modern diet, and, and these traditional diets. I don't know many people that eat liver on a regular basis, and those that I do know are well past the age of 80. That says to me two things, that eating liver has been phased out in younger generations, and, for those that do eat liver live beyond 80 years of age! In the western culture I live in, the foods we prize are sugary treats, cakes and desserts. These aren't the sacred foods we should be worshiping.