When it comes to the real food movement, Weston A. Price is one of the founding fathers. So it’s no surprise that his work has played a significant role in my own learning.

Dr. Price was a dentist who practiced back in the 20s, 30s and 40s in Ohio, America. He was well known in his industry and used to have a laboratory in his dental office where he evaluated the nutrients in different foods. As his career progressed, he became increasingly concerned about the amount of dental problems he was seeing in his patients, especially in children.

So, he decided to travel the world to find traditional cultures who didn’t suffer from any dental deformities and study what foods they ate. What he found was quite remarkable and informed his practice for years to come. He visited traditional cultures in Switzerland, Scotland, Alaska, Florida, Polynesia, Melanesia, Australia - and found virtually no tooth decay in the people he visited.

Intrigued, he looked into what these cultures were eating daily and discovered they were consuming raw milk, raw cheese, raw cream, raw butter, animals and animal fats, dense sourdough rye bread, organ meats, bone broth, oats, seafood, fish, salmon roe, fruits, vegetables and coconuts. He found they were eating what nature had provided for them in their environment, natural whole foods without the processing that was dominating our western world, even back then. He also found every culture had a tradition of longevity - most living well into their 90’s.

Since passing, the work and philosophy of Weston A. Price lives on in the Weston A. Price Foundation and this work has been just one of the sounding boards for my own ongoing research and knowledge about food and nutrition.

I am an advocate for real foods, whole foods, ones that have been grown or raised just as nature intended with minimal intervention from mankind. Once we strip away the processed foods and get back to basics, what we find is a simple and easy approach to eating that aligns with how humans have lived for generations before us.

Even with real, natural, whole foods, there are going to be some that are tolerated easier by some than others. There are going to be foods that agree with your body, and some that don’t. Some that make you thrive, and some that don’t tick that box. And this is where I come in. As part of our consultations, we can figure out what foods work for you and your family (I refer for external testing) and if a diet change is part of your pathway forward, then we can navigate through this together.

References:

Fallon Morell, S. (2010). Nourishing Traditional Diets for Healthy Babies [PowerPoint slides].