Ancient Dietary Wisdom for Tomorrow's Children - Part 2

Francis Pottenger

The results of Pottenger’s cat experiments are often misinterpreted. They do not mean that humans should eat only raw foods--humans are not cats. Part of the diet was cooked in all the healthy groups Price studied. (Milk products, however, were almost always consumed raw.) Pottenger’s findings must be seen in the context of the Price research and can be interpreted as follows: When the human diet produces “facial deformities”--the progressive narrowing of the face and crowding of the teeth--extinction will occur if that diet is followed for several generations. The implications for western civilization--obsessed as it is with refined, highly sweetened convenience foods and low-fat items--is profound.

The research of Weston Price is not so much misinterpreted as ignored. In a country where the entire orthodox health establishment condemns saturated fat and cholesterol from animal sources, and where vending machines have become a fixture in our schools, who wants to hear about a peripatetic dentist who warned about the dangers of sugar and white flour, who thought kids should take cod liver oil and who believed that butter was the number one health food?

The irony is that as Price becomes more and more forgotten, more and more research appears in the scientific literature proving he was right. We now know that vitamin A is essential for the prevention of birth defects, for growth and development, for the health of the immune system and the proper functioning of all the glands. Scientists have discovered that the precursors to vitamin A--the carotenes found in plant foods--cannot be converted to true vitamin A by infants and children. They must get their vital supply of this nutrient from animal fats. Yet orthodox nutritional pundits are now pushing low-fat diets for children. Neither can diabetics and people with thyroid conditions convert carotenes to the fat soluble form of vitamin A--yet diabetics and people with low energy are told to avoid animal fats.

The scientific literature tells us that vitamin D is needed not only for healthy bones, and optimal growth and development, but also to prevent colon cancer, MS and reproductive problems.

Cod liver oil is an excellent source of vitamin D. Cod liver oil also contains special fats called EPA and DHA The body uses EPA to make substances that help prevent blood clots, and that regulate a myriad of biochemical processes. Recent research shows that DHA is essential to the development of the brain and nervous system. Adequate DHA in the mother’s diet is necessary for the proper development of the retina in the infant she carries. DHA in mother’s milk helps prevent learning disabilities. Cod liver oil and foods like liver and egg yolk supply this essential nutrient to the developing fetus, to nursing infants and to growing children.

Butter contains both vitamin A and D, as well as other beneficial substances. Conjugated linoleic acid in butterfat is a powerful protection against cancer. Certain fats called glycospingolipids aid digestion. Butter is rich in trace minerals, and naturally yellow Spring and Fall butter contains the X factor.

Saturated fats from animal sources--portrayed as the enemy--form an important part of the cell membrane; they protect the immune system and enhance the utilization of essential fatty acids. They are needed for the proper development of the brain and nervous system. Certain types of saturated fats provide quick energy and protect against pathogenic microorganisms in the intestinal tract; other types provide energy to the heart.

Cholesterol is essential to the development of the brain and nervous system of the infant, so much so that mother’s milk is not only extremely rich in the substance, but also contains special enzymes that aid in the absorption of cholesterol from the intestinal tract. Cholesterol is the body’s repair substance; when the arteries are damaged because of weakness or irritation, cholesterol steps in to patch things up and prevent aneurysms. Cholesterol is a powerful antioxidant, protecting the body from cancer; it is the precursor to the bile salts, needed for fat digestion; from it the adrenal hormones are formed, those that help us deal with stress and those that regulate sexual function.

The scientific literature is equally clear about the dangers of polyunsaturated vegetable oils--the kind that are supposed to be good for us. Because polyunsaturates are highly subject to rancidity, they increase the body’s need for vitamin E and other antioxidants. (Canola oil, in particular, can create severe vitamin E deficiency.) Excess consumption of vegetable oils is especially damaging to the reproductive organs and the lungs--both of which are sites for huge increases in cancer in the US. In test animals, diets high in polyunsaturates from vegetable oils inhibit the ability to learn, especially under conditions of stress; they are toxic to the liver; they compromise the integrity of the immune system; they depress the mental and physical growth of infants; they increase levels of uric acid in the blood; they cause abnormal fatty acid profiles in the adipose tissues; they have been linked to mental decline and chromosomal damage; they accelerate aging. Excess consumption of polyunsaturates is associated with increasing rates of cancer, heart disease and weight gain; excess use of commercial vegetable oils interferes with the production of prostaglandins--localized tissue hormones-- leading to an array of complaints such as autoimmune diseases, sterility and PMS. Vegetable oils are more toxic when heated. One study reported that polyunsaturates turn to varnish in the intestines. A study by a plastic surgeon found that women who consumed mostly vegetable oils had far more wrinkles than those who consumed traditional animal fats.

When polyunsaturated oils are hardened to make margarine and shortening by a process called hydrogenation, they deliver a double whammy of increased cancer, reproductive problems, learning disabilities and growth problems in children.

The vital research of Weston Price remains largely forgotten because the importance of his findings, if recognized by the general populace, would bring down America’s largest industry--food processing and its three supporting pillars--refined sweeteners, white flour and vegetable oils. Representatives of this industry have worked behind the scenes to erect the huge edifice of the “lipid hypothesis”--the untenable theory that saturated fats and cholesterol cause heart disease and cancer. All one has to do is look at the statistics to know that it isn’t true. Butter consumption at the turn of the century was eighteen pounds per person per year, and the use of vegetable oils almost nonexistent, yet cancer and heart disease were rare. Today butter consumption hovers just above four pounds per person per year while vegetable oil consumption has soared--and cancer and heart disease are endemic.

Dr. Weston Price discovered that healthy tribal groups fed special foods to parents before conception and during pregnancy; and to children during their growing years. His analyses showed that these foods were exceptionally rich in the fat-soluble nutrients found only in animal fats such as butter and marine oils. The universal "primitive" tradition of feeding nutrient-rich foods to pregnant women and growing children puts western medical practices to shame.

What the research really shows is that both refined carbohydrates and vegetable oils cause imbalances in the blood and at the cellular level that lead to an increased tendency to form blood clots, leading to myocardial infarction. This kind of heart disease was virtually unknown in America in 1900. Today it has reached epidemic levels. Atherosclerosis, or the buildup of hardened plague in the artery walls, cannot be blamed on saturated fats or cholesterol. Very little of the material in this plaque is cholesterol, and a 1994 study appearing in the Lancet showed that almost three quarters of the fat in artery clogs is unsaturated. The “artery clogging” fats are not animal fats but vegetable oils.

Built into the whole cloth of the lipid hypothesis is the postulate that the traditional foods of our ancestors--the butter, cream, eggs, liver, meat and fish eggs that Price recognized were necessary to produce “splendid physical development”--are bad for us. A number of stratagems have served to imbed this notion in the consciousness of the people, not the least of which was the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP), during which your tax dollars paid for a packet of “information” on cholesterol and heart disease to be sent to every physician in America. As the American Pharmaceutical Association served on the coordinating committee of this massive program, it is not surprising that the packet instructed physicians on ways to test serum cholesterol levels, and what drugs to prescribe for patients whose cholesterol levels put them in the “at risk” category--defined arbitrarily as anyone over 200 mg/dl, the vast majority of the adult population. Physicians received instruction on the “prudent diet,” low in saturated fat and cholesterol, for “at risk” Americans, even though studies indicated that such diets did not offer any significant protection against heart disease. They did, however, increase the risk of death from cancer, intestinal diseases, accidents, suicide and stroke. A specific recommendation contained in the NCEP information packet was the replacement of butter with margarine.

In 1990, two generations after Weston Price conceived of studying isolated nonindustrialized people as a way of learning how to confer good health on our children, the National Cholesterol Education Program recommended the “prudent diet” for all Americans above the age of two. The advantage of such a diet is supposed to be reduced risk of heart disease in later life--even though not a single study has shown such an hypothesis to be tenable. What the scientific literature does tell us is that low fat diets for children, or diets in which vegetable oils have been substituted for animal fats, result in failure to thrive--failure to grow tall and strong--as well as learning disabilities, susceptibility to infection and behavioral problems. Teenage girls who adhere to such a diet risk reproductive problems. If they do manage to conceive, their chances of giving birth to a low birth weight baby, or a baby with birth defects, are high.

These two beautiful girls were born to mothers whose nutrition had not been optimal during their growing years. However, they were able to reverse the trend of physical degeneration by eating a rich diet during pregnancy and by feeding their daughters whole, nutrient-dense foods including animal protein, whole milk products, butter, whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, and cod liver oil. This diet allowed these girls to reach their optimum genetic potential. Both mothers had crowded teeth, while these two girls have naturally straight teeth, needing no orthodontics.

Compared to this folly, the wisdom of the so-called primitive in regards to ensuring the health of his children has inspired the awe of Weston Price and all who have read his book. Again and again he found that tribal groups--especially those in Africa and the South Pacific-- fed special foods to young men and women before conception, to women during pregnancy and lactation, and to children during their growing years. When he tested these foods--things like liver, shellfish, organ meats and bright yellow butter--he found them to be extremely rich in the “fat-soluble activators”--vitamins A, D and the X Factor. Special soaked grain preparations of high mineral content--particularly millet and quinoa--were fed to lactating women to increase milk supply.

Price also discovered that many tribes practiced the spacing of children in order to allow the mother to recover her nutrient stores and to ensure that subsequent children would be as healthy as the first. They did this by a system of multiple wives, or in the case of monogamous cultures, deliberate abstinence. Three years was considered the minimum time necessary between children to the same mother--anything less brought shame on the parents and the opprobrium of the village.

The education of the young in these tribal groups included instruction in dietary wisdom as a way of ensuring the health of future generations and the continuance of the tribe in the face of the constant challenge of finding food, and defending the group against waring neighbors.

Modern parents, living in times of peace and abundance, face an altogether different challenge, one of discrimination and cunning. For they must learn to discriminate between hyperbole and truth when it comes to choosing foods for themselves and their family; and to practice cunning in protecting their children from those displacing products of modern commerce that prevent the optimal expression of their genetic heritage--foodstuffs made of sugar, white flour, vegetable oils and products that imitate the nourishing foods of our ancestors--margarine, shortening, egg replacements, meat extenders, fake broths, ersatz cream, processed cheese, factory farmed meats, industrially farmed plantfoods, protein powders, and packets of stuff that never spoils.

For a future of healthy children--for any future at all--we must turn our backs on the dietary advice of sophisticated medical orthodoxy and return to the food wisdom of our so-called primitive ancestors, choosing traditional whole foods that are organically grown, humanely raised, minimally processed and above all not shorn of their vital lipid component.

When offspring are properly spaced, and care given to the diet of both parents before conception, and to the children during their period of growth and development, all children in the family can be blessed with the kind of good health that allows them a carefree childhood; and the energy and intelligence they need to put their adult years to best and highest use.

Copyright © 1999 Sally Fallon. All Rights Reserved. “Ancient Dietary Wisdom for Tomorrow’s Children” was first published in the Journal of Family Life (518) 432-1578

Use our to find a doctor in your area.