My personal hero is Weston A. Price. He is and continues to be one of the most influential people in my life. Here is his story.
Who Was Dr. Price?
Weston A. Price (1870-1948), a Cleveland dentist, has been called the “Isaac Newton of nutrition”. Hoping to understand the causes of dental decay and physical degeneration he observed, he turned away from microscopes and test tubes to unstudied evidence among living human populations around the world.
He found the source of vital health in traditional societies, uncorrupted by industrial agriculture and food processing. Many of these isolated groups still existed during his time.
In 1938, after decades of extensive travel, Price presented his discoveries and conclusions in his masterpiece, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.
He concluded dental decay and deformed dental arch structure were signs of broader degeneration caused by nutritional deficiencies. While dental health was his gateway, his research led to fundamental knowledge about nutrition and health.
Nutrition and Physical Degeneration
It is on Nutrition and Physical Degeneration I base this article and the next two (Part 2 and Part 3). If you want to dig deeper, I highly encourage you to read the book. It’s available online for free, as an e-book courtesy of the Gutenberg Project of Australia.
The book contains striking photos of healthy indigenous people and their modernized counterparts. I’ll be including these photos, courtesy of the Price-Pottenger Foundation.
In this article, I’ll discuss all the groups Dr. Price analyzed. Price paid particular attention to their diet, special foods (often fed to children and mothers-to-be), geography, environment, cultural practices, societal aspects, and percentage of teeth with cavities. I will structure my discussion of each group accordingly.
The percentage of teeth with cavities is an important statistic. As we’ll see, it’s highly correlated with susceptibility to disease and lack of health. Consider this percentage a measure of overall health. The greater this number, the worse the health.
Throughout this article, I will refer to traditional people and societies as primitive, meaning simply that they have had almost no contact with modern civilization. “Primitive” is not meant to be an insult. Rather, it’s something desirable.
Recall the book was published in 1938, so the statistics I mention are from that time, not now. When I use words like “nowadays” or “current”, that’s also in reference to 1938. As if I was living in 1938, I’ll talk in the present tense.
One last thing: please note that cultural practices, societal aspects, and other details about groups are not mutually exclusive. For example, the cultural practices of the inland tribes could also be practiced by the coastal tribes.
Swiss Alps
Diet: primarily dairy products (milk, cheese, and butter) and rye bread. Mutton once a week and limited greens (fresh in summer and stored in winter).
Special foods: milk and milk products from cows on the fast-growing summer grass.
Loetschental Valley
Geography: the village is almost completely enclosed by three high mountains, creating a natural isolation from modernization. Because of the terrain, the place has never been conquered and has a continuous written history of a dozen centuries.
Environment: at this high altitude, winters are long and summers are short. During the summer, the retreating snow means pasturage for cows and land to grow hay, rye, and greens. The fast-growing summer grass creates a highly productive period of milk, some of which is turned into cheese for the winter’s use.
Cultural practices: after the snow has retreated and the cows have eaten the rich summer pasturage, the people produce a splendid first butter from the milk. The village leader lights a wick in a bowl of this butter, honoring the presence of Divinity in the life-giving qualities of the June butter.
Societal aspects: practically everything needed within the valley is produced there. In this town of 2,000 people, there are no physicians, dentists, or policemen. Children spend six months in school and six months on the farm. People do all the labor as there are no trucks, horses, or wagons. Every household has cows or goats. Doors are rarely locked.
Percentage of teeth with cavities: 0.9%.
Other primitive villages
Geography: the village of Grachen is in the Visp Valley. The village of Visperterminen is below the junction of the Mattervisp and Saaservisp Mountains. Closer to the glaciers is the village of Ayer.
Environment: at high altitudes of around 5,000 ft (150 m), these villages experience raging blizzards in the wintertime. The people, physically robust, withstand these conditions just fine.
Cultural practices: villages have special feast days on which athletic events are of importance. Cream and special cheese are given to the athletes.
Societal aspects: rye is thrashed by hand, ground in stone mills, and baked in the community oven. Every week, a sheep is butchered and distributed among the families. The village of Visperterminen is unique in that they have vineyards and are the only village with fruit, but they have no better health. Children have been taught little regarding the use of toothbrushes.
Percentage of teeth with cavities: village of Grachen at 2.3%, village of Visperterminen at 5.2%, and village of Ayer at 2.3%.
Modernized districts
Diet: white flour, sweetened jams, syrups, canned goods, sweetened fruits, chocolate, and a greatly reduced use of dairy products.
Geography: the village of Vissoie, just an hour’s walk from the village of Ayer, had a modern roadway built into it that introduced modernized foods. Other areas have been modernized into summer resort towns, like the town of St. Mortiz in the Rhone Valley and the towns near Lake Constance.
Societal aspects: not a single mouth breather was found in the isolated villages but many were found in modernized districts. There’s a correlation between those affected with cavities and those affected by tuberculosis. When villagers stay in these towns, they lose teeth, but it stops when they go home.
Percentage of teeth with cavities: Vissoie at 20.2%, St. Mortiz at 29.8%, and Lake Constance towns at 25.5%.
Gaelics of the Outer Hebrides
Diet: primarily seafood (including fish organs and fish eggs) and oat products. Limited vegetables (fresh in summer and stored in winter).
Special foods: cod head and cod liver.
Isle of Lewis
Geography: the islands of the Outer Hebrides lie off the northwest coast of Scotland. It’s very dangerous getting to the islands because of the rough winds and seas. For this reason, these islands have had minimal contact with modern civilization.
Environment: the soil is so poor that livestock cannot mature and reproduce. The ground is full of peat, a layer of soil made of the incomplete decomposition of plants in waterlogged conditions. Only the oat plant and some greens can grow.
Cultural practices: they burn the limitless quantities of peat in their thatched huts to keep warm. They use these thatched roofs, which accumulate the smoke from the peat, to fertilize the oat plants. Officials blame the smoke for the sudden increase in tuberculosis nowadays, but this is absolutely not the case.
Societal aspects: the place is made up of 20,000 people, primarily fishermen and farmers. The hardy people withstand the frequent gales, raging seas, and blizzards.
Percentage of teeth with cavities: 1.3%.
Other primitive towns
Cultural practices: cod head stuffed with cod liver and oats is a highly important dish.
Societal aspects: you would think the seamen, after a tiring week of work, would take to drinking on the weekends. Instead, the sidewalks are crowded with happy but not boisterous people, and there is no drinking whatsoever. On Sunday, everyone goes to church and everything else is closed.
Percentage of teeth with cavities: town of Scalpay in the Isle of Harris at 0.7% and town of Airth of Sleat in the Isle of Skye (primitive portion) at 0.7%.
Modernized towns
Diet: white bread, sugar, marmalades, jams, syrup, chocolate, coffee, some fish without livers, and canned vegetables.
Societal aspects: those with bad tooth decay were more likely to get tuberculosis. In fact, the modernized Isle of Bardsey went nearly extinct from tuberculosis.
Percentage of teeth with cavities: shipping port town of Tarbert (less than 10 miles away from the town of Scalpay) at 32.4% decay and town of Airth of Sleat (modernized portion) at 16.3%.
Eskimos
Diet: primarily seafood (large sea animals, fish, fish eggs, seal oil, and seal meat). Caribou organs and meat, groundnuts (similar to the potato), and kelp. Berries and greens (fresh in summer and stored in fat or frozen for winter).
Special foods: organs and certain tissues of large sea animals, fish eggs, seal oil, and kelp.
Primitive groups
Geography: the Eskimos live along the far northern coasts of the United States, Canada, Russia, and Greenland. The 39 groups Price studied were primarily located in Alaska.
Environment: the Arctic climate makes for harsh, long winters and short summers.
Cultural practices: during salmon season, they store large quantities of dried salmon and salmon eggs. When they eat fish, they always dip each bite in seal oil. They also use seal oil to preserve many of the plant foods for wintertime.
Societal aspects: the people are skilled in kayaking and hunting. They spear seals and whales from watercraft. Children spear salmon so big that they can hardly lift them.
Percentage of teeth with cavities: Stony Rivers Tribe at 0.3%, Bethel (primitive portion) at 0.1%, Kokamute settlement at 0.1%, and groups in lower Kuskokwim at 0.09%.
Modernized groups
Diet: modern foods from government supply boats.
Societal aspects: authorities estimate the Eskimo population has halved in the past 75 years, largely due to disease.
Percentage of teeth with cavities: Crooked Creek at 18.9%, Bethel (modernized portion) at 21.1%, and McGrath at 33.2%.
Far North Natives
Diet: primarily wild game (organs, fat, bones, and meat). Some plant foods (fresh in summer and stored in winter).
Special foods: animal organs and bone marrow.
Primitive groups
Geography: the Far North natives are those of the Northern British Columbia and Yukon territories, particularly those without access to seafood. Groups with access to seafood tend to be similar to the Eskimos in terms of diet.
Environment: they live in a similar harsh Arctic climate as the Eskimos do. Winters reach -70 degrees Fahrenheit, making it impossible to maintain livestock or crops.
Cultural practices: they have great knowledge of the use of different organs. For example, they knew the moose’s adrenal glands and the walls of the second stomach would keep people free of scurvy. But scurvy killed countless explorers in this region because, in the natives’ words, the white man knew too much to ask the natives anything. The natives only told Price because Price told them not to eat the white man’s food.
Societal aspects: they are skilled in woodcraft, as the cabins they build must protect against freezing temperatures. The cabins are left unlocked, with valuables left in plain sight, even when the occupants are gone. Much of the lean muscle meat is fed to the dogs. They have various preparations of animal bones. Accordingly, there’s been very few skeletal remains of animals, only finely broken bone chips.
Percentage of teeth with cavities: Pelly Mountain at 0.16% and the town of Juneau at 0%. Price also included the pre-Columbian Florida natives during his discussion of North American natives. He analyzed several hundred pre-Columbian native skulls and found 0% decay among them.
Modernized groups
Diet: white flour, syrup, canned vegetables, sweetened goods, and vegetable oils.
Societal aspects: in the largest modernized reservation in Canada, the hospital director saw three generations of mothers. The grandmothers used to give birth in a bush alone or accompanied by one other. Nowadays, women are in labor for days and sometimes need surgery. There’s also been a sharp increase in tuberculosis and arthritis.
Percentage of teeth with cavities: Telegraph Creek at 25.5%, Alaskan frontier towns at 40%, Tuscarora Reservation at 38%, Winnipeg Lake Reservation at 39.1%, North Vancouver Reservation at 36.9%, Craigflower Reservation at 48.5%, Ketchikan settlement at 46.6%, and Sitka settlement at 53.7%. Also, to compare with pre-Columbian Florida natives, Price found that modernized Florida Seminoles had 40% decay.
Melanesians and Polynesians
Diet: primarily seafood (octopus, crab, fish, sea cucumber, and a large variety of shellfish) and taro. Imported wild pig and an assortment of native plants and fruit, of which coconut is a staple.
Special foods: fish eggs and crab.
Primitive groups
Geography: Melanesia consists of the islands of Papua New Guinea to Fiji, while Polynesia consists of the islands of Hawaii to Pitcairn. In Melanesia, Price studied the islands of New Caledonia and Fiji. In Polynesia, Price studied the Hawaiian Islands, Marquesas Islands, Cook Islands, Tongan Islands, and Tahiti Islands.
Environment: Melanesia and Polynesia both have a humid, tropical climate year-round.
Cultural practices: natives coat their bodies with coconut oil to shed the rain and prevent injury from the tropical sun. The irradiation of this coconut oil is considered to be an important source of nutrition.
Societal aspects: even during periods of intense war, interior tribes would be allowed by the coastal tribes to get food from the sea. This seafood was of utmost importance.
Percentage of teeth with cavities (in the primitive portions of the islands): New Caledonia at 0.14%, Fiji at 0.42%, Rarotonga at 0.3%, Tongan at 0.6%, and Samoa at 0.3%.
Modernized groups
Diet: imported foods of white flour, sugar, sugar products, syrup, and polished rice.
Societal aspects: in the past, navigators were so impressed by the health and vitality of these people that they reported these islands as the Garden of Eden. Nowadays, this Garden of Eden is rampant with suffering, with one in three teeth decayed and not a single dentist in sight. Toothache is the only cause of suicide.
Percentage of teeth with cavities (in the modernized ports and districts of the islands): New Caledonians at 26%, Fiji at 30.1%, Marquesas at 36.9%, Tahiti at 31.9%, Rarotonga at 29.5%, Tongan at 33.4%, and Samoa at 18.7%.
Africans
Diet: three main categories of diet. The herding tribes live on cow and goat milk and cow blood, with meat once a week and varying amounts of vegetables. The agricultural tribes live on seafood and plant foods (sweet potato, maize, beans, bananas, amaranth, millet, and sorghum). The hunter-gatherer tribes live largely on animal life and seafood, supplemented with native plant foods. Insects were also a key component of some diets.
Special foods: red millet, water hyacinth, milk from cows on the fast-growing grass, blood, liver, certain species of insects and insect eggs, and fish eggs.
The Maasai Tribe (Herding)
Geography: the Masaai Tribe resides in East Africa.
Environment: overall, the African continent is inhospitable, with malaria-carrying mosquitos, ticks, and tsetse files. However, the natives have learned to navigate the harsh environment for themselves and their livestock.
Cultural practices: they judge the value of a cow by how long it takes her calf to run after it’s born, which is typically just a few minutes. For comparison, in industrial farms, calves cannot stand for hours, often not even for a day.
Societal aspects: livestock is fundamental to daily life. They use cows and goats as the only transactional items, are skilled in veterinary science, and defend livestock by killing lions. The Maasai people are strong and tall, with many chiefs over six feet in height. Their superb physical development allows them to dominate the nearby agricultural tribes.
Percentage of teeth with cavities: 0.4%.
Other Herding Tribes
Environment: some herding tribes live in fertile areas, allowing them to supplement their diet with plant foods from agriculture. The Muhima, Baitu, and Wananade are examples. Other herding tribes (like the Nuer) live near water, giving them access to seafood and other animal life. Still, milk and blood are the primary foods. In Arab desert tribes, camel milk is used extensively, sometimes as the only source of nutrition for months.
Cultural practices: the Nuer are an especially robust group of people, with women often over six feet in height and men over seven feet. They believe that everyone has a soul in their liver and that their physical growth depends on how well they feed this soul with the livers of animals. Liver is so sacred that it may not be touched by human hands, only with spears.
Societal aspects: like the Maasai, these herding tribes dominate the nearby agricultural tribes.
Percentage of teeth with cavities: Muhima Tribe in Uganda at 0%, Baitu Tribe in Rwanda at 0%, Wananade Tribe in Congo at 2.2%, and Nuer in Sudan at 0.5%.
Agricultural Tribes
Environment: agricultural groups near the water have seafood and other animal life as a large part of their diet. The Jalou, Chewya, Buganda, Dinkas, West Nile tribes, and the people of Terraizeka fall into this category. Agricultural groups without access to large animal life (like the Kikuyu) rely on insects.
Cultural practices: the government of Kenya sponsors an athletic contest among tribes. One agricultural tribe, residing near Lake Victoria and living largely on fish, always wins.
Societal aspects: these tribes go to great lengths to obtain animal foods. If the coast is within reach, they obtain dried fish and fish eggs to bring far inland. If the coast is not within reach, they have many insect delicacies like ant pie. The Kikuyu Tribe, which doesn’t have access to abundant animal food, succumbs to herding tribes like the Maasai.
Percentage of teeth with cavities: Jalou Tribe in Kenya at 0.4%, Chewya Tribe in Kenya at 0.2%, Buganda Tribe in Uganda at 0.4%, Dinkas Tribe in Sudan at 0.2%, West Nile tribes in Congo at 0.3%, people of Terraizeka in Kenya at 0%, and Kikuyu Tribe at 5.5%.
The Pygmies (Hunter-Gatherers)
Environment: they live in the dense forests of Africa and have access to abundant sources of plant and animal foods, but this doesn’t come without its dangers. Just before Price arrived, two infants had been carried off by a leopard.
Cultural practices: the Pygmies are expert archers, spearmen, trappers, and elephant hunters. Correspondingly, they are fond of elephant meat.
Societal aspects: there is little poverty, prostitution, drunkenness, or crime. Everyone has enough to eat, sufficient clothing, and an adequate dwelling by native standards.
Percentage of teeth with cavities: 2.2%.
Modernized areas
Diet: imported foods.
Societal aspects: there has been a significant increase in the death rate.
Percentage of teeth with cavities: Ikhlas School in Egypt at 12.1% and other modernized groups at 12.1%.
Aboriginals
Diet: two main categories of diet. The coastal tribes eat sea foods primarily, but have access to land foods, while the inland tribes eat land foods primarily. Land foods include kangaroo, wallaby, rodents, birds, bird eggs, insects, beetles, and grubs. Sea foods include fish, dugong (sea cow), a variety of shellfish, and sea plants. Both eat plant foods of roots, stems, leaves, berries, seeds of grasses, and native peas.
Special foods: certain insects and dugong.
Inland groups
Geography: these Aboriginal tribes live in Australia, a unique place with many animal species found nowhere else.
Environment: the scarce rain makes it difficult for life to exist. However, the natives have maintained their existence for thousands of years as one of the oldest civilizations on Earth. On the other hand, the white colonizers have been unable to remain for just a few years without imports.
Cultural practices: they are expert hunters, knowing the habits of all the animals. They trap animals and insects by reproducing animal calls. They conceal themselves so well that they can kill many kangaroos in a grazing pack without alarming the rest. They throw spears with great accuracy and sufficient force to penetrate a human body. Price witnessed 30 spears thrown from a distance of 75 yards at a banana stalk, and several of them pierced the stalk.
Societal aspects: every large modern Australian town has an Aboriginal to track criminals since the Aboriginals are so skilled in tracking. The Aboriginals also have excellent vision, able to see animals from a mile away and able to see the satellites of Jupiter which are “only visible to the white man with a telescope”.
Percentage of teeth with cavities: 0%.
Coastal groups
Cultural practices: like the inlanders, they are expert hunters. To catch waterfowl, they wear feathered headgear, enter the water, maneuver themselves like a duck, and draw the birds under without raising the suspicion of the flock. There’s a contest to see how many fish can be struck with a spear, the fish never being seen and the only information being the changes in the surface of the water. Contestants get a fish six times out of eight.
Societal aspects: they are extremely trustworthy even when partly modernized. There have been many instances when nurses left jewelry and other belongings where hundreds of the primitives passing by could’ve taken them. They never did.
Percentage of teeth with cavities: Lockhart River at 3.4% (not accounting for the people who left to work in modernized areas and came back).
Modernized areas
Diet: imported foods supplied by government officials.
Cultural aspects: similar to the Melanesians and Polynesians, “discouragement and a longing for death had taken the place of a joy in living in many.” It's alarming that this native group of 75,000+ years can degenerate in just a few decades.
Societal aspects: it’s common for the adult population (raised on native foods) to have better dental arches than their children (raised on modern foods). In the Cherbourg Reservation, 11.7% of adults have deformed dental arches compared to 50% of children. In general, these areas have much higher rates of severe deformity and disease.
Percentage of teeth with cavities: LeParouse Reservation at 47.5%, Palm Island Reservation at 53.1%, Cowall Creek Reservation at 24.6%, Cherbourg Reservation at 42.5%, and Tweed Heads Reservation at 39.7%.
Torres Strait Islanders
Diet: sea foods and plant foods. Sea foods include dugong, fish, and a variety of shellfish. Plant foods include taro, bananas, papayas, and plums.
Special foods: dugong and fish eggs.
Primitive groups
Geography: in the islands north of Australia, there are groups of people known as Papuans, New Guineans, Mobuiags, Arakuns, Kendals, and Yonkas.
Environment: these islands, situated near the Great Barrier Reef, have abundant sea life. If you throw a spear with prongs into a school of fish, you’ll get several fish. With this abundant sea life come sharks, so these islanders have special tactics to snare sharks.
Cultural practices: they are very strong swimmers as boats are frequently dashed to pieces on the reef by strong winds. Price saw a native rescue two dozen men from the pearl industry, and the native was himself rescued after being in the water continuously for 32 hours.
Societal aspects: Price was impressed with their happiness, peace, and health. They aren’t lazy but they don’t struggle hard over food. There is practically no crime. In the government physician’s 13 years, the physician never performed surgery among the native population of 4,000 but had performed several dozen surgeries among the white population of 300.
Percentage of teeth with cavities: Murray Island at 0.7%.
Modernized areas
Diet: a mixture of the native diet with government foods.
Societal aspects: modernization comes from the pearling industry and the government establishing stores on each island, starting with Badu (23 years ago), then Darney (very recently), and lastly Murray. However, the Murray Island people strongly oppose the government’s program and are conscious of the danger of imported foods, so I’ve listed Murray Island in the primitive section above.
Percentage of teeth with cavities: Badu Island at 20.6%, Darney Island at 5.7%, Hammond Island at 16.5%, and York Island at 12.7%.
New Zealand Maori
Diet: primarily seafood and plant foods. Sea foods include shellfish (particularly abalone and sea clams), fish, kelp, and dugong. Plant foods include fern root (the majority of the plant food they eat) and other native plants. Species of grubs and mutton birds are also used, especially by the inland groups.
Special foods: dugong, mutton birds, and fish eggs.
Primitive groups
Geography: Price started at Wellington and progressed northward, visiting 25 districts, both primitive and modernized. He studied Raukokore, Tekaha, Rautoki, Rotarua, Tehoro, Waiomio, Teahuahu, Kaikohe, etc.
Environment: New Zealand has a generally mild climate with sharp regional differences.
Cultural practices: they have developed calisthenics and systematic physical exercise to a great degree. In the early morning, the “chief of the village starts singing a song which is accompanied by a rhythmic dance. The dance is taken up by the entire village, swaying in unison to the same tempo.” This develops deep breathing and the muscles of the body, particularly the abdomen.
Societal aspects: these people were reported by early scientists as the most physically perfect race.
Percentage of teeth with cavities: ancient Maori skulls at 0.05% and current isolated groups at 2%.
Modernized districts
Diet: primarily white flour, sweetened goods, syrup, and canned goods.
Societal aspects: in many modernized districts, 0% of the elders had deformed dental arches while a much higher percentage of children had deformed arches.
Percentage of teeth with cavities: ranging from 31% to 50%.
Peruvians
Diet: three main categories of diet. Inland groups eat land foods of llama, alpaca, vicuna, guinea pigs, and wild animals. Coastal groups eat sea foods of fish, shellfish, fish eggs, and kelp. Both ate plant foods of corn, beans, squash, quinoa, potato, and more. The Amazonian natives eat vast amounts of fish, animal life, and cassava (similar to the potato). The Amazonians also eat birds, bird eggs, and native plants and fruits.
Special foods: guinea pigs, fish eggs, and kelp.
Ancient civilizations
Geography: the ancient Peruvians largely resided on the west coast of South America.
Environment: despite the arid desert land from the coast to the mountains and the severe climate of the high Sierra Mountains, ancient civilizations developed superb physical bodies. They smartly irrigated the arid land, cultivating a plethora of crops. In fact, 21 of our modern crops come from Peru.
Cultural practices: the ancient cultures of the Inca, Chimu, and Naska were skilled in weaving, pottery, architecture, surgery, and engineering. They built 100-mile-long aqueducts and accomplished seemingly impossible architectural feats like Macchu Picchu without modern machinery.
Societal aspects: in South America, The West Coast and The East, Agnes Rothery writes “to every living soul was given his tasks, according to his physical and mental capacities. He was prevented from overwork, prohibited from idleness, cared for in illness and old age. There was no hunger, no crime in the whole empire.”
Percentage of teeth with cavities: analysis of skulls reveals nearly 0% decay.
Inland descendants
Environment: during the winter, the snow is deep in the mountains, but there is little on the plateau since Peru is near the equator. The sunshine is bright and warm even in the winter, so they have pasturage for their animals year-round. However, the only domesticated animals that thrive are the llama, alpaca, and guinea pig as they are acclimated to these altitudes.
Cultural practices: when carrying heavy loads at high altitudes, the natives chew cocoa leaves which makes them unconscious of hunger and fatigue.
Societal aspects: a group of natives in the mountains of Urubamba Valley can carry 200 to 300 pounds all day at high altitudes. At several ports, they’ve been brought down to the coast to unload the freight. Their strength is phenomenal.
Percentage of teeth with cavities: 0%.
Coastal descendants
Environment: the Humbolt Current from the Antarctic brings great amounts of marine life to the Peruvian coast. As a result, there is no greater area in the world teeming with marine life. For thousands of miles along the coast, there are fish-eating birds, and as many as 75 fish have been found in the stomach of such birds.
Societal aspects: market days occur on Sundays and natives even remotely close to the markets walk for dozens of miles to obtain seafood like dried fish eggs.
Percentage of teeth with cavities: not specifically mentioned but can be inferred to be less than 5%.
Amazonian tribes
Environment: the abundance of rain, soil fertility, and the warm climate make plant growth plentiful.
Social aspects: their shelter is very simple, just a framework covered with palm and banana leaves.
Percentage of teeth with cavities: not specifically mentioned but can be inferred to be less than 5%.
Modernized groups
Diet: refined flour products, sugar, sweetened foods, canned goods, and polished rice.
Societal aspects: the typical deformities in dental arches and facial form were found in modernized groups.
Percentage of teeth with cavities: not specifically mentioned but can be inferred to be greater than 20%.
The Adventure Continues
I hope these findings and photos have piqued your curiosity about the relationship between nutrition and health. Part 2 explores just this, explaining the degeneration that follows from the modern approach. It’s not only dental decay but physical, mental, and moral degeneration. It’s degeneration all the way down to the degeneration of the soil.
Part 3 concludes this series with practical applications of primitive wisdom.
I promise you’ll never look at nutrition the same way again after reading this trilogy.