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Hm, no I didn't get this from quackwatch. I got it from several resources, most notably Wikipedia, though I checked *their* sources, which included the American Dental Association articles, the CDA Journal, various research thesis for doctorates published about focal infection theory (which is what Price was working on when he came up with the Paleo idea), and various history papers on the things Price studied, including the tribes he studied, and the different cultures he examined.
The overwhelming evidence did -not- show that it was meat and fat that prevented disease. It was *lack of processed flour, sugar, and processed foods in general* that reduced risk of disease. He studied many MANY cultures, including vegetarian tribal cultures. He saw, in his own observations, cultures that ate a *variety* of foods, however none of them were refined or processed. Some were cooked, sure, but otherwise, not processed, no preservatives or artificial anything added, no canned foods, no frozen dinners, nothing freeze-dried and rehydrated.
And yet, he concluded that it was the high fats and proteins that kept these people healthy? Really? And most of these people did -not- live to be 90 years old, most of them were -not- capable of playing the back 9 on the Senior tour. The thing was, most of these tribes, had little exposure to modern disease. And _that_ is why they didn't suffer from the diseases that modern people suffer from. It had nothing to do with eating lots of fat and meat.
The paleo theory was debunked in the 1940's, and again in the 1970's, and again in 2002. It is a FAD diet. It has always been a FAD diet, based on flawed research and faulty conclusions.
The overwhelming evidence did -not- show that it was meat and fat that prevented disease. It was *lack of processed flour, sugar, and processed foods in general* that reduced risk of disease. He studied many MANY cultures, including vegetarian tribal cultures. He saw, in his own observations, cultures that ate a *variety* of foods, however none of them were refined or processed. Some were cooked, sure, but otherwise, not processed, no preservatives or artificial anything added, no canned foods, no frozen dinners, nothing freeze-dried and rehydrated.
And yet, he concluded that it was the high fats and proteins that kept these people healthy? Really? And most of these people did -not- live to be 90 years old, most of them were -not- capable of playing the back 9 on the Senior tour. The thing was, most of these tribes, had little exposure to modern disease. And _that_ is why they didn't suffer from the diseases that modern people suffer from. It had nothing to do with eating lots of fat and meat.
Interesting what you say here. Did you actually read his book? Did any of the people who refuted it? Here's a link: Weston Price: Nutrition and Physical Degeneration; Table of Contents (Beware, the pix are a bit creepy with all the kids holding their mouths open and all.) I have read it in the past and I just finished skimming it again to see if there is any truth in your statements, but fact is, he did not claim that high fat and protein are the only way to go--in fact, he discovered very healthy diets that were in complete variance to one another and never did he make a claim for longevity that I could tell. He did make a claim for a higher quality of life. Specifically: healthy problem free births, well developed dental arches with no crooked teeth and few cavities, few mental illnesses or social problems, and strong resonant voices along with the energy to get thru some active days complete with dancing and singing in the evenings. And he did in fact suggest that it was probably due to the fact that these people ate the native diet that their ancestors had eaten for the past several thousand years--whatever that may have been and some of these cultures ate meat on an average of about 1x/week and most had access to some kind of seafood, even if they had to go trade for it. He studied some vegetarian cultures but they were not in the peak tip top of health, though I have no doubt that they may have been healthier than we are here in the states today.
Isolation itself is no guarantee of health--we have to look no further than what happened to the native Americans when the Europeans came over--some historians have suggested that 90% or more of the native population died from the diseases that we brought over. Before the whites came, the NA's may have been some of the healthiest people on earth.
"And yet, he concluded that it was the high fats and proteins that kept these people healthy? Really?" I suppose that it might have been interpreted that way by an establishment that is rabidly afraid of fats in any form, but I don't think that's what he was saying. He did make specific claims for two kinds of fat, and this may sound familiar. The first is cod liver oil--omega 3's anyone? The other was a special kind of butter from naturally raised cows that ate the spring grass--it has some unique kind of nutrition and he was able to use it to heal children from nutritional deficiencies that they suffered from--not sure but maybe it was higher in vitamin D content. That was very important at a time when you couldn't go to the health food store and buy omega 3 capsules and vitamin C and D pills. If you read the book you will see that your claims for what he wrote make little sense.
And while I'm on a roll, I'll just add my 2 cents worth for what I think of science studying what we should eat. How specifically can you put together a study that will tell you what is the optimum diet that we should all eat? Science likes to study variables and things in isolation and diet cannot be studied that way--it must be studied in its entirety or not at all. Weston Price may have made some spurious conclusions and he was certainly politically incorrect by our standards (he studied mongoloid idiots, doh!), but he had a unique opportunity that has since passed the world by--I doubt you'd be able to find a culture anywhere today that hasn't consumed store food by now. You may not believe all of his conclusions but that doesn't mean that he was wrong. How healthy has science made us? Are they working for us or for the captains of industry? How can you even tell? I do believe that Mr. Price was working for us. I esp liked this quote:
Quote:
The writer is fully aware that his message is not orthodox; but since our orthodox theories have not saved us we may have to readjust them to bring them into harmony with Nature's laws. Nature must be obeyed, not orthodoxy. Apparently many primitive races have understood her language better than have our modernized groups. Even the primitive races share our blights when they adopt our conception of nutrition. The supporting evidence for this statement is voluminous and as much of it as space permits is included in this volume.
(which is what Price was working on when he came up with the Paleo idea).
And wherever did you get the idea that WAP came up with the "paleo idea"? That seems to be a fairly new phenomenon and WP died in 1949.
Oh LOL, LOL, LOL! I just went on to wiki to see if it made that claim and found that you did indeed quote Mr. Barrett, b/c the biggest criticism of Mr. Price was quoted in there by Stephen Barrett of Quackwatch--wiki never discredited him--it quoted Barrett as one of his detractors. And I mean, Barrett refutes anything that is holistic. Sure, he's as much of an authority as you consider Mercola to be.
And nowhere in the wiki article did it suggest that WP advocated a high fat, high meat diet--it said this instead:
Quote:
By 1930, Price had shifted his interest to nutrition. In 1939, he published Nutrition and Physical Degeneration,[7] detailing his global travels studying the diets and nutrition of various cultures. The book concludes that aspects of a modern Western diet (particularly flour, sugar, and modern processed vegetable fats) cause nutritional deficiencies that are a cause of many dental issues and health problems.
And let us not forget that this research was done in the 30's back before pop-tarts had been invented and before Little debbie snack cakes had much of a toe-hold on the market. (Sorry, don't know when those things were invented and darned if I'm going to look it up--you know what I mean.)
That is the message that THIS THREAD exists to promote. This is the Paleo Diet thread. And people are using Weston Price as their shining example of proof as to why the Paleo Diet is such a miraculous fix to all ills of the overweight.
My rebuttal is - no, Weston Price is *not* a shining example the Paleo Diet as the miraculous fix to all ills of the overweight.
There are suckers who insist, and continue to insist, that Weston Price created the Paleo Diet. They use individual sentences and parts of paragraphs of his book to "prove" their case. They are wrong.
Furthermore, those people in those tribes giving birth to healthy babies isn't because of what they ate. It is because of how they lived. They are physically active in a way that Americans are not physically active. They don't need to join gyms, because they do most of their work manually, without pressing buttons to get machines to do the work for them. They don't put their clothes in washing machines; they bring their clothes to the river and beat them against rocks, or wash them in buckets of water that they filled at the river and carried back to their camps.
They didn't have phones or secretaries to pass messages to the neighboring tribe - they hiked over to the neighboring tribe and delivered the message in person.
The ENTIRETY of their lifestyle INCLUDING their diet - is why they had healthy births. Weston Price spun the situation to promote his flawed theory that it was the diets alone that accounted for the tribes good health. And - most people in America don't have crooked teeth. And yet we, of multiple millions among us, mostly eat crap. So now we can attest to the "fact" that the American Crap diet is responsible for the vast majority of us having good teeth?
You sure you want to go that route? How about the tribes that chisel their teeth to spikes? Are they driven to do their own dental work because of their diet? Really? You sure about that?
Weston Price was a quack, he wasn't a nutritionist, he was a dentist. He promoted a quack theory that was debunked. End of story.
Weston Price was a quack, he wasn't a nutritionist, he was a dentist. He promoted a quack theory that was debunked. End of story.
"Sugar and vegetable oil cause chronic disease," that's been "debunked?" Guess I can go back to eating out every night, and all that fat loss I had while avoiding that stuff was just a coincidence.
Or are you talking about a different theory? I'm unaware that Price had a single, over-arching theory of nutrition at all, much less one that had been "debunked," but you seem pretty sure. Why don't you enlighten us?
Raw vegan and paleo are the two diets that lead to substantial weight loss over a short period of time. Both avoid wheat, sugar and processed foods.
The SAFE way to lose is not over a short period of time. Losing weight quickly usually gets put back on quickly, and then some. These restrictive forms of eating are usually abandoned after a period of time because people cannot sustain them.
The SANEST way to lose weight is by eating a VARIETY of whole fresh foods from ALL food groups. Use moderation, watch portions and exercise.
That is the message that THIS THREAD exists to promote. This is the Paleo Diet thread. And people are using Weston Price as their shining example of proof as to why the Paleo Diet is such a miraculous fix to all ills of the overweight.
My rebuttal is - no, Weston Price is *not* a shining example the Paleo Diet as the miraculous fix to all ills of the overweight.
There are suckers who insist, and continue to insist, that Weston Price created the Paleo Diet. They use individual sentences and parts of paragraphs of his book to "prove" their case. They are wrong.
It would seem that you were saying that WAP created the paleo diet. Actually WAP didn't create any diet. He gathered the info and left it for us to draw our own conclusions. Later, Sally Fallon and Mary Enig came along and wrote a book based around the research, but they didn't create a diet either. They did however note that foods that are prepared by traditional methods tend to retain more of their vitamins and minerals than foods that are not. A fer instance is homemade bread--in traditional societies people used a sourdough type started and gave the bread a longer, slower rise. Artisan bakers must agree with this b/c they like to use a poolish to raise their breads. They tout the use of lacto-fermented vegetables aka sauerkraut to feed your digestive system in much the same way that a probiotic does. I mean, what did people do before they could go to the store and buy acidophilus? They do not tell people to not eat vegetables as I've seen claimed; only that not all cultures do eat them--like the Inuit.
Furthermore, those people in those tribes giving birth to healthy babies isn't because of what they ate. It is because of how they lived. They are physically active in a way that Americans are not physically active. They don't need to join gyms, because they do most of their work manually, without pressing buttons to get machines to do the work for them. They don't put their clothes in washing machines; they bring their clothes to the river and beat them against rocks, or wash them in buckets of water that they filled at the river and carried back to their camps.
They didn't have phones or secretaries to pass messages to the neighboring tribe - they hiked over to the neighboring tribe and delivered the message in person.
The ENTIRETY of their lifestyle INCLUDING their diet - is why they had healthy births. Weston Price spun the situation to promote his flawed theory that it was the diets alone that accounted for the tribes good health. Did you read the book? Did he say that really? Or are you just making this up? His main interest was diet but I'm sure he was aware of other lifestyle factors. But remember, he wrote this in 1935 when my mother was born and her family also washed their clothes by hand and milked cows and performed a great deal more manual labor than you see today so it would not have been odd to him. But he spoke of skeletal changes and no amount of hard work and exercise will change that. And those changes were quite marked when people went to live in the city--within a year or two they began to suffer from cavities and abscesses and WAP spoke of the heartbreak of the family back home when the kid who went to the city committed suicide b/c of the pain of an abscess that he couldn't afford to get fixed. WAP did believe that diet was the main culprit here and for good reason, but he didn't discount other factors and actually headed off the argument that you're making here. And - most people in America don't have crooked teeth. And yet we, of multiple millions among us, mostly eat crap. So now we can attest to the "fact" that the American Crap diet is responsible for the vast majority of us having good teeth?
I was thinking about that last night and I suspect that it's because we now fortify much of our junk food with vitamins. Pop-tarts and fruit loops and junky white bread are all fortified now. Otherwise, I have no doubt that we'd be seeing more problems. Of course we also have orthodontists, and TG b/c I had billy bob teeth growing up.
You sure you want to go that route? How about the tribes that chisel their teeth to spikes? Are they driven to do their own dental work because of their diet? Really? You sure about that? Oh for heaven's sake.
Weston Price was a quack, he wasn't a nutritionist, he was a dentist. He promoted a quack theory that was debunked. End of story.
I'd like to see some studies of exactly how he was debunked. I googled and all I found was some Stephen Barrett style rantings and ravings and studies promoting the kind of diet that is making the OP sick. Over and over you hear this mantra: low low fat, lots of complex carbs, little to no meat, and lots of veggies. Well that's what she's been eating and she's unable to control her blood sugar. Perhaps you can make some constructive suggestions. I'm glad we agree on one thing though--we can agree that many to most people in the USA eat crap but I get the feeling that the OP is more conscientious than most.
And btw, I have a rant of my own--that diet of low fat complex carbs killed my father--he was type I diabetic and kept his BS even all those years with an Atkins style diet and the doc had a fit and put him on grains and skim milk and he was gone within a year. Obviously the ADA diet doesn't work for everyone and some of those who are still alive are looking for alternatives.
Don't stick to the Paleo Diet, it is a DIET, it is not a healthy way of eating on a long-term basis. Try Weight Watchers if you want a name-brand program, it is more nutritionally balanced.
If you don't care about a name-brand program, and only picked a Paleo Diet because it sounded trendy but you're fine with not doing something trendy:
Eat lots of unprocessed vegetables, plenty of leafy greens, and any edible tubers and roots that are edible in their UNcooked state (that means - no potatoes, but carrots are fine).
Have some red meat if you enjoy red meat, it's good protein and decent iron, especially organ meat such as kidney and liver.
Chicken and fish are also great, but be aware of mercury in fish, thanks to poluted waters, and go for the free-range chicken if you're concerned with antibiotics and other weird stuff in the bird.
Eggs are terrific.
Fruits with high nutritional value are great, such as bananas, grapefruit, tomatoes, avocado.
You -should- get -some- fats in your diet but keep it at a modest amount. There are already fats in meats, but nut oils will add some healthy nutrients that don't exist in animal fats. Fish oil is good in small doses as well.
Enjoy *some* fiber in the form of whole grains, including wheat, but keep it at a minimum. One serving spoon daily of brown rice, or couscous/bulghur wheat, etc.
Skip corn entirely. There's nothing in corn that's good for you. It's undigestible and mostly sugar and starch. Put that in the mailbox of the neighbor you can't stand, along with that extra sack of potatoes.
Dairy's good in small doses, as long as you're not lactose intolerant. If you are lactose intolerant, there are still dairy products your body -can- tolerate in small amounts, such as goat's milk and goat cheese. It's an excellent source of calcium so if you can find a type you can tolerate, have at least one serving (a couple of ounces of cheese for instance) every day.
Eat -mostly- vegetables and whole fruits. Nuts and legumes are a good source of protein, but meat is a better source of it and you need protein. So if you want to go light on the meat, you'll have to bulk up on the nuts and legumes.
Avoid processed anything but it won't kill you if you have a *small* slice of cheesecake once a month just cause it's delish.
And most importantly, make sure you exercise to burn off more calories than you are getting in your food.
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And I mean, Barrett refutes anything that is holistic. Sure, he's as much of an authority as you consider Mercola to be. 
