FOREWORD

NORA GEDGAUDAS , C.N.S., C.N.T.

My own passionate interest and background in nutritional science spans roughly thirty-five years, but it wasn’t until about twenty-one years ago that I came across an earlier incarnation of the book you now hold in your hands. From the moment I first picked it up off the shelf, I almost literally couldn’t put it down. Ron Schmid’s unique, exciting, and illuminating treatise on diet and health served as my introduction to the work of Weston Price, as well as the (duh!) concept of ancestral nutrition. I was instantly hooked. It’s as though nearly two decades of sorting through and attempting to piece nutritional information into a cohesive, foundational perspective suddenly came together with resounding, thundering clarity.

In short, I was gobsmacked and nothing has been the same ever since.

Drawing heavily from his dedicated research into traditional and ancestral diets, as well as his own extensive career as a naturopathic physician, Ron’s book opened my eyes to a completely different way of looking at the field of nutritional science. What I read in those pages sparked a whole new level of passion in me about the origins of human dietary requirements and optimization, which continues to burn brightly in me to this very day. In short, it changed my life and the trajectory of my career as a nutritional consultant (not to mention the lives of clients I have managed to influence in a positive fashion along the way). It also eventually led me to become the author of my own bestselling book, Primal Body, Primal Mind: Beyond the Paleo Diet for Total Health and a Longer Life. The rest, as they say, is history. I owe Ron a debt of gratitude for that.

Three years before I picked up Ron’s book for the first time, I had spent the summer living less than five hundred miles from the North Pole with a family of wild wolves. My purpose in the high Arctic was basically to perform behavioral research related to Canis lupus arctos—the Arctic wolf. While there, I was also able to freely indulge in my lifelong fascination with Inuit/Thule culture and history. Numerous archaeological sites—some thousands of years old—dotted the vast tundra like some forgotten dream. Many of the prehistoric sites at that time in this exceedingly remote and isolated location had yet to be studied or disturbed in any way. The “primal” nature of the landscape and terrain heralded back to the Ice Age permafrost-paved tundra of northern Europe during the great Cro-Magnon migrations there.

This Arctic environment captured my imagination and got me thinking in some new and somewhat startling ways. It was in this vast, remote, and distant place that I forged my first awareness of the primacy of dietary animal fat to our species, and realized how this blatantly conflicted with widespread assumptions universally promoted by mainstream authorities. When I picked up Ron’s book, those cogs in my head were already turning.

Although over time my own perspective on this vast and complex subject has diverged slightly from Ron’s, we clearly maintain some meaningful common ground. I respect him greatly, as well as the extraordinary integrity that he applies to his work as a researcher, medical practitioner, and a uniquely dedicated formulator of clean, effective, and unadulterated nutritional supplements that are in keeping with his philosophy.

To this very day, I know of no better introduction to the works of Weston Price, or a better and more thoughtful discourse on the subject of Neolithic and traditional diets, than this book that you hold in your hands. Ron meticulously weaves his own threads of research into a comprehensive and compelling tapestry that is as warm and accessible as it is practical in its application. In this new edition, Ron has also proven his own capacity to question foundational assumptions—including his own. With grace, respect, and a rare open-mindedness, Ron has renewed his perspective in a way seldom revisited by established experts in any field, and he continually expresses a willingness to see the evidence he has uncovered in new ways. To his credit, I have noted the very same in our own personal conversations and exchanges over the years.

May the newest and best incarnation of this book rock your world even a fraction as much as its earlier predecessor rocked mine.

NORA GEDGAUDAS, C.N.S., C.N.T., a widely recognized expert on what is popularly referred to as the “paleo diet,” is the author of the international bestselling book Primal Body, Primal Mind: Beyond the Paleo Diet for Total Health and a Longer Life as well as Rethinking Fatigue: What Your Adrenals Are Really Telling You and What You Can Do about It. She is also a highly successful experienced nutritional consultant, speaker, and educator, widely interviewed on national and international radio, popular podcasts, television, and film. Her own popular podcasts are widely listened to on iTunes and are available for free download, along with numerous articles and a location on the homepage, where anyone can subscribe to her newsletter. She maintains a private practice in Portland, Oregon, as both a board-certified nutritional consultant and a board-certified clinical neurofeedback specialist.