INTRODUCTION

PRIMAL DIETS, WESTON PRICE, AND HEALING

THE CURATIVE POWER OF NATURE

The human body has an inherent ability to heal. Think of a cut, or a broken bone. Given time, the cut heals, the bone mends. What accomplishes these small miracles?

Nature. Nature cures. This is the basis of lasting healing and lasting health.

The same intrinsic force that mends a broken bone can heal arthritis; in both cases, the body reacts to disturbances in its natural balance in a way that restores that natural balance. The bone is more easily repaired than is the arthritis, for trauma caused the bone to break suddenly—no deep-seated underlying problem must be corrected in order for healing to occur. Arthritis is not so simple because it develops primarily as a result of years of faulty dietary habits. And although the broken bone usually heals even with what may be somewhat faulty nutrition, to heal arthritis, the underlying conditions that cause it must be changed.

But for nature to cure, one must first understand what nature is—what is natural—and live by it. Even when this is comprehended, a problem remains: few modern people understand what constitutes a natural diet.

This is no surprise. A systematic investigation of the issue takes years of study; research in a broad range of related fields is necessary. Relentless and constant experimentation with one’s own diet is required. Clinical work adds valuable lessons based on professional experience. Other methods besides diet may be tried in attempts to enhance one’s health and alleviate disease, but one soon learns that no other approach to healing holds the curative power and potential that food does.

In the field of biology, Charles Darwin’s treatise on the evolution of life on Earth, On the Origin of Species, stands out as a classic. Darwin demonstrated that in nature there are no accidents; for every effect there is a cause. Darwin’s work made me wonder: Could human evolution have been shaped by the diet of early man, with the result being that modern man is best suited to a certain kind of diet? Humans today are genetically very much the same as our ancestors were in preagricultural times, thousands of years ago. Perhaps the best diet for modern man is the primal diet that we were genetically adapted to back then. What I call the “modern primal diet” consists of foods generally available today that affect us in the same way that primal foods thousands of years ago affected our preagricultural ancestors—who were free of our modern diseases, the so-called diseases of civilization.

That an individualized modern primal diet is the best diet for mankind today is a reasonable possibility. We may expect that for each person there may be variations, of course, depending on the individual’s biological and cultural history. But the same fundamental laws of human nutrition should apply to everyone.

These laws became clearer to me when I encountered a little-known but monumental work entitled Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, by Dr. Weston Price. Initially published in 1939, this work was based on Dr. Price’s lifetime of research studying the nutrition and health of traditional native cultures around the world. Dr. Price’s studies taught him the natural principles governing human nutrition and health. My studies and clinical experience have since confirmed for me the wisdom of Price’s observations and conclusions, which will be elucidated in this book.

REBUILDING YOUR BIRTHRIGHT OF GOOD HEALTH

Our genes and the structure of our enzymes have been passed down to us through thousands of generations. The building-block molecules of genes are identical in all living things. Biological laws unite all life-forms.

Laws of physics govern the movement of the planets, the changing of the seasons, the coming and going of the tides. Biological laws govern the ways in which the human body reacts to different foods. People once argued that Earth was flat, that blood did not circulate in the human body, that physicians need not wash their hands before assisting women in labor. Some now argue that our ills are not intimately connected with our food.

Illness weighs heavily, but those willing to give nature’s methods an honest try are making a step in the right direction. The body needs primal foods—foods in their natural state, as nature provides them—in order to function well. Most of these foods are readily available, although some shopping in special places—markets selling fresh high-quality vegetables and fruits, natural food stores, seafood markets, farms, and co-ops—may be needed.

By making an effort to incorporate elements of a natural diet into your lifestyle, you may begin to rebuild your birthright of good health. This is not an all-or-nothing proposition. A foundation of commitment allows you to make gradual changes and enhance your health at your own pace.

If you have intuitively turned to nutrition as a means to better health, if you want to understand how and why foods affect you, and if you want to learn more about the role of food in the human story, this book may become very important to you. Embracing its wisdom may lead you to increased health and happiness, two conditions that are not the same but that certainly support one another.

When we think of the physical aspects of health, we think of the body and the brain functioning well. Happiness may be thought of as more a matter of the human spirit, perhaps as a lasting sense of spiritual wholeness and fulfillment. Is it possible to live a long and healthy life, one free of the degenerative diseases plaguing modern people? And can health and happiness be found by following the appropriate diet? If so, how does one begin to alter one’s eating habits so that optimal health may be realized?

Dietary changes are best achieved gradually, as an understanding of food and your own needs deepen. Trying to change too much, too abruptly, may create physical and emotional difficulties. A reasonable middle course involves being flexible and realistic so that the new diet can ultimately take hold and work. A diet of simple whole foods becomes more palatable as one grows accustomed to it; eventually, one may lose all desire for the refined foods that once seemed irresistible. Changes in habits lead to changes in tastes and inclinations.

For people seeking to correct troubling conditions, the foundation of success is a commitment to personal growth. This commitment and a thorough understanding of our traditional foods may enable one to reach the simple but elusive goal of radiant and lasting health.

NATUROPATHIC MEDICINE AND THE “CAVE MAN DIET”

One of naturopathy’s founding principles comes from the writings of Hippocrates: “Let your food be your medicine, and your medicine be your food.” Given the proper conditions, the human body contains the power to heal itself. Making the right food choices helps set the stage for healing to occur.

Be that as it may, this orientation toward food as a source of healing has been somewhat eclipsed today, especially within the medical community. One reason is that the influence of pharmaceutical companies on medical-school curricula has made it difficult for medical students to learn the underlying causes of disease and the fundamental steps leading to health; the vast majority of present-day medical schools do not require courses in nutrition. Students learn to use drugs to alleviate symptoms and to perform surgery to remove diseased body parts, rather than learning to use a fundamental understanding of health as a basis for guiding people to natural recovery as is taught in naturopathic medical schools.

As an undergraduate I studied architecture at M.I.T., and several years after graduation I attended naturopathic medical school, from which I graduated in 1981. In my practice of medicine, I have worked with medical doctors as a staff nutritional consultant and independently as a naturopathic physician. A few words are in order here about the interwoven history of natural health care in America and naturopathic medicine.

Naturopathic medicine (pronounced NA-ture-oh-pathic) is a separate and distinct branch of the healing arts. From nineteenth-century European roots, the movement grew and became popular in America in the early part of the twentieth century. Most states then licensed naturopathic physicians, but under pressure from the American Medical Association, in the 1930s, state legislatures began repealing the licensing laws, limiting the practice to those already holding licenses. The influence of the medical monopoly that was subsequently established outlawed naturopathic medicine in most states.

But in recent years, new laws licensing the practice of naturopathic medicine have been passed, and naturopathic physicians now practice in over twenty states in America and most of the Canadian provinces. To become licensed, one must graduate from one of the naturopathic medical schools recognized by states granting licenses and pass the state licensing examination. Today there are four accredited naturopathic medical schools in this country: the National College of Natural Medicine in Portland, Oregon; John Bastyr University in Seattle, Washington; the Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine in Scottsdale, Arizona; and the College of Naturopathic Medicine at the University of Bridgeport in Bridgeport, Connecticut. All are four-year graduate programs granting the degree doctor of naturopathic medicine.

The training of naturopathic physicians is rigorous. The usual medical school core curriculum of anatomy, physiology, pathology, embryology, and various other sciences are studied intensively during the first two years. During the third and fourth years, students focus on natural therapeutics in a clinical setting.

Following my graduation from naturopathic medical school, I went to work at Mountainview Medical Associates, a large, alternative-medicine practice in my hometown of Nyack, New York. As mentioned earlier, I was greatly influenced in my work by the conclusions of Dr. Weston Price, which were derived from his lifetime of research studying the nutrition and health of traditional native cultures throughout the world.

The two medical doctors who were my colleagues in the medical practice in Nyack (David Schienken, deceased, and Michael Schachter, now at the Schachter Center for Complementary Medicine in Suffern, New York) used vitamin, mineral, and food supplements as part of their therapies, but they had no experience using the Weston Price dietary principles clinically. Indeed, they had not even heard of Weston Price. During my time at Mountainview I followed the precepts of Weston Price to successfully treat many patients. Witnessing this, my medical colleagues were rather amazed at the recoveries they saw, especially given the fact that many of these patients had been suffering from chronic diseases that were typically incurable.

Soon my colleagues were talking about “Ron Schmid’s Cave Man Diet,” and they asked me to write it up in a handout that they and other health-care professionals on the staff could use. I explained to them that because my healing protocol wasn’t based on one diet, but rather on a set of principles that could be used to help each individual find his or her own best traditional diet, I couldn’t write up the handout they were asking me for.

I used the word traditional to describe my approach because it evoked Price’s studies of traditional indigenous peoples from which his dietary principles emerged. But to my colleagues at Mountainview, it was the Cave Man Diet—meat, vegetables, fruit, and little else—and they imagined one size fit all comers.

Their prompting and support eventually led to the publication of the first edition of this book that you now hold in your hands. Published in 1987, it was entitled Traditional Foods Are Your Best Medicine. Others in the medical community were, at the time, working in this area of dietary research as well. They included Leon Chaitow who, also in 1987, published his book Stone Age Diet—and S. Boyd Eaton, M.D., and Melvin Konner, Ph.D., who in 1985 published the seminal article: “Paleolithic Nutrition” in the New England Journal of Medicine. My Cave Man Diet was going mainstream. Now, twenty-nine years later, we find ourselves presented with a myriad of paleo and primal diets.

Many popular paleo diets today, in general, make the same big mistake that the authors of the Paleolithic nutrition article referenced above (and I, originally) made in vastly underestimating the amount and importance of animal fat in Paleolithic diets. Medical treatises on the primal diet that I have studied by and large don’t make this error—they acknowledge the critical role of grass-fed animal foods in a diet designed to enhance one’s health. Specifically, these foods provide the quantities of fat-soluble activators—vitamins A, D, K₂, essential fatty acids, and associated nutrients—that are essential for resistance to disease, physical development, and optimal health to occur.

This book demonstrates that the world’s healthiest, strongest, and most disease-resistant cultures lived on whole, natural food—mostly seafood, wild game, or robust, well-exercised domestic animals, fresh wild or cultivated vegetables and fruits, and, for some cultures, properly prepared grains, as well as raw, unprocessed dairy products. How and why modern foods differ, the effects of those differences, and steps that may be taken to build health with superior foods will be explained in the following pages. The appendices contain additional, associated material for the interested reader.

THE ESSENCE OF HEALING

This book provides a roadmap to participating in one’s own health and well-being through proper nutrition, however, this is no substitute for a physician’s care if needed. Indeed, many doctors practicing medicine today are sympathetic to the idea that nature cures. That said, the greatest experts in health care often have not been physicians, but rather people possessed of a certain wisdom about the human body, a wisdom understood, lived, and taught to the next generation. Much of this book is about such wisdom.

This traditional wisdom can be researched, written down, and studied—yet it remains, paradoxically, beyond the reach of any book. References in this book provide evidence, but something outside of the proven must also play a role. Knowledge and understanding of health as part of the human condition may be grounded in observations, published information, and years of personal and clinical experience. Yet conclusions of lasting value must, when practiced, feel intuitively right; the body’s response is the final arbiter.

And although food as medicine is clearly the topic of this book, I have come to believe the essence of healing lies beyond food. Many people today may believe that they’re incapable of improving their diets and thus are reluctant to try. Only a reasonably healthy attitude toward life can support and maintain the discipline required to follow a healthy diet. Without this positive attitude—one that acknowledges that change is possible—most people are unable to maintain a new dietary regimen and instead are apt to slip back into faulty eating habits that exacerbate their medical conditions.

That said, I believe that healing begins and proceeds for each of us in a totally unique and mysterious way. Each of us may begin where it is easiest for us to make changes in our lives—whether that is in the physical, spiritual, or emotional realm. And although I have read cases where changes in emotional attitude and spiritual orientation have led to a dramatic recovery from a physical ailment or ailments, my experience with thousands of people tells me that, for the vast majority of individuals, it’s only by making consistent efforts in all areas simultaneously that true emotional, physical, and spiritual health may be reached.

Most of this book is about the relationship between food and physical healing, an area in which I have considerable experience and expertise. When I write about emotional and spiritual well-being, however, my words may only reflect how far I have traveled on this path in my own search for wholeness—no healer can take another to places he has not traveled himself. Natural foods have played an important role in my journey and in the journeys of many of my patients. My hope is that by sharing some of these journeys, I may help my readers in their efforts to understand the role that food plays in one’s path to wholeness.

EMOTIONAL, PHYSICAL, AND SPIRITUAL HEALTH

What do I mean by the emotional, physical, and spiritual health that constitutes wholeness?

Emotional health is more than, yet encompasses, what is generally referred to as mental health. It is a feeling of rightness about oneself and one’s place in the flow of life. It is the capacity to feel healthy and appropriate emotions in any situation and to take appropriate actions. It is the capacity to accept and give unconditional love to everyone in one’s life, within the framework of protective personal boundaries. It’s an ability to be truly intimate and to share one’s life with other human beings. It is loving and caring for oneself and others.

Physical health includes having a body and mind that function easily. Desires for a full life are strong, as is the ability to live a full life. No signs or symptoms of distress are present. There is a feeling of physical strength, endurance, and vigor, and a certain assumption that one’s body should and does function perfectly and effortlessly.

My definition of spiritual health has little to do with churchgoing and conventional religiosity, though one may find comfort, companionship, and guidance in a church or religion. For me, spiritual health is internalized and doesn’t depend upon belief in an external God who grants favors or rules our lives. Rather, spiritual health involves recognizing, awakening, and nourishing the spirit within—the universal Creative Energy, the Great Spirit—so that we may each light our own path. The healed soul shines from within.

Breaking free of physical and emotional addictions is, for many of us, the nuts-and-bolts work we must undertake in our quest to satisfy that drive of our soul to shine from within. Our dietary habits are integrally related and interwoven with our physical and emotional addictions and, as such, cannot be separated from considerations of spiritual growth and a sense of wholeness.

Each of us may choose to deal with a respective addiction as a first step of our growth. Some of us may be dependent upon alcohol, drugs, nicotine, caffeine, or other addictive substances, and choose to examine this. Others may choose to confront their blatantly addictive or more subtle behaviors involving food—or their inability to be emotionally intimate, wherein they exhibit isolationist or codependent behavior. Or they may exhibit sexually inappropriate behavior. Still others may deal successively with a whole host of addictive substances and behaviors.

Many of the things we take for granted—substances and behaviors that are a part of our everyday lives—can be used as painkillers, as ways to feel good temporarily while avoiding real growth and a search for wholeness. At some point, as we strip away the layers of our addictions, we find that we must deal with food. As we become more capable of making choices about the food we eat, as we seek to consciously eat in a healthy manner, many questions arise.

This book seeks to answer those questions and to provide a blueprint to the nutritional aspects of healing. It seeks, furthermore, to provide a notion of the integral role which that blueprint must play in a journey to wholeness. This guide of sorts is very different from any you may have seen elsewhere, for it’s based on biological laws discovered—not by modern scientists—but rather by native cultures the world over.