PREFACE

HEALING, HEALTH, AND WHOLENESS

In the mid-1980s I wrote the first edition of Traditional Foods Are Your Best Medicine, which was based on the belief that food was the essential element for healing to take place. That was how I began my own healing, and how I had helped many people recover from various diseases.

In Traditional Foods Are Your Best Medicine, I presented the details of my research on food and health, and my experience utilizing food as a healing agent. The research I had done up until that point was grounded in the work of Dr. Weston Price, the great dentist and anthropologist of the 1920s and 1930s who discovered fundamental laws of nature that indigenous cultures throughout the world had followed from time immemorial to ensure vibrant good health, the absence of disease, and the production of robust babies—generation after generation. The diet these indigenous people followed is referred to as a primal diet, which seeks to guide us to eat the way our ancestors did, with subsequent health benefits.

This book is the latest edition of Traditional Foods Are Your Best Medicine. We’ve changed the title to reflect the fact that Weston Price’s work demonstrates the principles that should be at the heart of every primal healing diet. Subsequent editions of Traditional Foods retained most of the information of the original, but I added certain of my conclusions and recommendations in light of new experiences. I rewrote sections of the book to reflect my growing awareness of the importance of—to put it most simply—that which may not be perceived by the five senses, nor by the most sophisticated scientific instruments.

I’ve also corrected errors that I had made in previous editions. My chief error was understating the critical importance of substantial quantities of quality animal fats in the diets of the native—primal, if you will—people that Dr. Price studied. This is the same error most people advocating and attempting to follow “paleo” diets are making today, and it is the same error that many healers and their patients make in utilizing what are called paleo and sometimes primal diets.

Despite this popular misconception, I remain convinced that animal food of a certain quality, as well as seafood, are needed in the diet to support optimal health. This belief is supported by overwhelming evidence from diverse fields—anthropology, biochemistry, clinical nutrition among them—and the experience of a multitude of healers besides Dr. Price. Additionally, I find it fascinating that the foods considered “sacred” in native cultures—that is, the foods considered to have spiritual qualities and to be absolutely essential for a culture’s people, the foods around which rituals and ceremonies evolved—to the best of my knowledge were mostly animal foods, (although occasionally corn and grains were included).

In some places, these sacred foods were also raw dairy products. What might the role of high-quality, grass-fed dairy food be in a primal diet today? For most people, these foods are a useful or even essential option in finding a path to health. And although primal diet advocates are generally more cognizant of the importance of high-quality fats derived from grass-fed animals, a thorough understanding of Price’s work is absolutely essential to really get this right. Thus, I have sought to show why a modern primal diet is best built upon a thorough understanding of the Weston Price principles.

Much of this book describes how Price discovered those principles in his studies of indigenous—primal—peoples; how other researchers—particularly physicians and anthropologists—confirmed and enlarged his work; and how my own clinical work utilizing those principles has enabled me to help thousands of patients heal from serious medical problems.

May you use this book wisely and well, and may it contribute to your own good health in the months and years ahead.