quote:For all the pork pies and clotted cream the English are reputed to consume, they still face less risk of diabetes and heart disease than their US counterparts, a new study shows...
...The analysis also suggests that while about 6.1% of adults in England suffer from diabetes, the illness affects 12.5% of US adults.
...While Americans have higher rates of cancer, they are less like to die from it than the English.
Before you get all huffy, I post this because not only is it interesting I think it is important to see. We North Americans have a problem. There are thousands of people getting sick every year who did not need to.
I must add that my defense of English food comes back here, since people often make derogatory comments about how disgusting it is. All I can say is that it seems they're doing something right .
Also: Clearly it's better to live in England and get healthcare in America .
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
It ain't the food. Due to overuse of the automobile -- and the financial ability of most Americans to own one, which didn't occur in the rest of the FirstWorld until after 1975 due to the long recovery from WWII -- Americans are FAR more exposed to the health hazards presented by ultrafine particulates and nanoparticles. All that rubber* being ground off of car tires on the roads&highways hasta end up someplace. And often that place is in people's lungs, from where nanoparticles are small enough to be absorbed into the bloodstream for transport to other body tissue.
* There are other sources of ultrafines and nanoparticles, just giving the most egregious example.
[ May 03, 2006, 12:49 PM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:Also: Clearly it's better to live in England and get healthcare in America
Only if you only care about health and not the actual taste of your food. Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
quote:Originally posted by Teshi: Also: Clearly it's better to live in England and get healthcare in America .
Oddly enough, that may not be true on average.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
Dr. Weston Price, as well as a number of researchers, found again and again in groups all over the world that cancer and heart disease, etc., were rampant in individuals and families who abandoned their traditional diets, and completely unknown in people who stayed with their traditional diets. I myself feel a great deal better when i stick with better-quality foods, specifically, my teeth are not nearly as sensitive.
All the groups Price studied said that fatty organs and body parts, as well as shellfish and fish eggs, were the single best foods you could eat. A number of tribes in East Africa eat almost nothing but meat, milk, and blood, and have perfect teeth, no cancer, etc. The amount of saturated fat in their diet approaches 80% of total calories in some cases.
The nutrient density of what you eat may be an important factor. The groups Dr. Price studied all had a minimum of 10 times the Vitamins A, D, and E in their diets, plus up to 9 times the calcium and 29 times the magnesium, as well as much higher amounts of other minerals, versus the Standard American Diet of the time.
Posted by Primal Curve (Member # 3587) on :
Steven's Dr. Price has been successfully shown as a fraud on this website. Pay no heed to steven's claims to the contrary.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
Hatrackers have a real hate of the truth. Not that they are dumb, or ignorant, or uneducated--but there's something sick going on here.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Yeah, all those pesky doctors and other people who understand what an epidemiological study is and why Dr. Price's "study" isn't one just hate the truth. That's it.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
Hey genius, did you forget about the controlled study that Dr. Francis Pottenger did?
Dag is proving the truth of my 2nd post.
Don't make me list the dozens of MDs who sit on the boards of the Weston Price Foundation or the Price-Pottenger foundation.
The facts are simple:
1. Refined sugar and grains have nearly all their minerals removed. Grain milling removes only the outside of the grain. The outside of the grain has 85% of the mineral content. The process of making white sugar removes literally all of the minerals.
2. Your bones and teeth are made of the exact same minerals that are removed in refining.
How is it such a leap to look at all the crooked teeth and disease around us, Dr. Pottenger's study, Price's book, and the 2 facts above, and decide that Price's conclusions were wrong?
Here's a suggestion--go buy two puppies from the same litter who look and act very similar. Feed one a diet of raw shellfish, raw organ meats from healhty animals, raw milk from healthy animals, butter oil, fish eggs, etc. Feed the other nothing but white flour, white sugar, and any other crap you can think of. Treat them both same in every way, otherwise.
See which one has a more symmetrical skeleton and better teeth formation. see which one lives longer.
Or, for quicker results, use mice.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
And there is something sick going on here.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Hey genius, did you forget about the controlled study that Dr. Francis Pottenger did?
You're right. It is fairly sick to accuse those who disagree with you about scientific methods and results of being sick and to say that they hate the truth.
quote:Don't make me list the dozens of MDs who sit on the boards of the Weston Price Foundation or the Price-Pottenger foundation.
Please do. Because their web sites list 9 and 7 respectively. Not that "dozens" would actually lend it any more credibility. I can find dozens of MDs who say vegan diets are healthier. I can find dozens who say Atkin's is healthier.
quote:How is it such a leap to look at all the crooked teeth and disease around us, Dr. Pottenger's study, Price's book, and the 2 facts above, and decide that Price's conclusions were wrong?
It's not a leap to conclude that Price's conclusions were not scientifically probable based on that. It is a leap to decide that Price's conclusions were right based solely on that evidence.
Posted by Sopwith (Member # 4640) on :
I still think that quite a bit of the blame can go towards the American diet being so heavy in ultra-processed foods. High-fructose corn syrups, modified food starches and hydrogolized fats to name a few of the usual suspects.
Basically, in my opinion, these are kind of like super foods -- high test versions of the fuel we are meant to run on. All push the caloric levels of a food item by weight past the original version of it; for the same volume of food, there's a far greater number of calories in the "modern" processed stuff.
Not to mention the idea that the natural fats and sugars seem to be handled much better by the human body. For a long time, though, they tried to say that margarine was better for you than butter. We're finding that's just not the case.
And is high fructose corn syrup better for you than cane sugar? I don't know. I do know that cane sugar sodas really, really do taste better than their corn syrup counterparts.
Posted by Eldrad (Member # 8578) on :
I'm always wary of anything that comes out of New Scientist; they seem to be given to reporting 'outrageous' stories and exaggeration. One fairly recent article, for example, said that billions of people may die from bird flu.
aspectre, another reason why Americans overuse the automobile is because we don't have a good public transportation infrastructure; large companies like GM bought them out just after the turn of the century to make way for themselves, and since there hasn't been a crisis so terrible that we've been forced to create one anew, we haven't.
Posted by JonnyNotSoBravo (Member # 5715) on :
Thanks for that link, twinky! It is teh awesome!!!111111!1!1
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
Hatrack is not as special as it thinks it is.
Here's how the future will play out--eventually in a few years Dr. Price's work will become old hat here. It will be discussed, accepted, studied, practiced, and eventually boring, simply because Price didn't have the tech to take his questions to a higher level. He knew that crappy food caused crooked teeth, narrow skeletons, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and was an associating factor in most birth defects including Down's syndrome. However, he did not know the whys as well as we will in 10 or 12 years.
Proof that Hatrack isn't full of Enders of all ages? I got laughed off the boards when I brought up Price's work. There's nothing special about this message board if a music major can run circles around the entire message board in a discussion of nutrition.
You won't be laughing about Price's work in 12 years. You'll have moved beyond it, just like we moved beyond Newton's three laws.
It's already happening. Dag is already clearly closer than he was 6 months ago to admitting that Price's work COULD be right. Where will his head be on this subject in 3 years, or 8, or 10?
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:There's nothing special about this message board if a music major can run circles around the entire message board in a discussion of nutrition.
If you think you "ran circles" around ANYBODY in those discussions then you are clearly using that phrase in a manner which I've never encountered before. Most people don't use that phrase to mean "repeated the same thing over and over and mocked people who wanted to see an epidemiological study."
Posted by Bob the Lawyer (Member # 3278) on :
Isn't Myr the one who usually runs around in circles?
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
I'll pay anybody on this board $50 to read Dr. Price's book. You'll have to argue for or against it after reading it in a series of essay questions that I give. 3-5 questions, 250-400 words.
The issue is not, "does crappy food cause crooked teeth, and other skeletal deformities, cancer, heart disease, and diabetes?" The answer to that question is largely yes, althought other, smaller factors come in, like lifestyle and air quality.
The issue is, why? At least, that's where my head is at this point.
I'll also be the 1st to admit Price didn't do a thorough job. He failed when he missed the fact that yeasted bread is of noticeable poorer nutritional value that naturally leavened bread. That was mainly his own mistake; another, larger mistake, was simply the ignorance of the time. Nobody even knew that trace minerals had any role in nutrition in 1939. His mineral list included only 5--magnesium, calcium, phosphorus, potassium, and iron. That's almost laughably short compared with the dozens of minerals we actually need for good health.
Posted by Eldrad (Member # 8578) on :
quote:Originally posted by steven: Hatrack is not as special as it thinks it is.
Here's how the future will play out--eventually in a few years Dr. Price's work will become old hat here. It will be discussed, accepted, studied, practiced, and eventually boring, simply because Price didn't have the tech to take his questions to a higher level. He knew that crappy food caused crooked teeth, narrow skeletons, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and was an associating factor in most birth defects including Down's syndrome. However, he did not know the whys as well as we will in 10 or 12 years.
Proof that Hatrack isn't full of Enders of all ages? I got laughed off the boards when I brought up Price's work. There's nothing special about this message board if a music major can run circles around the entire message board in a discussion of nutrition.
You won't be laughing about Price's work in 12 years. You'll have moved beyond it, just like we moved beyond Newton's three laws.
It's already happening. Dag is already clearly closer than he was 6 months ago to admitting that Price's work COULD be right. Where will his head be on this subject in 3 years, or 8, or 10?
First of all, I don't believe many (if any at all) people pretend to be 'Enders' on this board. Sure, there are intelligent people on here, but I don't think the people here believe they're leaps and bounds above everyone else.
You, however, are starting to come off as if you believe that since you 'run circles' around us all, as if your area of study should be a limiting factor in what you know of other topics. You're on a slippery, pretentious slope and falling fast because you're obstinately holding onto an opinion not shared by the majority and treating your opinion as a prophecy of the future because you refuse to consider any other viewpoint.
You're not even presenting any proof to convince people. Your argument consists of, 'Here's how it's going to be in a decade because I see it that way, insert ad hominem argument against the entire Hatrack community here, and that is why I am right.' If you're trying to convince the rest of us of the validity of what you're saying, you're not doing a good job of it.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
All right, fifty free dollars, why not? Send me a PM and I'll mail you back my address.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
Eldrad, you don't even know 1/10th of the history of the discussion, am I right? You weren't here last June, July, or August, which is when it ALLLL went down. I deleted most of the threads, but if you're really curious, I think scottneb has copies somewhere.
King of Men, your PM is coming.
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
quote:Originally posted by JonnyNotSoBravo: Thanks for that link, twinky! It is teh awesome!!!111111!1!1
I don't think you're being sarcastic, but I can't tell for sure. Anyway, you're welcome. I found it pretty surprising, myself, and will be curious to see if the finding is supported by any future research in the area.
Posted by Primal Curve (Member # 3587) on :
Steven... of the straight teeeeeeth. And the book of oleaginous fooooooooood.
Why does he have such a sweet grill. Where is the book of oleaginous foooooooood?
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
We are not getting sicker. Science is just naming and diagnosing things we never knew were problems before.
Posted by Eldrad (Member # 8578) on :
quote:Originally posted by steven: Eldrad, you don't even know 1/10th of the history of the discussion, am I right? You weren't here last June, July, or August, which is when it ALLLL went down. I deleted most of the threads, but if you're really curious, I think scottneb has copies somewhere.
King of Men, your PM is coming.
Suppose for a moment that I am unfamiliar with the history of it. There is nothing in my post which relies on prior knowledge of the discussion, so your point is moot. You were coming as if your opinion were somehow better and more intelligent than the rest of Hatrack's without presenting anything to back it up other than ad hominem arguments against Hatrack in general, and that was the point I was making.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
It would seem that
quote:...the United States has the second worst newborn mortality rate in the developed world... American babies are three times more likely to die in their first month as children born in Japan... Only Latvia...has a higher death rate for newborns than the United States... "The United States has more neonatologists and neonatal intensive care beds per person than Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom..."
should raise a strong suspicion that Americans are also starting off life less healthy due to environmental factors.
[ May 10, 2006, 08:07 AM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
Posted by Squid Martigan (Member # 9276) on :
Steven-- I accept your $50 book read/essay-question trade. I could definitely use the money, and I'd rather my analysis/scientific discernment skills don't get rusty. Send me a private message and I'll send you my address.
Posted by Choobak (Member # 7083) on :
I would add i prefer my french cook than your english or american way of cooking.
Have a nice diner !
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
I emailed KoM 2 days ago. still no response. Squid, your profile doesn't allow PMs. Email me at the email addy in my profile.
Posted by Primal Curve (Member # 3587) on :
Choobak has a french cook?!
<jealous>
Posted by BaoQingTian (Member # 8775) on :
Since Choobak is French, that tidbit of information shouldn't be too surprising Posted by erosomniac (Member # 6834) on :
quote:Since Choobak is French, that tidbit of information shouldn't be too surprising [Wink]
Err...I'd like a cook, French or otherwise.
My plan is to marry one. Inevitably, though, I'll end up being the cook in the relationship. *sigh*
Posted by JonnyNotSoBravo (Member # 5715) on :
quote:Originally posted by twinky:
quote:Originally posted by JonnyNotSoBravo: Thanks for that link, twinky! It is teh awesome!!!111111!1!1
I don't think you're being sarcastic, but I can't tell for sure. Anyway, you're welcome. I found it pretty surprising, myself, and will be curious to see if the finding is supported by any future research in the area.
Heh. I wasn't being sarcastic. I was excited about it in a nerdy way, hence the "teh awesome!!!111111!1!1" I found it surprising myself as well, yet apparently other people in my house were acting like it's something they've talked about for months and months.
Posted by JonnyNotSoBravo (Member # 5715) on :
quote:Originally posted by aspectre: It would seem that
quote:...the United States has the second worst newborn mortality rate in the developed world... American babies are three times more likely to die in their first month as children born in Japan... Only Latvia...has a higher death rate for newborns than the United States... "The United States has more neonatologists and neonatal intensive care beds per person than Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom..."
should raise a strong suspicion that Americans are also starting off life less healthy due to environmental factors.
Since the mothers that give birth to Americans overwhelmingly are Americans, who have more health problems, it should come as no surprise that their babies, which are directly affected by the mother's health, would have a higher mortality rate. I'm not sure you could jump to environmental factors as the cause here.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Yeah, yeah, steven, I'll get around to you. I'm not feeling too good at the moment. Microclusters, probably.
Posted by Brian J. Hill (Member # 5346) on :
I can't speak for Choobak, but I'm guessing that when he said "french cook" he meant his French way of cooking, not that he has a personal cook. The French word "cuisine" means "way of cooking" in French but translates to "cook" in English.
Posted by Choobak (Member # 7083) on :
All right Brian, that i would say.
But it's a fact that my father is a french cook
So I have received some gift for cooking...
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
quote:Dr. Weston Price, as well as a number of researchers, found again and again in groups all over the world that cancer and heart disease, etc., were rampant in individuals and families who abandoned their traditional diets, and completely unknown in people who stayed with their traditional diets. I myself feel a great deal better when i stick with better-quality foods, specifically, my teeth are not nearly as sensitive.
Are you sure you're not a scientologist, steven? This has a very Cruisian ring to it.
YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND THE HISTORY OF TEETH! DR. PRICE AND I DO!
And for those who weren't around for the fiasko that he's referring to, he deleted the threads because his hero was being widely discredited for a staggeringly poor understanding of the scientific method.
Posted by Primal Curve (Member # 3587) on :
quote:Originally posted by BaoQingTian: Since Choobak is French, that tidbit of information shouldn't be too surprising
Thanks for the help, Captain Obvious.
quote:Originally posted by Brian J. Hill:I can't speak for Choobak, but I'm guessing that when he said "french cook" he meant his French way of cooking, not that he has a personal cook. The French word "cuisine" means "way of cooking" in French but translates to "cook" in English.
Wow. Thanks. I really needed help in understanding that. I guess I'm just a little slow in understanding these things. Please, feel free to point out all of the blatantly obvious things I misinterpret in the future.
I don't know what I'd do without you.
This place is seriously lacking in the funny.
Posted by Choobak (Member # 7083) on :
No excuse Primal Curve ! My appologies for my so bad english ! Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
My list of detractors shrinks and shrinks. I've got what, 4 left?
If I had any idea how it feels to have someone younger, with less reading and experience in a subject area, to treat you like I have been treated on Dr. Price's work here....when I was about ages 12-25, I would not have torn into older, more experienced folks the way I did. It hurts. Spang's coments hurt, and so do Primal Curve's, although I don't think Curve will ever treat me like a human being no matter what, so...
Yes I do want to be treated like a human being, but not at the expense of basic common sense.
The only totally straight-toothed group of humans I've ever found that weren't all related to each other are the Guaymi Indianos on the reservation in Costa Rica, at the end of the road where you have to hike 3 hours theough mountainous jungle just to get there. They also had the widest ribcages I've ever seen on humans.
after reading Dr. Price's book, it's pretty easy to put that together with what he says ands conclude that a diet that lacks the minerals that build your bones and teeth is going to probably cause crappy bones and teeth. As far as the cancer stuff goes, you don't have to believe it if you don't want to.
Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
Just so you know, I believe some of your detractors are keeping quiet so as to avoid dog-piling you too badly. If you're counting, you can add me to the list as well.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:when I was about ages 12-25, I would not have torn into older, more experienced folks the way I did.
1.) Ah, you must be talking about other people than the ones who attempted to discuss this with you last time, because that age range is low (quite low, for some) for most of the people involved.
2.) You have no basis for saying you are more experienced. You might be. I don't know. But I do know that you don't know enough about others' experiences to make that claim with any certainty.
3.) What's your reason for bringing up age? Does that actually matter to this discussion?
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:after reading Dr. Price's book, it's pretty easy to put that together with what he says ands conclude that a diet that lacks the minerals that build your bones and teeth is going to probably cause crappy bones and teeth.
BTW, the single biggest point of contention with your statements was the one that linked straight teeth with general health. I have no doubt that people who eat the minerals necessary for better teeth will have better teeth. It's the huge leaps beyond that many people question. The problem in the discussions occurred when you decided that requests for evidence for the contention that "straight teeth = general health" were somehow unfair attacks on you.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
Dag, thanks for your careful consideration. When I brought up age, I was specifically noticing that you, the oldest person on the thread, are also the most respectful toward me. I know Primal is 24, and I guess Spang is about 24 or 25 too. ElJay is, I would guess, about jerkty-three.
here's what you said:
"BTW, the single biggest point of contention with your statements was the one that linked straight teeth with general health. I have no doubt that people who eat the minerals necessary for better teeth will have better teeth. It's the huge leaps beyond that many people question. The problem in the discussions occurred when you decided that requests for evidence for the contention that "straight teeth = general health" were somehow unfair attacks on you."
Well, we have a bit of confusion. I thought everyone was trying to say that crooked teeth were genetic. Any fool who looks at Dr. Pottenger's work knows better. I was at a loss to explain why so many smart people couldn't see that simple fact. Personally, Dag, I think a lot of the younger folks are still not convinced that crooked teeth are the result of a diet that lacks mineral availability.
Speaking to the other question, I admit that heart disease and cancer have a genetic component. But I will also say that a WAP (that's short for "Weston A. Price") diet, assuming uncontaminated and mineral-rich animal products are used, will not only halt but reverse most of the effects of cancer, heart disease, tooth decay, and diabetes pretty much 100% of the time. If you don't think diet has a HUGE effect on health, look at Dr. Pottenger's work. The difference in cats fed raw meat versus cooked is at least slightly shocking to me. Pottenger didn't lie, he wasn't a Satanist, he wasn't Illuminati, or any other nonsense. He happened upon this pretty much by accident, while studying adrenal gland secretions. He is still largely ignored, but he wasn't wrong.
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
quote:If I had any idea how it feels to have someone younger, with less reading and experience in a subject area, to treat you like I have been treated on Dr. Price's work here....when I was about ages 12-25, I would not have torn into older, more experienced folks the way I did.
This sentence doesn't make a lick of sense. I think you've misplaced some pronouns. And there's no reason that an older, more experienced person can't be wrong. Although I'm surprised to find out that you're older than me (I'm assuming you are older than the age range given, which would make you older than me); as numerous people have mentioned, all you have to go by in an online forum is words. Age can be pretty difficult to discern.
If I were to judge your age by your words and tone, I'd guess you were a pretty sharp 14 year old. Or a really slow 35 year old. Or somewhere in between.
quote:But I will also say that a WAP (that's short for "Weston A. Price") diet, assuming uncontaminated and mineral-rich animal products are used, will not only halt but reverse most of the effects of cancer, heart disease, tooth decay, and diabetes pretty much 100% of the time.
Sentences like this one are what leads people to conclude that you have no idea what you're talking about.
Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
Thirty-creep, actually, steven. How old are you?
Posted by Primal Curve (Member # 3587) on :
quote:Originally posted by steven: I know Primal is 24
I'm 25.
This proves, beyond any doubtthatcouldbepossiblythoughtupbyareasonableperson, that you know absolutely nothing about anything.
Don't try to argue with me. I know I'm right and that's all that matters. It's just a simple point of logic.
You say that you "know" things are right because you are amazing and all-mighty. You "know" that all of your conclusions are scientific and infallable. You also "know" that I am 24, but I have proven that I am not.
Therefore, you "know" nothing.
HA!
Posted by BaoQingTian (Member # 8775) on :
I haven't read Dr. Price's book, nor was I around for your discussion steven. But from what I've seen here I don't see what steven is proposing that is so radical. Body builders, some of the people who take nutrition more serious than most, won't touch any of the stuff that steven listed as being bad for you, whether they are cutting or bulking.
Posted by Primal Curve (Member # 3587) on :
I don't know a lot of bodybuilders who eat the raw organs of animals to bulk up.
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
No one is denying nor ever denied that some of the things steven said were bad for you are, in fact, bad for you.
A lot of people are vehemently denying statements like, "Eating animal products will reverse the effects of cancer."
Even more people are rejecting the manner in which Dr. Price reached his conclusions.
Posted by BaoQingTian (Member # 8775) on :
Hehe...sorry. I shouldn't have come in halfway. I did miss the part about raw body organs Primal. Nothin like a raw spleen on whole wheat Posted by kwsni (Member # 1831) on :
Steven, the first rule of hatrack is someone will always know more than you on any given subject. Once you realize that, it might be easier for us to have a real discussion about this with you.
Ni!
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
I encourage you to study the issues for yourselves. Or, simply get heart disease and cancer, and die from those diseases. or, you could hang out somewhere in the middle and have crappy health for 40 or 50 years.
I'll be the 1st to admit that strong, dense bones and straight teeth are no protection from smallpox, Ebola, anthrax, etc., or car wrecks, suicide bombers, etc. Tens of millions of Native Americans died from infectious diseases brought from Europe, and they had good bone structure and teeth from good diets.
I'm not going to b.s. around anymore. half the reason I keep talking about this stuff is because of a product Dr. Price came up with called butter oil. he centrifuged extremely high-quality raw butter to get an oil that he used to heal people's cavities. It sounded a little odd to me, but since I have had tooth sensitivity issues for years, I decided to try it. A couple in Nebraska started producing it (noone made it for about 50 years after Dr. Price died) about 5 years ago. I have eaten probably close to a gallon of it over the last 8 months or so, and every time my teeth get sore, I eat 2-3 ounces of butter oil in the morning, and the soreness is gone by the afternoon. Whether or not you think Price was right about organ meats, shellfish, and fish eggs, to me, sore teeth going away in a few hours just from an oil is pretty interesting.
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
quote:Or, simply get heart disease and cancer, and die from those diseases. or, you could hang out somewhere in the middle and have crappy health for 40 or 50 years.
quote:every time my teeth get sore, I eat 2-3 ounces of butter oil in the morning
You know, it might not just be us with heart disease. Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
twinky--you're joking, right? Because I know you didn't just implicate high-quality raw dairy in small doses in heart disease. Bear in mind that plenty of eskimo tribes have, for God only knows how long, survived well into old age on almost nothing but blubber, fish, and meat. Witness also the excellent health of East African tribes that eat almost nothing but meat, milk, and blood.
Posted by narrativium (Member # 3230) on :
quote:Originally posted by steven: Whether or not you think Price was right about organ meats, shellfish, and fish eggs, to me, sore teeth going away in a few hours just from an oil is pretty interesting.
You know, it's funny. Occasionally, I get sore teeth as well, and it usually goes away in a couple of hours or less without me doing anything. I find that pretty (un)interesting.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
My teeth were sore daily for years. Since adding butter oil to my diet, they almost never get sore. Butter oil doesn't actually work as fast as virgin coconut oil or fresh coconut grown on rich soil, in my personal experience, but the combination of the two is better than either one alone. Price believed in the combination of cod liver oil and butter oil, but I prefer oysters, shrimp, and dried fish roe to cod liver oil. The cod oil goes rancid easily, and can cause depression and liver and kidney problems if overdosed.
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
quote:Originally posted by steven: twinky--you're joking, right? Because I know you didn't just implicate high-quality raw dairy in small doses in heart disease.
I was mostly joking, but the connection between fat, cholesterol, and heart problems is certainly worth keeping in mind when you're talking about multiple ounces of butter on a daily basis.
quote:Bear in mind that plenty of eskimo tribes have, for God only knows how long, survived well into old age on almost nothing but blubber, fish, and meat. Witness also the excellent health of East African tribes that eat almost nothing but meat, milk, and blood.
This is meaningless. They have fundamentally different lifestyles than we do -- "we" being comparatively sedentary North Americans. Unless you (or Dr. Price) can control statistically for this, it's much more difficult to draw conclusions from it than you're suggesting.
If I ate nothing but meat and blubber while maintaining my current lifestyle, I wouldn't expect to live a very healthy life.
Added: It's also worth noting that "well into old age" is relative. You would need to look at the average life expectancy. Collecting such data retroactively (e.g. excavating skeletons and attempting to determine the age of death, then generalizing your findings to the population) is possible, of course, but it needs to be taken with some caveats.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
What twinky said.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
Price found plenty of people in their 60's and beyond who ate plenty of animal products.
I'm only going to say this once--it's not just the food, it's the quality. The difference between grain-fed cows whose livers were 3 days from shutting down due to inappropriate diet and cows who graze all their lives on fresh grass is pretty huge. You can expect there to be similar differences in health and longevity between person A who eats the sick cow and person B, who eats the healthy cow. There's a big difference between muscle meat and organ meat, as well.
Until the 1920's big cats rarely reproduced well in captivity. They either couldn't get pregnant, or their children were too sick to reproduce. Zoos all over the US had to import new lions and tigers all the time.
Then, one day, a scientist traveling in Africa happened to catch a lion taking down its prey. The lion went, as they usually do, for the guts and the liver first. Yummy yummy for the lion. The rest is history, big cats no longer have to be imported to US zoos. They are fed organ meats as a rule, and they reproduce just fine.
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
quote:Price found plenty of people in their 60's and beyond who ate plenty of animal products.
"Plenty of people" is still relative. What were the average life expectancies of the populations? Did he attempt to estimate them? "Plenty of people" in the Western world live into their 70s, 80s, and even 90s. Taken alone, that doesn't mean we have long (or longer) lifespans; you have to look at the average in a population.
Aside from that, you didn't really address anything I said, because nothing in your post in any way contradicts anything I wrote. If it was intended as a rebuttal, as it seems to have been from your tone, it doesn't rebut my post.
Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
quote:Originally posted by steven: The rest is history, big cats no longer have to be imported to US zoos. They are fed organ meats as a rule, and they reproduce just fine.
As a rule, actually, they aren't. Here's a website talking about the nutritional needs of large cats in captivity. Regular meat meets most of their needs, but they need added calcium either from suppliments or chewing on bones, and added vitamin A.
At the Minnesota Zoo, the tigers are fed horse meat with vitamins and minerals added.
The San Diego Zoo feeds their lions a ground meat diet made for carnivores, as well as an occasional large bone, thawed rabbit, or sheep carcass.
Couldn't find a single site that mentioned feeding big cats organ meats. Care to back up your statement?
Posted by Primal Curve (Member # 3587) on :
steven, you're blinding me with science!
Posted by kwsni (Member # 1831) on :
steven, cats are NOT people.
Edit: Also, reproduction is a very delicate thing. It doesn't just depend on diet, but a ton of other things like age, hormonal balances, viability of the sperm, condition of the uterus, etc. Unless you can prove these things were all accounted for, I don't buy it.
Ni!
[ May 15, 2006, 11:00 PM: Message edited by: kwsni ]
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Dr. Weston Price found his way to Quackwatch, it seems.
quote:a dentist who maintained that sugar causes not only tooth decay but physical, mental, moral, and social decay as well. Price made a whirlwind tour of primitive areas, examined the natives superficially, and jumped to simplistic conclusions. While extolling their health, he ignored their short life expectancy and high rates of infant mortality, endemic diseases, and malnutrition. While praising their diets for not producing cavities, he ignored the fact that malnourished people don't usually get many cavities.
quote:Price also performed poorly designed studies that led him to conclude that teeth treated with root canal therapy leaked bacteria or bacterial toxins into the body, causing arthritis and many other diseases. This "focal infection" theory led to needless extraction of millions of endodontically treated teeth until well-designed studies, conducted during the 1930s, demonstrated that the theory was not valid.
Melvin Page, D.D.S., one of Price's disciples, coined the phrase "balancing body chemistry" and considered tooth decay an "outstanding example of systemic chemical imbalances." Page ran afoul of the Federal Trade Commission by marketing a mineral supplement with false claims that widespread mineral deficiencies were an underlying cause of goiter, heart trouble, tuberculosis, diabetes, anemia, high and low blood pressure, hardening of the arteries, rheumatism, neuritis, arthritis, kidney and bladder trouble, frequent colds, nervousness, constipation, acidosis, pyorrhea, overweight, underweight, cataracts, and cancer. Page also claimed that milk was "unnatural" and was the underlying cause of colds, sinus infections, colitis, and cancer.
The guy really doesn't seem like his 'findings' need to be taken seriously at all. I'll bet I could find more young earth creation scientists than I could find of the holistic dentistry persuasion.
On the subject of American/English health thing, I'm pretty sure that quality of health care factors in, somewhat. For all the ribbing that the brits tend to take, they have better teeth than Americans, on average.
They've universal dental coverage to blame for that.
[ May 16, 2006, 02:16 AM: Message edited by: Samprimary ]
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
I just think it's funny that, in the face of these three simple facts
FACT--Every group Dr. Price studied mentioned shellfish, fish eggs, and organ meats as the best foods for two things, 1. health, and 2. reproduction
FACT--African tribes all over the continent would travel hundreds of miles on foot to trade for shrimp, no other reason, and
FACT--Peruvians and Ecuadorians from the Andes would travel hundreds of miles on foot for dried fish glands from the ocean, for the specific purpose of feeding to women to ensure that their babies would be born healthy
you still don't get it.
$50 is still on the line. What do I have to do, increase the amount? $100? $150? What's it take?
How about this--we ask the great man, Unca Orson himself, to read the book, hear all sides, and decide. What will convince you? Whose opinion will you accept? If not our esteemed old dude, OSC himself, then who or what?
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
While I respect OSC as a writer of fiction, I would not trust him to decide whether the sky is blue. The man grinds enough axes to supply a berserker convention.
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
The same standards that all other research purporting to be scientific is held to: peer-reviewed scientific journals. Price's work was measured by that standard and found wanting.
From your posts (and yes, I read your earlier threads when they were current), it seems to me that you've read his book, been convinced in a very epiphany-like manner, and now wilfully ignore all evidence that might contradict any aspect of Price's work.
Aside from that, your three "FACTs," even if they are true exactly as you stated them, are completely meaningless for drawing conclusions about what constitutes a healthy diet. These groups mentioned certain foods as being healthy, and indeed went to great lengths to obtain them. Curiously, members of these groups also had comparatively low life expectancies. Should we infer, then, that shellfish are bad for you? Of course not! That would be completely unscientific. [Added: To make it abundantly clear, those groups didn't have antibiotics, clean drinking water, and numerous other contributors to long lifespans.] Dr. Price's reasoning and your own are flawed in exactly the same way: you're drawing conclusions from perceived correlations (even if the correlations are there at all, which isn't clear) without controlling for other factors.
Rather than us reading Dr. Price's book and doing your work for you, why don't you read some of the 70+ years of research that has come since Price?
Added: I can't speak for others, but I don't need Dr. Price, even if he was right about everything, to tell me that the North American diet is generally not healthy. It probably wasn't healthy at the turn of the 20th century and it certainly isn't healthy now. So there was nothing revolutionary about his work at the time and that is still the case today. Where you diverge from me is when you (and Price) start claiming causal relationships where none have been shown to exist. Price's work certainly didn't show them because Price's work was poor, non-rigorous science that did not stand up to the scrutiny of the scientific community.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by steven: [QB] I just think it's funny that, in the face of these three simple facts
FACT--Every group Dr. Price studied mentioned shellfish, fish eggs, and organ meats as the best foods for two things, 1. health, and 2. reproduction
FACT--African tribes all over the continent would travel hundreds of miles on foot to trade for shrimp, no other reason, and
FACT--Peruvians and Ecuadorians from the Andes would travel hundreds of miles on foot for dried fish glands from the ocean, for the specific purpose of feeding to women to ensure that their babies would be born healthy
you still don't get it.
The missing juncture is the point where a traditional practice is equivalent to a scientifically verifiable health benefit that is superior to what is available now.
Chinese traditional medicinists will use powdered horn ivory and tiger penises as cure-alls for health and sexual vigour. That it is a traditional practice that can be observed will not make the jump from observation to conclusive benefit. For instance, powdered horn ivory and tiger penis actually does nothing for a person's sexual prowess. Alas.
Yet, using your metric, if Dr. Price observes something in a traditional culture (where people have less of a life expectancy than my nation, natch) and makes a spurious conclusion that the practice is equivalent to some miraculous medical cure-all, you need a scientific establishment of the benefit. The 'FACT(s)' presented by you operate on a procedure of:
1. Price saw a culture doing this 2. Price assumed that it was a miracle health cure-all 3. ? 4. Profit!
There's no validation for someone who is using a rational, skeptical process. It's a dangerous leap of faith that you are condemning people for not making with you.
My standard is scientific. What's yours?
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
Umm, maybe you didn't see that he capitalized the word 'fact'. Argument over.
Posted by narrativium (Member # 3230) on :
You know, there's a lot of truthiness to steven's last post.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by El JT de Spang: Umm, maybe you didn't see that he capitalized the word 'fact'. Argument over.
I can't fight it! It's true!
FACT-- More than 98 percent of convicted felons are bread users.
FACT-- Fully HALF of all children who grow up in bread-consuming households score below average on standardized tests.
FACT-- In the 18th century, when virtually all bread was baked in the home, the average life expectancy was less than 50 years; infant mortality rates were unacceptably high; many women died in childbirth; and diseases such as typhoid, yellow fever, and influenza ravaged whole nations.
FACT-- More than 90 percent of violent crimes are committed within 24 hours of eating bread.
FACT-- Primitive tribal societies that have no bread exhibit a low incidence of cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease, and osteoporosis.
FACT-- Newborn babies can choke on bread.
Now the Weston A. Price foundation can add bread to its 'dangerous foods' list along with soy.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
steven,
I just sent an e-mail to the address in your profile.
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
I don't doubt Americans are less healthy than many other groups, for reasons ranging from a lack of solid, widely available prenatal care to the mentioned automobile use to the refined grains that make up some of the most widely consumed baked goods to the high amounts of aluminum, lead, mercury, and other toxins in a variety of products we consume and tolerate in our local environments.
I think, however, that scapegoating a single factor as the definitive cause of ill health in all Americans is probably misleading at best.
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
I think Americans just do so much better than other countries at being unhealthy, the rest of the world is jealous.
Sour grapes rest of world! Get your own pollution and poor-nutrition-pushing food corporations! Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
Still no response from King of Men, or Squid Martigan. Oh well. Pearls to swine.
Posted by narrativium (Member # 3230) on :
Or, maybe they just have better things to do with their lives than attempt to pointlessly argue on an internet forum about research that has already been debunked many many times over several decades.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
No, they both said they were interested in making $50. I emailed KoM 8 days ago. Still no response. Squid doesn't have an email in his profile. I told him to email me.
No one even reads my posts. That's half the reason I don't bother trying very hard here.
I've seen unbelievable improvements in my health since changing my diet. My hair started going gray at 25. Since going raw, I haven't seen a gray hair on my head. I used to have to exercise to keep my stamina up. Now, my stamina weakens much more slowly over the weeks and months in winter when I can't go hiking. My tendinitis stays under control so long as I watch my diet. Panic attacks are largely gone. I recover more quickly from injuries. And here's my favorite--squatting on the balls of my feet for 15 minutes when I was 23 or 24 and ate a poor diet would cause knee pain that lasted for 3 days. Now I can squat for 45 minutes and not even feel it an hour later. It's all diet. A lot of it happened when I went raw, but raw veganism never healed my teeth like coconut oil, butter oil, fish eggs, and shellfish.
It's not that I don't think you can be a healthy raw vegan, but you need to eat your food really fresh, like chimpanzees do, and the food has to be of excellent quality. Plenty of chimps and other primates eat nothing but fruit, greens, and the occasional insect, and have straight teeth. I tried a similar diet on grocery-store fruit and greens, but slowly, slowly, my teeth got more and more sore over time. Coconut reverses that, but I can't see a good reason to be vegan if your health is better with some animal products.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
Steven, how did you get into this raw foods thing?
Posted by erosomniac (Member # 6834) on :
quote:No one even reads my posts. That's half the reason I don't bother trying very hard here.
Actually, steven, I think the reverse is true.
quote:I've seen unbelievable improvements in my health since changing my diet. My hair started going gray at 25. Since going raw, I haven't seen a gray hair on my head. I used to have to exercise to keep my stamina up. Now, my stamina weakens much more slowly over the weeks and months in winter when I can't go hiking. My tendinitis stays under control so long as I watch my diet. Panic attacks are largely gone. I recover more quickly from injuries. And here's my favorite--squatting on the balls of my feet for 15 minutes when I was 23 or 24 and ate a poor diet would cause knee pain that lasted for 3 days. Now I can squat for 45 minutes and not even feel it an hour later. It's all diet. A lot of it happened when I went raw, but raw veganism never healed my teeth like coconut oil, butter oil, fish eggs, and shellfish.
I think the people arguing with you are trying to make the following point: you're using nothing but anecdotal evidence to support a theory that is very outdated and are reluctant to look at more recent information. Your conclusions are based exclusively on 80 year old materials and research originating from one person.
quote:It's not that I don't think you can be a healthy raw vegan, but you need to eat your food really fresh, like chimpanzees do, and the food has to be of excellent quality. Plenty of chimps and other primates eat nothing but fruit, greens, and the occasional insect, and have straight teeth. I tried a similar diet on grocery-store fruit and greens, but slowly, slowly, my teeth got more and more sore over time. Coconut reverses that, but I can't see a good reason to be vegan if your health is better with some animal products.
I can't think of a single person who is vegan exclusively for health reasons - the motivation seems to be a mixture of health, politics and morality, in proportions varying on an individual basis.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
Destineer, I had a friend who went raw. I'm not absolutely 100% raw these days, but most of the cooked food I eat is either dried or lightly steamed. I most prefer raw goat milk/cheese, coconut and raw coconut oil, dried salmon eggs, raw or steamed shrimp and oysters, and fresh greens. I just can't eat fruit anymore. It makes my teeth too sore.
Erosomniac--ONE study? Ever heard of Dr. Francis Pottenger and his Cats? Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
quote:No one even reads my posts.
On the contrary, this thread demonstrates that a number of people do. What you don't seem to do is read the replies, which is what led to my comment that you systematically ignore anything anyone posts that contradicts any aspect of Price's work.
For example, the implied causal relationship between straight teeth and overall health in your most recent post is at the very least unsupported, but you continually make statements like that as though they were indisputable facts. And you're using the word "plenty" again when it doesn't really mean anything. I'll explain what I'm saying. Take these two statements:
(1) Plenty of primates eat foods X and Y. (2) Plenty of primates have straight teeth.
This tells us nothing about whether there is a relationship between 1 and 2 in primates, let alone specifically in humans. And, of course, it doesn't suggest anything about the possibility of a relationship between straight teeth and overall health. This is precisely the problem with Dr. Price's work: he drew conclusions without adequate supporting evidence.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Eh. I'll get around to it. I've got these dashed Norwegian taxes to do first. And really, my thesis and my girlfriend are more interesting than some doctor from the thirties. You are fairly low on my list of priorities.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
quote:FACT--Every group Dr. Price studied mentioned shellfish, fish eggs, and organ meats as the best foods for two things, 1. health, and 2. reproduction
Since I do not wish to reproduce, I am going to deep fry everything from now on. Including vegetables.
-pH
Posted by erosomniac (Member # 6834) on :
quote:Originally posted by pH:
quote:FACT--Every group Dr. Price studied mentioned shellfish, fish eggs, and organ meats as the best foods for two things, 1. health, and 2. reproduction
Since I do not wish to reproduce, I am going to deep fry everything from now on. Including vegetables.
-pH
You haven't lived until you've had deep fried cotton candy.
Alternately, you can dip your favorite candy bar in batter and then deep fry THAT.
(What's sad is that while I'm joking about either of these things sounding appetizing to me, the company I work for sells machines that do BOTH. Ho. Ly. Crap.)
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
O RLY?
I won't have to worry about reproduction EVAR!!!!11!1one
-pH
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
Or cholesterol.
>_>
<_<
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
Price, Pottenger, Price, Pottenger, Price, Pottenger. Can none of you hold both of those studies in your head simultaneously? I'm probably going back to Costa Rica pretty soon. How about I take 5-10 Hatrackers along to see the strangely straight-toothed Indians in the jungle who have strangely wide ribcages?
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
So, rather than address my points, you prefer to move the goalposts and make another unsupported assertion?
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
I'll take a free trip to Costa Rica, even if it comes with a side of crazy.
Just don't expect me to admit that straight teeth and general health are directly correlated.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
I kind of wish my skeleton in general were narrower...I suppose I should've eaten more processed food as a child...
I wonder if Planned Parenthood can use this deep-frying method as a new way to encourage young people to use birth control. After all, everything that's deep-fried is tasty.
-pH
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
I have a friend from Costa Rica who's home on a medical withdrawal...I'd love to go see her.
-pH
Posted by erosomniac (Member # 6834) on :
quote: I wonder if Planned Parenthood can use this deep-frying method as a new way to encourage young people to use birth control. After all, everything that's deep-fried is tasty.
I would definitely have no problem with the voluntary sterilization of the stupid.
Posted by erosomniac (Member # 6834) on :
quote:Price, Pottenger, Price, Pottenger, Price, Pottenger. Can none of you hold both of those studies in your head simultaneously?
Oh, sorry, TWO studies.
<waits for a difference to be made>
<is disappointed>
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
"Just don't expect me to admit that straight teeth and general health are directly correlated."
Do you really think that's what Price asserted? No. He found, clearly, that a narrower skeleton correlated to a large, but not absolute, degree, with poorer health. You can have a narrow skeleton and straight teeth.
What I find so interesting is that Native Europeans have the widest/shallowest skeletions, and Native Africans the narrowest/deepest, given the same diet. I don't think we have to look far to find which group has naturally better health.
Crooked teeth are an indirect result of the narrowing of the skull. They are not a direct effect.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
Crooked teeth are the...
...no. No, they aren't. And I fail to see how crooked teeth are an indication of health.
-pH
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
Wait, so are you saying that consuming raw food has changed the size and shape of your skeleton?
Posted by narrativium (Member # 3230) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Eh. I'll get around to it. I've got these dashed Norwegian taxes to do first. And really, my thesis and my girlfriend are more interesting than some doctor from the thirties. You are fairly low on my list of priorities.
Told ya so. Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
Destineer--Price found a number of tribes that were very careful about what was to be fed to women who were planning to get pregnant. He also found that children born to women over 40 who ate their traditional diets during pregnancy did not have a higher risk of birth defects than children born to younger women eating the same diet. He knew, even back then, however, that children born to women over ages 35-40 have a higher rish of birth defects in our society.
He concluded from all this that the mother's diet before, during, and after a baby's birth (including breastfeeding time) was critical in determining the child's skeletal formation, as well as overall health.
I never said, no matter what anyone thinks, that "straight teeth=good health". It is possible to have a very narrow skull and straight teeth. However, it's relatively less likely. Generally speaking, either the lower or upper jaw, or both, will be too small to easily accomodate all the teeth. Underdevelopment of either the upper or lower jaw is nearly always one of the results of poor dietary practices.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
And did he conduct a controlled study concerning this diet?
Because as long as we're observing things, I can make some crazy conclusions, too.
-pH
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
Steven, my question was more along the following lines: given that you're not a pregnant woman, and your own skeleton is already fully formed, what do you stand to gain at this point from eating raw food?
Posted by Merkwuerdigeliebe (Member # 9436) on :
Hey, I'll take that essay challenge thing. I need some writing practice and could also use the cash (I'll go for the $100 if you're still offering, though $50 would suffice). I'll need the book though. Any chance of you mailing it to me? And make it fast, I only got approximately two weeks left before I blow this popsicle stand and start hikin!. Though heck, if you mail me the book maybe I could read it while hiking the Appalachian Trail, draw some interesting conclusions there, and get back to you in around 6 months.
Posted by Kristen (Member # 9200) on :
Oh, I'll do the essay too! But gimme a few weeks--I have to write my LAST ESSAY EVER for college this weekend and finish up with stuff.
June I am totally free and willing to write whatever you want as long as I am getting paid for it .
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
All you truth-haters stop picking on steven!
Posted by Kristen (Member # 9200) on :
I don't hate the truth, but rather my capitalistic self can't resist an opportunity to make a few bucks. Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
pH--pottenger did, as well as a couple of other reseachers. One showed that rats who had their pituitary gland damaged or removed had the classic pattern of narrow skull and underdeveloped upper and lowr jaws. The other showed that adult tuberculosis patients were much more likely to havw the deep, narrow chest characteristic of Africans of all ages and infants of all racial groups. In other words, the narrow, deep skeleton is an underdeveloped, immature skeleton, and is clearly associated with the inability to fight off infections such as TB.
Destineer--I'm not telling you how to prepare your food. Experiment on your own and find the answer. Try eating nothing but highly grilled food for 3 or 4 weeks, then eat the same stuff raw or lightly steamed for 3 or 4 weeks. it depends on the person, some people have such strong health that they'll barely notice a difference. I personally have more physical stamina when I eat mostly raw or lightly cooked, and that's pretty much true for everyone I have talked to.
Beyond that, most raw foodists I know always experience 2 things:
1. They are much less likely to sunburn, given the same amount of sun exposure (remember that the same UV light that causes sunburn also produces Vitamin D).
2. They don't get the swelling, redness, or itching associated with mosquito bites. After it bites, that's it.
Both of these benefits have been clearly and independently noted by dozens of raw foodists that I have known.
Bob Scopatz and King of Men are first on the list to read the book.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
steven,
We still have to come to an agreement on the conditions under which I will read & review Price's book.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
quote:pH--pottenger did, as well as a couple of other reseachers. One showed that rats who had their pituitary gland damaged or removed had the classic pattern of narrow skull and underdeveloped upper and lowr jaws. The other showed that adult tuberculosis patients were much more likely to havw the deep, narrow chest characteristic of Africans of all ages and infants of all racial groups. In other words, the narrow, deep skeleton is an underdeveloped, immature skeleton, and is clearly associated with the inability to fight off infections such as TB.
1. It's a rat. 2. They already have tuberculosis. It's possible that the skeleton formation was caused by some other factor. And seriously, I think the group of people who actually gets infected with TB nowadays is pretty select. 3. Can you provide links with more details on these "studies?"
-pH
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
pH
1. yeah, it's a rat. how do you think most drug trials start out? Human subjects?
2. resistance to infection is resistance, to a certain degree. Dr. price didn't look at ribcages, he looked at teeth, skulls, and cheekbones. he found in most tubercculosis asylums he visited that the rate of either cheekbone deformation or crooked teeth, or both simultaneously, was in the high 90% range. They nearly all had either flat checkbones, an undersized upper or lower jaw, or 2 or all three of those.
3. Those studies were conducted in the 1930's. I could dig the references out from Dr. price's book.
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
See, the problem is that you start with an argument, then leap to the conclusion. There's a crucial step you're missing, called 'evidence'.
quote:In other words, the narrow, deep skeleton is an underdeveloped, immature skeleton, and is clearly associated with the inability to fight off infections such as TB.
Like this.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
Evidence? How about the fact that babies are all born with narrow ribcages that widen as they get older, without the same % of increase in depth of the ribcage? how about Pottenger's independent observation of the unusually narrow, deep skeletons of his cats on the lower-quality diets? how about the two other studiesd I mentioned? 4 total, including price's, all point to this.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
steven, you need to read The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould. It's not specifically about diet, but it is about the odd and mostly discredited ideas around the turn of the prior century regarding the search for some way to measure bodies to show that one race is superior to another.
One of the key findings is that most of this research was basically reverse engineered and the data collection was terribly skewed (subconsciously, we hope).
All of this stuff has fallen out of vogue because: 1) The correlations between measurements of physical features and desired mental or other "attributes" usually falls apart upon closer examination...
[brief tangent] There is one body part correlation that does in fact hold true over repeated observations. It is the well known rule "Big nose, little hose." But other than that, none of the correlative things work out well at all. [/tangent]
2. The definitions of what is "best" in terms of mental or physical "capacities" is often subjectively measured to the point of meaninglessness.
We've already seen, for instance that you concentrate on Price's "healthy natives" conclusions without ever taking into account the selection pressures on those populations. It could very well be that in native populations living as Price said, that every single weak individual died before he got there. As a result, perhaps, only the truly healthy were available for him to look at.
This kind of bias in spot observational studies is a technical problem that can't be overcome without a lot of careful, longitudinal study over generations, and preferably over several populations over several generations.
It is one of the more obvious flaws in the work that you've described so far. It's not unique to Price, it was a symptom of the lack of maturity in "science" and one of the few but tangible downsides I can think of to the tradition of "amateur scientific inquiry" in that era.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
bob, if you take a look at pottenger's work, you'll clearly see that ALL the cats on the poorer diets had serious skeletal problems, and NONE of the cats on the best diet had ANY skeletal problems.
Price found family after family where the younger children, born after their parents switched to a Western diet, had much worse skeletal structure than their older siblings. There are at least a dozen pictures in his book of such families.
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
A dozen pictures, you say?
I'm convinced.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
steven, unless I see actual numbers concerning these rats, I'm not going to give any rat study much credence.
I mean, if you pay attention to rats, everything causes cancer. But they feed the rats the human equivalent of atrocious, incredible amounts of whatever substance it is.
-pH
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
pH--I'll take a look at it today while I'm at work. I keep a copy of "nutrition..." at my desk for when I'm bored and Solitaire has gotten stale.
KoM's book and check are on the way. I predict that Price's work will be old hat and boring here in 6-8 months. All your base will belong to Weston! Not really. He knew squat about correct baking techniques for bread, and he managed to visit Hawaii, Fiji, and Vanuatu without ever finding out the amazing tooth-regenerating powers of coconut and coconut oil. I think he had already largely given up on plant products at that point, anyway, though. He was looking for a "diet for/of the ages" rather than just going on his trip and having a good time. However, Pottenger's work, as well as others, proves that skeletal structure does depend on diet.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
Hector Mortimer, McGill University, in Montreal. He found that rats who had their pituitary glands removed showed the exact pattern that Dr. Price's work found--underdeveloped upper and lower jaw, and narrowed nose and nostrils.
G. Levine and A.W. Rose of the Evans Memorial for Clinical Research and Neuroendocrine research found similar patterns in their studies of humans skulls and the disease states that went along with various types of skull malformations.
There have been numerous studies showing birth defects of all types in cows and pigs, including the "bulldog face" defect where the middle third of the calf's face is underdeveloped in exactly the same way as faces of the natives that Dr. Price studied. There are a large number of these studies cited in Dr. Price's book. Most of them deal with experiments to determine the effects of partial or full vitamin A, D, or E deficiency on cow, pig, or rat fetal development.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
Price quotes several other studies that show conclusively that nutrition is the main factor in birth defects of all types. He also quotes a Danish study on Eskimos in Greenland that documents major teeth problems among Eskimos that abandon their traditional diet.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
I fail to see how "vitamin deficiency is bad" equates to "cooking food is bad."
-pH
Posted by Astaril (Member # 7440) on :
Of course, the traditional diet of Inuit (*not* "Eskimos" in Greenland) also contains no refined sugar whatsoever, so those Inuit moving to a Western diet are bound to have dental caries galore, especially since those who are still *on* a traditional diet in the first place (in order to abandon it, they must be on it) are not those likely to have access to any dental care.
Don't get me wrong. I have no doubt that the Danish study is correct. Inuit abandoning their traditional diet are bound to have an elevated number of teeth problems. I do, however, wonder at Price's precise selection of perhaps out-of-context quotations from this study, and his use of it to prove points not intended by the Danish scientists.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
This thread is out of control!
Common sense, (not a study), says that any one who dramatically changes their diet from one to which they have become accostomed is going to have health problems. A person accustomed to a lot of oxygen will feel light headed at a high altitude, and vice versa.
The same could be seen over a generation, especially if the food switched to is unhealthy- as is described in the initial article linked to in this thread- because if I stop eating my healthy stews and things and suddenly eat a macdonalds hamburger with a single slice of lettuce every day under the assuption it's just as healthy, I should not be surprised when I start to get a bit greasy about the gills.
Not, however, to exclude the possibility of slightly (given the short period of time of development) differing requirements over large distances within the human species. But seriously, the same goes from person to person even within the same family so it practically nullifies any wide-ranging "special needs" that a particular group living in a particular area might have.
This Dr. Price of whom we are talking is one of these people in the world who contributes very little of use. Basing his work or fairly common sense principals and calling it science because he did a couple of studies, he makes a lot of money by drawing long conclusions from short evidence and then writing a book about it. We should all be so clever.
Worse, he seems to be attempting to draw lines between people- through food, of all things. Anyone who lives in a community with a variety of backgrounds can see with their own eyes that no such deep gastronomical divisions exist.
When it comes down to food, eating well is eating well. Everyone has their individual, continent-spanning foody quirks. And dear God why are we arguing about this?
Posted by Euripides (Member # 9315) on :
Solution: Daily manual labour, a good family life, and a Japanese diet.
Posted by jexx (Member # 3450) on :
My husband's grandfather lived on (mainly) corndogs and Snickers bars for the last forty years of his life. Oh, and coffee. He refused to drink water that hadn't been filtered through the delicious brown granules of life-affirming kickitude.
Granddaddy lived to be 91 years old, only the last two of which did he live with assistance (perfectly ambulatory, but not allowed to drive--the stories I could tell!).
We should all live to be 91, should we begin our diet of Snickers and corndogs at year 51!
(edited to fix my ambivalent "Snickers" capitalization)
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Gyah, that thing is 500 pages. That comes to about ten cents a page. Incidentally, just how many forewords does a book need?
[ May 28, 2006, 12:21 AM: Message edited by: King of Men ]
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I found it pretty surprising, myself, and will be curious to see if the finding is supported by any future research in the area.
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This place is seriously lacking in the funny.
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