Image shared from Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston A. Price, Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation; 8th edition (2009)

When I studied Nutrition and Physical Degeneration (Price, 1939), I was fascinated by the pictures of dozens of individuals and the differences in their teeth and bone structure of the face. I kept thinking, if not for modern dentistry, I would look like them!

I have a small mouth and had too many teeth which caused a mouth full of crowded, crooked misplaced teeth. My teeth caused me a lot of issues with my confidence and self-esteem during my youth and teenage years. On my father’s side of the family, I vaguely remember family members with overcrowding and crooked teeth as well. On my mother’s side, a few family members had “soft teeth” and had them all pulled and placed with dentures as young as 30 years old. I also had to have all my molars capped with filling to “protect” them.

Since seeing those pictures and reading how the facial profiles and bone growth changed when adopting Western diets, I’m confident that my family line was riddled with these same issues and passed them down through the generations. I can even see the smaller bone structure in the lower half of my younger son’s facial features.

From a young age, I was interested if not consumed with diet and exercise. My mother and other family members were obese and I didn’t want to inherit the same body type and habits. It wasn’t until after my children were born that I really became interested in real nutrition. I’ve gathered and absorbed information over the years and prioritized family dinners despite very busy schedules.

Now that my children are adults and will undoubtedly begin their own families, I will do everything I can to educate them on the importance of proper nutrition and what that means to them BEFORE they begin having a family.

A couple of things I’ve learned in the Evolution of the Modern Diet Module that I plan to institute into my household to enhance our health are:

One of the other experiences I recall in my family and lifestyle that has been impacted by information from the nutritional pioneers comes from the information I learned from the Pottenger Cat Study.

This particular case, though I can draw human references as well, made me think of my dogs. I had two full-bred Cavalier King Charles Spaniels. One dog was absolutely riddled with systemic allergies that he struggled with for almost his whole life. I don’t have a happy ending for his story, but our experience with him brought light to a number of issues we uncovered in caring for dogs with health problems, especially allergies.

In Pottenger’s Cats, A Study In Nutrition (Pottenger, 1932-1942), a raw food diet is studied and shown to improve the short and long-term health of the test subjects of this study. For my dog, we exhausted what we felt was every other option besides a raw food diet. We heard about the benefits of a raw food diet for dogs for a few years but always cast it off as too expensive. Instead, we continued to opt for frequent (sometimes daily) bleach baths, steroids, anti-itch pills, and shots that affect brain receptors, immunotherapy, and lots and lots of twice-daily antihistamines. We purchased limited-ingredient kibble that was much more expensive than regular grocery store kibble. All of this treatment kept him from constantly scratching and biting himself but we could see he was still uncomfortable. It was heartbreaking.

It wasn’t until I decided that we’d exhausted every other possibility, including diet. We looked into trying a prescription elimination diet. As I researched what the dermatologist veterinarian was suggesting, I saw the food was filled with lots of filler ingredients that I just knew could not be good for my dogs, I convinced my husband to let me try raw food. He was against it because of the cost but we were spending hundreds of dollars a month just trying to manage the symptoms, not to mention poor sleep for all of us, and basically an extra part-time job for me taking care of the sick dog. He consented to try raw food for one month.

The changes were dramatic! Both of our dogs for the first time ate all of their food as soon as it was set down. Their fur lost its dullness and Buster’s constant itching and scratching all but stopped completely. His fur began growing back and his skin was becoming more healthy.

Unfortunately, all of the drugs he took most of his life to manage symptoms eventually led to lymphoma and death. We continued to give him raw food for the rest of his life and he was finally comfortable and at peace in his skin!

Finally, if an ancestral type of diet worked for my dogs, imagine what it can do for my humans!