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Nutrition and Physical Degeneration Paperback – June 1, 2003
For nearly 10 years, Weston Price and his wife traveled around the world in search of the secret to health. Instead of looking at people afflicted with disease symptoms, this highly-respected dentist and dental researcher chose to focus on healthy individuals, and challenged himself to understand how they achieved such amazing health. Dr. Price traveled to hundreds of cities in a total of 14 different countries in his search to find healthy people. He investigated some of the most remote areas in the world. He observed perfect dental arches, minimal tooth decay, high immunity to tuberculosis and overall excellent health in those groups of people who ate their indigenous foods. He found when these people were introduced to modernized foods, such as white flour, white sugar, refined vegetable oils and canned goods, signs of degeneration quickly became quite evident. Dental caries, deformed jaw structures, crooked teeth, arthritis and a low immunity to tuberculosis became rampant amongst them. Dr. Price documented this ancestral wisdom including hundreds of photos in his book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.
- Print length524 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherKeats Pub
- Publication dateJune 1, 2003
- Dimensions6.25 x 1.25 x 9 inches
- ISBN-100879838167
- ISBN-13978-0879838164
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Product details
- Publisher : Keats Pub; 6th edition (June 1, 2003)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 524 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0879838167
- ISBN-13 : 978-0879838164
- Item Weight : 1.94 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.25 x 1.25 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,181,346 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,310 in Anatomy (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Dr. Price was a Cleveland dentist, who has been called the Charles Darwin of nutrition. Searching for the causes of dental decay and physical degeneration he observed daily in his dental practice, he turned from test tubes and microscopes to study people with fine teeth.
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Customers find the book amazing, interesting, and convincing. They say it provides alternative information about nutrition and is well-documented with photos. Readers also mention the book is a classic work and deserves a place in the library.
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Customers find the book amazing, interesting, and convincing. They say it's worth keeping permanently as a reference. Readers also mention the book is entertaining and delightful.
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Customers find the book informative, relevant, and thorough in its research. They say it provides alternative information about nutrition. Readers also mention the book provides all the answers and is persuasive.
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"...was started more than 80 years ago, yet it is probably the most relevant book that a person could read in regard to the current crisis over health..." Read more
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Customers find the book well-documented with photos to back up his findings. They also say it's amply illustrated with an astonishing collection of photos.
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Customers find the pacing of the book captivating, riveting, and convincing. They say the details are disturbing and unsettling.
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Dr. Price is our Einstein of Nutrition and will always be of Nobelate class.
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Price's findings are amply illustrated with an astonishing collection of photos. The people that pass for humans is plainly frightening. The "before and after" aspect of the hundreds of photos leave the reader in abject shock. There is a real sense of horror, chapter after chapter, of seeing the after-effects of modern foods on various peoples. After reading this book, one may surmise that several factors have fallen into place. That is, the realization of why, despite "advanced" technology, medical care and knowledge, the nation and the world continue to be plagued with disease, degeneration, obesity and ill health. As Dr. Price puts it, the majority of plagues, and infectious diseases have been largely dealt with, but now in its place are degenerative ailments, and the
The most chilling realization of all is the very real possibility that pre-natal "germ plasm disruptions," coming from parents who lack the proper means of health through nutrition to create ideal offspring, may be taking place in epidemic numbers. What this is tantamount to is the actual de-evolution of a degenerated human race. Price's main observation on the healthy primitive peoples is how they respect the laws of nature. What modern technology does not recognize is that many primitive societies have knowledge that have been passed on from millenia in which to base their vital health. What Price does here is to show the effects of "modern foods of commerce" (as he calls it) on these primitive societies. You see, in mind-boggling photos, how healthy, disease-free primitives look; the ones who have been subsisting on their own diets for millenia have beautifully formed faces, palates, jaws and teeth that are totally devoid of caries. Then, there are, among these same peoples where white man and their modern foods have taken over. Children (and the adults they become) with birth defects, deformed palates, rotted, missing teeth and ill-health. Even more scary is the possibilty that "pre-natal disruptions" could cause impaired brain health. Dr. Price very meticulously documents all his findings, which include, specifically, what kinds of foods cause the best health, and, conversely, the worst. He backs up his findings with x-rays, photos and all kinds of data that can't easily be refuted. The common sense and logic which prevails throughout can't be shaken off; these details are disturbing and unsettling. We see proof of how nature is being corrupted by an unnatural means of eating. It all falls into place. The untainted foods of God are what we're meant for. The moral is clear: take the foods of God, alter it, chemically process it, and feed it to people, and witness the catastophic destruction of what nature intended. If this continues, we're done for.
The other real, sobering possibility is that information like this will be constantly scuppered by prevailing dietary trends, and misinformation. Fortunately there is an active society, based on the author's work, which can be found at [...] - this organization is promoting wholesome eating, good health and vitality through the foundations of good nutrition, which Dr. Price endorsed. Eventually, with any luck and perseverance, the truth will prevail, and the one vestige out of Pandora's Box - hope - can morph into a tangible reality. One can get a head start, armed with this knowledge, through several important books: number one, and the most crucial, Sally Fallon's "Nourishing Traditions," Mary G. Enig's "Know Your Fats," Enig and Fallon's book "Eat Fat, Lose Fat," Bruce Fife's "The Coconut Oil Miracle," Kaayla Daniel's "The Truth About Soy," and Jordan Rubin's "The Maker's Diet."
This book is a spectacular read. Though it does deal primarily with Dr. Price's research, findings and discoveries on nutrition and physical degeneration, there are so many rewards otherwise. This is a first-rate travelogue, superb cultural anthropological study, and an astonishingly thorough analysis of human behaviors. Moreover, Price is a wonderful writer, matter-of-factly genteel, dispassionate and duly concerned all at once.
There are no words adequate to convey the the impact, importance and timeliness of this book.
I also love this hardback edition. It is a long, heavy book and as such needs a high quality, stitched binding, sturdy hard cover, high end paper and clear, easy to read font that doesn't leave you squinting. This is a book to be read over and over again, and not just to display on a shelf. The quality of this particular edition is exactly what is needed for something you will want to refer to for a lifetime and pass on to your children. My first copy was one of the newer paperbacks, but it was creased and damaged right out of the box! Partly because it wasn't carefully packaged but also because a paperback isn't constructed for heavy use. I returned the flimsy paperback and sprung the necessary dollars to invest in this tough hardback edition that is made for long wear and will be there years and years from now.
Highly recommend this book and highly recommend investing in a quality edition.
One could question whether 60 plus year old research is relevant today, but I found his work powerful and persuasive for a very simple reason.
Health problems sent me on a quest to find the best dietary information, but I soon found myself mired in contradictory claims, opposing research and special interest groups, as well as outright deceit. First I would read about how one vitamin or mineral was good for this. Then I would read that the very same item was bad for that. You shouldn't combine X with Y, or needed to add tons of Z or W, except on Sundays when the moon was almost 3/4 full. I became very disillusioned with the incredible complexity of nutrition. As I read more and more deeply, I also became annoyed at all the disinformation and profiteering behind much of the so-called research.
I reached this bottom line: While we understand proteins, carbs, and fats reasonably well, and have a pretty good handle on most vitamins and about a dozen minerals, there is simply an immense amount we just don't know. We are researching minerals at about 5 per decade (around 50 to go - a hundred more years at our current rate). There are around 5000 enzymes in bee pollen alone, and few of them have been researched. There are an unknown number of phytochemicals and other things we have yet to discover that have been constituents of our food for perhaps millions of years. Science moves very slowly, and it could easily be several hundred or 1000 years before we get it all sorted out. And that doesn't take into consideration the power groups who insist on muddying the waters for profit's sake. Modern science is quite obviously incapable of giving us complete answers to our nutritional questions. It just plain doesn't have them to give, nor will it for a long, long time.
Then I found Price's work. Basically, he was the Tony Robbins of diet - he sought out the healthiest people on Earth and studied what they had done for hundreds and thousands of years to stay healthy. He looked at their Traditional diets as well as what happened when they adopted Western diets. The results are in this book, and it is well worth your taking the time to read. While others have followed his work, the changing nature of the world now make it impossible to duplicate his research today. His work stands as a pivotal piece in science and health as well as in history. This represents the cumulative knowledge of millions of people over thousands of years in a laboratory that includes the entire world. Definitely non-trivial.
There are also books by Ronald Schmid and Sally Fallon that introduce and give overviews of Price's work. I recommend them also. Today, when we must all become advocates for our own health, arming yourself with the best information is vital.
update December 2008
A recent article published by the Weston A. Price Organization not only validates Price's X-Factor research, it also clearly illustrates the point I make above about modern scientific method and nutritional research failing to provide adequate information.
Vitamin K2 has been identified as the X-Factor, and recent research into K2 shows that it is an extremely essential nutrient, not the throw-away that it has long been considered. It is a vital factor in bone and tooth health, heart health, nerve health, and so on. It turns out to be a critical part of so many body processes that physiology texts will have to be rewritten in major ways.
Here is a vitamin discovered nearly 100 years ago, and yet science is just beginning to understand how terribly important it is. The main reasons for this serious error are; a lack of understanding of the chemical tests involved, lack of reading research in other countries, and a lack of interest on the part of researchers. (No money in vitamin research, you can't patent vitamins.)
The article is available from the Weston A. Price Organization and is a very interesting read.
UPDATE August 2009:
The figure of 5000 enzymes has been bothering me, as the source of that info was not well cited. I have been looking around for a hard figure on the number of enzymes, and guess what? There is no such hard number. All the sources I have found vary widely (1,000 to 80,000), and do not cite references. Some sources say that there are 5,000 named enzymes, and up to 20,000 possible.
This is yet another reason why current nutritional research is such a poor source of decision making data - they just don't have enough hard data to trust.





