Quote from bludicka on July 10, 2019, 10:56 am

Quote from Ronnie on July 10, 2019, 7:29 am

Bludicka I am confused. Are you saying take vitamin D pills?

I think most of the healthy people do not need to supplement vitamin D if they sunbathe regularly, but it is important to sunbath at the right time. I had chronic infections for years and that has probably caused me to have chronic vitamin D deficiency. It is good to test regularly, at least once a year and if the level is low + one has symptoms of a deficit, consider supplementation. But I think one of the reasons why people have low vitamin D is chronic vitamin A poisoning (vitamin A antagonizes vitamin D). In the last months befor low VA diet, my vitamin D level has been low despite supplementation. And with the low VA diet vitamin D becomes more available and  can better perform its functions in the body,  better calcium metabolism - the more vitamin D is available in the body the more effective the body can use  calcium from food. At the beginning of the low VA diet I had problems with calcium and it's getting better now.

Quote from bludicka on July 10, 2019, 11:06 am

Quote from lil chick on July 10, 2019, 7:20 am

Bludicka, you are right, I think the notion of taking A in harmony with the other fat soluble vitamins and minerals is another notion that needs work.  Especially for people with a lower tolerance.

However, when I look at my grandmother's diet, I can see that her entire vitamin A "ration" was in the form of foods like eggs, where all the other elements ARE there.   (ie, not sweet potatoes)

 

 

My grandparents had everything, hens, pigs, ducks, geese, goats, horses, cows....but the diet was mostly simple, bread and meat, pork fat, meat and potatoes, meat and rice, potatoes and sour milk, legumes, soups - meat, legumes, vegetables, cup of milk, a bit of seasonal vegetables and fruits, in winter sauerkraut, fruit preserves, nobody was eating 3 dozen eggs per week and nobody drank liters of milk, and the liver was eaten only occassionally and no one made a green smoothie and a cake made of almond flour, the only nuts that were eaten were walnuts, seasonal wild chestnus and salted, roasted pumpkin seeds in winter.

Quote from Sarabeth on October 13, 2019, 2:53 pm

So ten years ago, after my 30-year lifelong stint as a vegetarianism, we started GAPS to help our then-extremely ill six-year-old who was descending into autism. It was VERY hard for me to let go of vegetarianism, which was my religion - http://www.lifeisapalindrome.com/updates/are-vegetarians-more-moral-meat-eaters

The way my husband and I could finally accept that our diet needed to change...was by reading Gary Taubes, and Thinking a lot, and reading Dr. Natasha's theories about gut flora (plus of course Elaine Gottshall's theories before her), and also we began learning about the WAPF. I have always felt that WAPF is separate and different from Weston A. Price himself, who was a researcher, and had nothing to do with the formation of the Foundation which now recommends dietary advice that is not _necessarily_ anything he would espouse. Ten years ago, I read Nutrition and Physical Degeneration from cover to cover, and found it a fascinating read. Price was only human, but he conducted really interesting, and actual, SCIENCE.

We are left to interpret his findings, and I no longer think that the WAPF interpretations are wholly correct, as folks have noted in this forum thread. But there is this part that is hard for me to wrap my head around...

Price noticed over and over, in culture after culture, that when folks switched from their native diets (diverse and different from each other as they were) to "foods of commerce" (white wheat flour, sugar, processed vegetable oil, canned condensed milk), they developed modern chronic illness, successive generations were sickly and their jaws deformed, plus of course they developed cavities.

But we cannot say that the dietary switch to "foods of commerce" was from a low Vitamin-A diet to a high Vitamin-A diet - as far as I know, this was before fortification, and nobody in the "foods of commerce" communities were supplementing with liver! In fact, they were eating foods very similar (except for the dairy) to the Low A diets we all discuss here.

On the other hand, I no longer believe that the dramatic improvements in health that he noted when re-feeding inner-city kids with his brown bread plus butter oil/CLO...were due primarily to their ingesting "fat soluble vitamins" as he theorized.

So what was happening? I would love to have some ideas about this, because as I look over my children's plates these days and see the abundant piles of white rice, minimal vegetables, and some refined sugar (in the form of honey)...I can't help but feel a little woozy and worried, if you know what I mean!

This is the one theory I've come up with: maybe, in the communities Price documented where there was a decline in health due to a switch to the Foods of Commerce, this decline was due partly to poor quality (refined PUFAs and excessive white sugar), and largely to deficient protein consumption. And maybe, when Price began refeeding those poor kids who weren't getting enough to eat in the inner cities, it was more that he stabilized their macronutrient intake than that he gave them butter oil/CLO (plus, their Vitamin A stores were probably low, along with everything else, nutrition wise!

I would love to hear any other ideas - separates our low A diets and a diet consisting of "the foods of commerce"?

Quote from saraleah11 on October 13, 2019, 4:21 pm

  I remember that in the 60s sweetened condensed milk was a staple in every household in our neighborhood. I suspect, but don't know, it may have been given to infants as a formula at one time, by some as breast feeding was considered offensive for some reason. I wonder what the toxicity of that condensed milk product is.

It was used as war rations, a protein substitute. Been around since before 1900. Combined with a low protein diet , if it is a toxin, would not be good. I wonder what Grant thinks of this product? 

Dr Price published his book in 1939. At that time, before vitamin D became an additive to milk, the milk was  irradiated to raise vitamin D. Food products were sent to developing countries to combat hunger-highly refined,  canned with lead.  I believe at one time the milk in this country was even fortified with Cod Liver Oil, children were also given it regularly.

   Its likely that the children who were eating foods of commerce had little fresh food, maybe very little food in general, probably very little meat so the majority of calories were highly refined and possibly toxic.

I read Weston Price's book many years ago. If I remember the people with healthy teeth/ jaws ate fresh foods, including animal protein, and if milk it was not irradiated, they had no refined cooking oils.

 

Quote from lil chick on October 13, 2019, 6:35 pm

I'm really starting to feel that my life-long vitamin A poisoning is the reason my teeth are crooked... It appears my body likes to send the VA to the center line of my face... does anyone know more about the woman who told Grant that her teeth straightened on the low VA diet?  That might illuminate something here.

I remember a WAPF  article (gosh so long ago, I could be mistaken) about deer who were eating human food in a park and were getting exposed to other things (was it perhaps farm or landscape chemicals?) and ended up with crooked teeth.   Perhaps chemicals are involved. 

And of course we also have the introduction of false fats around that time, like crisco, that displace real fats in the diet.

The poor inner city kids had horrible teeth, and WAP did fix them, and you can't take that away.  But at 40 would they start to have overload of VA?

I was thinking about how George Washington lost his teeth (gingivitis?), and I was just recently watching historical food re-enactment videos of recipes from his home.  Particularly, it was an orange-flavored pudding, very rich and eggy/creamy/wapfy.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2AG545WIsg

Georgie was rich.  Georgie was never able to have any kids.  The rich got gout and they got jowls and they had mysterious swellings and had weakling children and became unable to reproduce... I think there are lots of historical examples (from royalty etc) that show that rich diets can turn toxic...

I definitely feel that gingivitis might be a "high VA disease".  Gingivitis was not Weston Price's focus, he was counting cavities...  I suppose sometimes cavities could be due to high VA (because of spongy bone perhaps?).  Maybe other cavities really are due to sugar or not enough vit K or not enough minerals.

I've heard several people online say that exceptional milk cured their tooth decay, and WAP did supply that to the inner city kids...

Perhaps what Weston Price wanted to find...is something that doesn't exist:  A one-size-fits-all answer to the question "what to eat".  Perhaps there is a huge amount of genetic difference around the world.

Quote from tim on October 14, 2019, 6:00 am

Some important posts and thoughts here.

The only benefit of cod liver oil is Vitamin D, I think this is the only way it could help teeth.

If the children were not already toxic in VA, the tooth healing diet high in VA may not have caused an issue.

Assuming that Weston Price was honest and did sound science maybe the diet helped by supplying more Vitamin D, Vitamin K, iron, zinc, B12, magnesium, calcium and other micronutrients.

I do struggle to believe that one can heal tooth decay while eating a lot of carbs (the children were eating their normal diet for breakfast and dinner) and not practicing strict oral hygiene.

I have healed tooth decay and it involved very strict oral hygiene (thorough flossing, tongue cleaning and brushing followed by hydrogen peroxide mouth wash) and only eating twice per day. Many people that get tooth decay get it while getting enough micronutrients. It was the strict oral hygiene that cured my decay. I would never have cured it with the Weston Price approach.

Quote from Sarabeth on October 14, 2019, 8:28 pm

I do struggle to believe that one can heal tooth decay while eating a lot of carbs (the children were eating their normal diet for breakfast and dinner) and not practicing strict oral hygiene.

I have healed tooth decay and it involved very strict oral hygiene (thorough flossing, tongue cleaning and brushing followed by hydrogen peroxide mouth wash) and only eating twice per day. Many people that get tooth decay get it while getting enough micronutrients. It was the strict oral hygiene that cured my decay. I would never have cured it with the Weston Price approach.

When I was eating lower-carb, my dental calculus was terrible. It improved somewhat when we started eating moderate carbs (a la Paul Jaminet). I do think that it makes a difference, whether one eats starch vs. simple sugars. However, eating Low A my calculus is better than it's ever been, even while we're eating some honey and maple syrup, so maybe this is not such a factor? I have had cavities, orthodontic issues, and gum problems (expensive and painful surgery last year at age 38), and I am SO hoping that my children can avoid at least some of these. One of my offspring in particular has such thin gum tissue...and all the scrupulous hygeine that we've ever done has never helped either of us. Neither did WAPF help with the gums.

On the other hand, knock on wood, please let this not change...none of my children have ever had a cavity. Maybe the lack of refined sugars? It would be nice if we could understand this one particular way in which we have been spared the Chronic Disease magic fairy wand. 🙂

I feel like in our case, if our gums and teeth improve on Low A then I will have truly come full-circle in my beliefs. 🙂 No improvements noted in my kids' mouths yet, however...

Quote from Paola on December 24, 2023, 11:10 am

Quote from Ronnie on July 9, 2019, 7:16 pm

This is the diet that did me the most harm. Nothing comes close to the life altering degeneration I experienced

Hi Ronnie, 

 

would you mind elaborating on what exactly happened? What symptoms you developed? 
If you wrote about this already in some other thread, feel free to post a link. Would love to read about it.