I remember chatting with others in my hometown about what our local Doctor (who’s been deceased for quite some time now) observed. He said his patients who drank raw milk had noticeably better health than those who consumed homogenized/pasteurized milk. I also remember how my father loved to drink raw buttermilk and make home-made yogurt. He didn’t really live to any exceptional age (he died just a few days before his 80th birthday). However, what he endured throughout his life earned him the nick-name “Timex.” He took a lick’n and kept on tick’n!
Those thoughts remained in my mind as I (a few years ago) got interested in researching and studying how what cultures ate affected their lives. Doctors today don’t seem to have the same mindset as those who lived over a hundred years ago. One particularly interesting man was Weston A. Price. He was a dentist, but one with much to offer us these days.
Dr. Price studied fourteen different isolated cultures to understand why these people had extraordinarily healthy teeth. He traveled to such places as the Swiss Alps, Alaska, Africa, and Polynesian Islands to stay with these people and observe their dietary lifestyles. He took photographs of skull structures, jaw bones, and teeth (included in his book) to document the interesting facts he found.
Price’s excellent book, of over 500 pages, reveals the destructive impact modern culture had when it changed their old ways of eating. I highly recommend reading Nutrition and Physical Degeneration and the articles from the website founded upon Weston Price’s research. If you don’t have the time for either of those, there is a brief blurb about Dr. Weston Price at the International Wellness Directory.
A little longer article, by Mary G. Eng, PhD, explains how milk homogenization can create heart disease. Her article and those like it, became a catalyst to change my life. I didn’t want to wait for trouble before considering what I could do to become healthier before getting older. I even endured a year of weekly dental work to have mercury amalgam fillings removed from my mouth.
The more I noticed feeling better, the more I wanted to learn what else I could do. I learned how important it is to focus on what sources of fat are healthy and necessary. My favorite change was to using the highest quality coconut oil from the Philippines and reputable extra virgin olive oil from California (you’d be surprised over the deceptive practices of popular olive oil brands!). I order coconut oil in a 5 gallon bucket since it stays fine in room temperature over a year (longer in cooler temperatures). I get a case at a time of Bariani’s Olive Oil so it’s in the kitchen a while. After having high quality fats, grocery store vegetable oil and shortening tastes disgusting! I haven’t used that crap in years and don’t miss it one bit. I could go on and on about how much the health of my family changed from this. If only I had known ahead of time what would happen, I would have taken before and after pictures. I’ll just say people who haven’t watched my son grow up, don’t recognize my son now.
I’m glad I don’t have health insurance and never had it, because if I did, I probably would not have been so interested in taking what responsibility I did towards a more enjoyable life. I thank God for His gift He gave me and I hope others too can enjoy some of what I’ve benefited from.
