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According to Weston A. Price (or whatever way that’s spelled), cavities don’t exist in people eating a primitive diet. They seem to be the product of modern day processed sugars.
Yep. S’long as you eat right, you shouldn’t have a problem. Sugar/carbs especially wheat/grain products are large attributes to cavities. Since that is pretty much what carbs are… sugar.
when you start thinking of a potato or a serving of pasta as a cup of sugar, it totally changes the way you look at the typical civilized diet.
Hm. I have a lot to say on this topic. Where to begin?
OK, Weston Price. His book, Nutrition & Physical Degeneration, blew my mind and lit off a long fuse of explorations and explosions for me (I guess that’s how I landed here). He traveled the world looking at folks who still ate indigenous/traditional foods, and comparing them to folks from the same populations eating more modern, more processed stuff and less traditional food. The first group had fabulous teeth (straight, healthy-looking, no cavities, and little to no degenerative disease to boot). You should see the photos! Those kids. . . the teeth become crowded, the face and jaw narrower, nostrils smaller.
Next stop on my dynamite train, chinese medicine. . . they say the teeth are the surplus of the bones (job of the kidney system, by their estimation).
I never had a cavity til after pregnancy, childbirth, and two years of nursing (coincidentally, also jobs of the kidney system in chinese medicine world). Then BAM, I turned into swiss cheese.
The conclusion I’ve drawn from this: making a kid requires deep nourishment (bones, teeth and all). Many of the deeply nourishing foods Weston Price found in common in all those cultures he studied are forgotten, forbidden, or otherwise not found in our civilized, American diet. Mainly fermented foods, bone broths (no waste–uses the whole animal and rich in minerals), organ meats, and saturated fat. He also found that these cultures often had special diets for parents-to-be (rich in zinc, fat, cholesterol–stuff like seafood, fish eggs, extra bird egg yolks). So I think maybe the integrity of teeth has a lot to do with what went into making them (as well as what you continue to provide your body to maintain them).
One more possibility to throw out here–my dentist harps on avoiding between-meal snacks. He says regardless of what sits in your mouth–sticky, acid-forming junk or whatever–if you consume nothing but water between meals, your mouth chemistry has enough time to rebalance itself to an alkaline state where cavity critters can’t survive. (which immediately raised the question in my mind, what about foragers–wouldn’t you eat as you go? I know I do when it’s berries. . . or would you wait and sit down to a hearty meal, prepared and shared with the tribe?)
One more possibility to throw out here--my dentist harps on avoiding between-meal snacks. He says regardless of what sits in your mouth--sticky, acid-forming junk or whatever--if you consume nothing but water between meals, your mouth chemistry has enough time to rebalance itself to an alkaline state where cavity critters can't survive. (which immediately raised the question in my mind, what about foragers--wouldn't you eat as you go? I know I do when it's berries. . . or would you wait and sit down to a hearty meal, prepared and shared with the tribe?)
It seems to me like you would do both. I know when I tried the Paleo diet for a while, I needed to eat pretty often–way more than three meals a day. I hear that calms down as you go along on the diet, but it makes sense to me to eat when you get hungry and never let your body go into its mode of trying to conserve fat due to hunger cues.
I would imagine folks making big meals–especially after a good kill or a bountiful gathering of forageables. But I think they would also munch on dried meat and any forageables along the path as well.
Does anyone have any more definitive data on this? 'Cause I’m just whipping assumptions together out of various things I’ve read that I can’t cite properly right now since I’m at work.
know when I tried the Paleo diet for a while, I needed to eat pretty often--way more than three meals a day.
I’m planning on trying it, or moving into trying it… first I need to clear out the food I do have =P
Anyhow, I have high metabolism, so I don’t really need to lose weight or anything but, I’m quite usually always hungry. No matter what diet. The only times I am not hungry is when I am full, and this usually comes after eating a (relatively) large amount of meat and fat. Or to a lesser extent a large amount of pasta. The difference for me is tho, when I am full on meat and fat I don’t want to eat more. When I am full on pasta I can still (in terms of want) eat more.
Anyhow, I usually try not to eat to sugary/processed/carbs stuff and I can’t say I am the most avid brusher or anything like that and I have had no cavities yet.
Also, lets say in a hunter gatherer society, you were off gathering some berries. I see it could work in a couple ways. Either A. you are gathering berries and someone else is off hunting. In this way you would probably be gathering, more than just eating. Because would you rather gorge yourself on berries or gather some and share for meat?
b. everyone is out gathering, in this case you might all just be out having a feast, eating berries, and then perhaps go out hunting later.
Now perhaps you were out hunting and saw some berries and you picked and ate a few. I don’t think this would be hugely detrimental to your teeth unless maybe you were constantly eating them all day?
Even lacking concrete evidence, this sounds unrealistic to me. I also believe that i recall an anthro instructor telling me about various finds of jaws and teeth with primitive fillings or dental tools…fillings of wax/fat and whatnot. Do you truly believe that tooth decay has only been in existence for the past hundred or so years?
I agree with your logic, however, the paleo-diet is not a cure all.
yeah, it sounds kind of unrealistic to me too! But that is cuz I read that pre agricultural people averaged one cavity per mouth, not zero. Check out Jared Diamonds book the third chimpanzee I think it was that one. Whatever, I just need to know how to protect my grill yall. thanks for the advice.