On Wed, 12 Jul 2000, matesz wrote:

> Eskimos ate plenty of preformed vit A (fish sources).  They are one of the
> few cultures that have been shown to be virtually free of dental decay on
> their native diet--i.e. about 90% animal products.  When Weston Price
> studied diets and dental health of many native cultures with varying amounts
> of animal products in their diets, he found that the incidence of dental
> decay was invariably inversely proportional to the amount of animal products
> in the diet:  The cultures that ate lots of animal products had very little
> or no dental decay, while the cultures that ate few animal products had many
> times more dental decay (invariably, the lower the animal product intake,
> the more decayed teeth) (Nutrition and Physical Degeneration).

Could you give an exact reference?  I can't remember reading
this.  On the contrary, it seems to me that he found a broad
spectrum of dietary conditions associated with little or no tooth
decay.  The isolated Swiss, whom he describes in great detail,
ate meat only once a week (but used cheese rather frequently).
On page 293 he writes, "[M]any primitive races have their teeth
smeared with starchy foods almost constantly and make no effort
whatsoever to clean their teeth.  In spite of this they have no
tooth decay."

My impression is that Price's main thesis is that the amount of
tooth decay is directly proportional to exposure to "white man's
foods," especially flour and sugar, and lack of vitamins A and D
and certain minerals.  It's correct that he found no vegetarian
societies, and found some that went to great lengths to procure
certain specific animal foods, especially sea foods.  But I can't
find anything about the ratio of plant to animal foods being
correlated with rates of tooth decay.

Todd Moody
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