On Wed, 19 Jul 2000, Amadeus Schmidt wrote:

> Maori as the worlds winner? It will contribute that they have a high
> Vitamin C, calcium and Vitamin A ingestion.

For prevention of tooth decay, Price thought vitamin A was
especially important.

> Inuit second best? They don't eat starches, so the main acid-attack from
> decomposing starch, sticking to the teeth is avoided.

Price also pointed out that there are plenty of people whose
teeth are "smeared with starchy food" all day who don't get tooth
decay.

> Vitamin A plenty.
> But how can they bear the severe vitamin C shortage which is especially
> important to the gums?

There's no shortage.  Vitamin C is abundant in the adrenal glands
of animals, and also in a certain stomach lining tissue.

> > Americans show greater than 180 decayed teeth per 2000 teeth.
>
> ..Who are big meat eaters, but even bigger eaters of sweets.
> It seems that the most important factor is to avoid sweet things.
> More important than supply of any special stuff in the food.

If Price is correct, it's both.  Meats are not rich in vitamins A
and D unless one is careful to include liver or seafoods or
quality butter.

> Was the swiss data youg (industial food time, last 100-150 years) or older?
> High sugar consumation and grain extracts (white flour) is used in amounts
> only after this time. But to the extreme only since 50 years.

Price compared isolated Alpine Swiss populations of the 1930s
with nearby populations that had more contact with the rest of
the world.  The Loetschental Valley was ideal because the
Loetschberg tunnel, which made the valley accessible, had only
just been completed.  The Swiss of the Loetschental Valley used
coarse whole-grain flour from locally grown rye, and had little
or no white flour or sugar.  Price writes, on page 26, "The
nutrition of the people of the Loetschental Valley, particularly
that of the growing boys and girls, consists largely of a slice
of whole rye bread and a piece of the summer-made cheese (about
as large as the slice of bread), which are eaten with fresh milk
of goats or cows.  Meat is eaten about once a week.  In light of
our newer knowledge of activating substances, including vitamins,
and the relative values of food for supplying minerals for body
building, it is clear why they have healthy bodies and sound
teeth.  The average total fat-soluble activator and mineral
intake of calcium and phosphorus of these children would far
exceed that of the daily intake of the average American child."

As I wrote to Don, the tooth decay rate for the Loetschental
Swiss, children and adults, was about 21 teeth per 2,000 (my
earlier calculation was off).  This, of course, includes those
few (particularly adults) who *did* have access to white flour
and sugar.  It cannot be assumed that absolutely nobody in the
valley ever traveled or that other foods were never brought in.
Since the total population (at that time) was only about 2,000,
even a few people with access to modern foods would skew the
tooth decay rates.

The samething goes for the isolated Gaelics of the Outer
Hebrides, whom Price describes in the next chapter.  There the
basic diet consists of seafoods and oatmeal, and a little barley.
Price writes (p. 53), "Those living on primitive foods had only
0.7 carious teeth per hundred..."  That's 14 per 2,000, using
Don's metric.

Todd Moody
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