One of the things that I get to do while consulting all over the country is to periodically attend lectures about health. Because of my interests in non-traditional, ancient medicine practices that often work better than some new medical treatments, I get to attend some pretty interesting presentations, the type that you’re not likely to see on the Discovery Channel anytime in the near future. One of the last talks that I heard in the interesting category was about primitive food.

The presenter, a Harvard M.D., used the descriptive word primitive in only the best possible context. It was about the kind of food that people ate before big business, bad science and deceptive marketing got involved. It was about pure food, nature’s food, unadulterated food. It was about natural foods: meat and milk from cows that graze in fields, chickens that don’t live in cages; he discussed real butter and milk that is not pasteurized, insects, fish and other sea creatures, whole grains, and pure water.

This cardiologist started out with a series of photographs of what people’s faces looked like in the 30’s. I’ll admit they were not all models, but there was a certain beauty, a quality that is not seen much anymore.  These were the faces of people who were not consuming modern chemically treated foods that encourage shelf-life, kill predator insects or thrive during a drought: no hydrogenated fats or MSG, no genetically altered corn, and no high fructose corn syrup.

After each picture of the faces of those eating natural foods, he showed us pictures of people who grew up eating the altered, chemically produced food.  To the majority of us in attendance, those pictures were very surprising.

The crux of his presentation was that back in the 30’s a very curious dentist noticed something about people and the impact of what they ate on the formation of their facial bone structure.  The bone formation in their faces had changed dramatically. This doctor then traveled the world in order to substantiate his findings. The first place that he visited was Switzerland: not developed, modernized Switzerland, but some tiny little village tucked in a mountain pass that was only accessible by foot and couldn’t be reached at all in the winter. When he got there he found the people were living on only locally and naturally produced food–dairy products, grains and meat.

This is where things gets interesting. Their faces were full, and their teeth were perfect. They were happy, healthy and fertile. In other parts of the country where sweets and processed foods were more prevalent, the people had thinner jaws and plenty of cavities. The bone structure of the faces had actually changed over a few generations, and there was not enough room for all of their teeth. So, he decided to keep traveling and went to Africa, the South Pacific, Alaska and several other remote locations where he discovered exactly the same thing, Natural foods–fuller faces; processed foods–thinner faces, tooth decay, infertility and not enough room for their teeth, hence the need for braces.  

By the end of this lecture, our presenting cardiologist had me convinced that I should consider switching to eating seal stomachs, grub worms, pig tails or even fish heads as long as the food was not adulterated, not injected with preservatives, chemicals, artificial colors, sugar, corn syrup and antibiotics. The people who ate primitive foods were happier and healthier, sexier and had prettier smiles; their faces were full and their teeth fit in their mouth.

As I sit here and contemplate our various food groups: artificially flavored chips, injected beef, chemical-laden white bread, sodas containing a chemical used as a fire retardant, make-believe spray cheese, factory-produced chicken eggs, and enough corn syrup to float the Titanic, I now understand why my dentist had to pull my wisdom teeth.

Bottom line? Eat natural stuff. You’ll be sexier!

• Previous Entry: Immigrant Health
• Next Entry: Carnegie Mellon University – Innovation in Health Care Technology Conference