Anecdotes from Weston Price's Book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration

He had some pretty great stories to tell after traveling the world for 10 years.

“Man’s rise and fall has been a measure of his ability to learn and obey nature’s laws.” -Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston Price, from the cover

“If primitive races have been more efficient than modernized groups in the matter of preventing degenerative processes, physical, mental, and moral, it is only because they have been more efficient in complying with nature’s laws.”

Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston Price p. 229

Both of these quotes demonstrate what I love about Weston Price. Since we now live in a time where nutrition advice is polluted by competing agendas, its refreshing to hear from someone who was committed to discovering truth and submitting himself to wherever the facts led (even if they led to eating animal organs 🤣). He understood that humans come with a nature, and that we damage ourselves to the extent that we veer from our design.

Here are three stories from his book that have implications for how we eat. (If you’re just tuning in, here are the first three parts of my Weston Price series. Part 1: my improvements after following Price’s principles, Part 2: what Weston Price did, and Part 3: how to implement his principles).

The first story comes from a zoologist whom Price met. This zoologist told Price that zoos had never been able to get their lions, tigers, or other species of big cats to breed in captivity. Most zoologists believed this to be behavioral. However, one astute naturalist observed that in the wild, cats eat the organs of the prey they capture first and often leave the muscle meats for scavengers. So one zookeeper began feeding organ meats to his big cats instead of only muscle meats, and the cats began to reproduce in captivity. Others followed suit, and soon zoos all over the world were sporting spry little lion cubs.

Clearly, the cats were missing some the essential nutrients in the organs that were necessary for reproduction. This story corresponds to what Price observed in the isolated indigenous people groups. They recognized that nutrient-dense foods were needed for successful reproduction, and often had women eat special vitamin-rich foods prior to getting married.