Traditional Diets vs. Modern Diets: Lessons from Dr. Weston Price and the Mellanbys

Traditional Diets vs. Modern Diets: Lessons from Dr. Weston Price and the Mellanbys

The early 20th-century nutrition pioneers left us with a powerful message: when it comes to dental health, the traditional ways of eating were remarkably effective, while modern processed diets invite trouble. Dr. Weston A. Price’s global surveys and the controlled experiments of Drs. Edward and May Mellanby together paint a clear picture of what kind of diet builds healthy teeth – and what kind invites decay.

Nutrient-Dense Ancestral Diets

Dr. Price visited dozens of isolated communities – Swiss villagers in alpine valleys, Inuit tribes in the Arctic, African pastoralists like the Masai, South Pacific islanders, Australian Aboriginal groups, and more. Despite vastly different environments, their traditional diets shared a key theme: each provided abundant fat-soluble vitamins from animal sources. For example, in the Swiss village he studied, the diet centered on raw milk, butter, and cheese from grass-fed cows (loaded with vitamins A, D, and K2), plus occasional meat or organ foods – and their children had less than 1% tooth decay. In the far north, Inuit thrived on oily fish, seal and whale blubber, and organ meats (vitamins A and D galore, with K2 from the animals’ fat and organs); tooth decay was practically nonexistent. Among the East African Masai, a diet of fresh cow’s milk, blood, and meat (rich in fat-soluble nutrients) produced broad smiles with straight, cavity-free teeth – even though these children never used a toothbrush. Across the board, Price found that nearly every non-industrial culture had one or two “sacred” animal foods especially prized for growing children and pregnant mothers: fish eggs, liver, egg yolks, deep-yellow butter, shark liver, organ meat stews, etc. These foods were cherished because elders observed that they conferred strength and disease resistance – and modern analysis confirms that they are nutritional powerhouses for vitamins A, D, K2, and sometimes E.

When Price compared these groups to their relatives who had transitioned to “civilized” diets of white flour, refined sugar, canned goods, and margarine, the differences were stark. The traditional eaters not only had fewer cavities – often near zero – but also wider dental arches (plenty of room for all their teeth, meaning straight teeth and unobstructed airways), virtually no gum disease, and overall better health. The siblings or cousins who ate modern foods, on the other hand, suffered rampant tooth decay, narrow jaws with crowded, crooked teeth, and signs of physical degeneration (from anemia to higher infection rates). The loss of nutrient-dense animal foods and their replacement with nutrient-poor processed foods was, in Price’s words, the root cause of this “physical degeneration.” In some cases, the change was shockingly rapid – within a single generation of dietary change, dental caries would skyrocket from near-zero to affecting the majority of children. Price even noted that in communities where modern foods became available intermittently (say, only in winter when traditional fresh foods were scarce), tooth decay would creep in during those periods. The local people themselves linked it to nutrition; they would try to save up their most nutrient-rich foods (like high-vitamin butter or dried fish roe) to give to children during lean seasons. In essence, they were practicing a form of supplementation to maintain their standard of health.

The Role of Food Preparation and 'Anti-Nutrients'

Dr. May Mellanby’s research added another layer of understanding to these observations. She discovered that it wasn’t just the presence of good foods that mattered, but also the avoidance or proper preparation of foods that could hinder mineral absorption. A prime example is phytic acid, a compound in whole grains, nuts, and legumes that binds minerals like calcium and prevents them from being absorbed. Mellanby found that children on diets extremely high in unfermented whole grains (like porridges or breads made from unsoaked whole wheat) had a much harder time remineralizing their teeth – they continued to get cavities – unless they were given extra vitamin D to counteract it. In experimental terms, a diet heavy in whole grains without special preparation had an “anti-calcifying” effect on teeth. However, when vitamin D was added, some of that effect was overcome and the children’s teeth began to heal. Traditional cultures, again, had unknowingly solved this issue: those who relied on grains as staples almost always fermented or sprouted them. Think of sourdough bread in Europe, or fermented corn porridge in Africa, or soaked rice in Asia – these practices break down phytic acid. Moreover, people usually ate their grain-based foods with vitamin-rich foods. An example noted in nutritional anthropology: traditional Egyptian meals often paired fermented sourdough bread with liver. The sourdough process reduced the grain’s anti-nutrients, and the liver supplied ample vitamins A and D, so together the meal provided minerals in an available form plus the vitamins to utilize them. The lesson here is that it’s not only what you eat, but how you prepare it and what you eat it with. The ancestral diets that produced cavity-free teeth checked all the boxes: lots of vitamins A, D, K2, and E, plenty of minerals, and low levels of things that block those nutrients (thanks to wise food prep methods).

Can Nutrient-Rich Diets Really Cancel Out Sugar?

Perhaps one of the most striking lessons from Price and the Mellanbys is that a properly nourished body is astonishingly resilient – even against sugar and bacteria. We tend to think “if you eat sweets, you’ll get cavities,” and to an extent that’s true in a modern context of marginal nutrition. But Price documented groups that enjoyed natural sweets like honey, or starchy foods that break down into sugars, yet had virtually no decay because their vitamin and mineral intake was so high. Similarly, May Mellanby ran trials giving children a little sugar in their diet but ensuring they got plenty of vitamin D and calcium – and found that their well-nourished teeth could actually remineralize faster than they demineralized. In one 1930s study, even when children continued eating some sweets, those on a nutritionally optimized diet (with daily cod liver oil and meals rich in vitamins) had far fewer cavities than those on an ordinary diet; in some cases, early tooth lesions in the well-nourished group even hardened back up (healed). This suggests that strong teeth plus vitamin-fortified saliva can indeed fend off occasional sugar attacks. The practical takeaway is not that sugar suddenly becomes healthy – but that when the diet is excellent, the “cavity risk” of sweets drops dramatically. Parents in Price’s era often reported that after improving their children’s nutrition, they could enjoy a treat now and then without the cascade of cavities that previously would have followed.

Bringing Ancestral Wisdom to the Modern Table

The dietary wisdom from these pioneers is remarkably relevant today. It tells us that to raise children with healthy teeth (and by extension, healthy bodies), we should emphasize the same kinds of foods that cavity-free traditional cultures did: organ meats like liver, seafood (especially shellfish and oily fish), pastured dairy products, eggs (especially yolks), and animal fats like butter or tallow from well-raised animals. These are the foods brimming with fat-soluble vitamins and bioavailable minerals. Equally, it’s wise to be mindful about grains, nuts, and other high-phytate foods. It doesn’t mean one must avoid them entirely, but learning traditional preparation techniques (sourdough baking, sprouting, slow fermentation) and pairing them with nutrient-dense foods can make a world of difference. In short, we want to maximize the nutrients and minimize the anti-nutrients in the diet.

Thankfully, this doesn’t require a time machine to accomplish. Families today are rediscovering practices like incorporating a “liver night” dinner each week, using bone broth as a base for soups, choosing full-fat milk or cheese from grass-fed farms, and supplementing with things like cod liver oil – the same things great-grandma might have done. And the dental check-ups are telling the tale: kids following these principles often have little to no tooth decay, even in an environment filled with sugary temptations. It’s a reminder that our genes haven’t failed us – it was the loss of a nutrient-rich lifestyle that made tooth decay a common scourge. The good news is we can reclaim much of that ancestral dental immunity by feeding our children (and ourselves) the time-honored foods that built humanity’s robust smiles.

The principles that Dr. Price and the Mellanbys taught are the very ones we hold at KareFor. We aim to help modern parents reintroduce this ancestral wisdom – whether through whole food education or providing supplements derived from those “sacred foods” – so that we can, once again, raise generations of kids with naturally healthy, cavity-resistant teeth.