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Originally, I never spent much time thinking about teeth. I assumed that my good diet would keep me free from cavities for my entire life. Yet the glass of my limited beliefs was shattered the day my partner and I observed a small, light-brown spot on the top of a front tooth of our one-year-old daughter. I wondered to myself, "Is this a tooth cavity?" Days, weeks and months went by, and to our horror the spot grew and grew. Every day I would look at my daughter's teeth with dreaded fear as this cavity rapidly progressed and other teeth began to decay. Being a natural parent, which includes keeping my daughter free from chemicals in the forms of processed junk foods, western drugs and vaccinations, I was extremely concerned with taking my precious little girl to a dentist for a dental treatment. Wanting to avoid traumatic anesthesia and surgery for my daughter and not wanting to have her teeth pulled left me in a grave dilemma: either I had to subject her to a dental treatment, which to me was inappropriately violent for a small child who was not experiencing any pain or suffering, or I had to find the r e a l cause of cavities. Only through grace, persistence and hard work did I find a cure, and I share an important part of it in this article. At the peak of my daughter's tooth decay, her teeth disintegrated so rapidly that the one decayed tooth crumbled apart within a few weeks' time. Meanwhile, I was diagnosed with four new cavities, and I was not prepared to have more synthetic materials added to my overburdened body. Also, these four cavities did not even address the places on my teeth where I felt a great deal of sensitivity: on the sides of many of my molars near the gum lines—a condition which I now know is called a b f r a c t i o n. Today I write nearly three years later. My teeth, once sensitive and loose in my mouth, are now firmly embedded and strong. The sensitive spots have hardened dramatically. Although my daughter's teeth continued to decay to some degree for a while, her teeth have protected themselves. Even with two teeth worn to the gum line, she has no pain, no sign of any infection and no problem eating hard foods like peanuts. These results are not by way of some special product or dental treatment, but by food alone.
"Tooth decay...occurs when foods containing carbohydrates (sugars and starches) such as milk, pop, raisins, cakes or candy are frequently left on the teeth. Bacteria that live in the mouth thrive on these foods, producing acids as a result. Over a period of time, these acids destroy tooth enamel, resulting in tooth decay."3 So, based on the combination of the belief that tooth decay is caused by bacteria (identified as Streptococcus mutans a n d Lactobacillus acidophilus) and the belief that bacteria eat foods in the mouth and produce acid, thus causing the physical structure of teeth to erode, the modern system of dentistry has developed. According to this modern system: 1) You must brush your teeth all the time to eliminate these dangerous bacteria. I guess that not enough people have noticed that these methods for treating teeth do not cure the problem; rather, modern treatments limit some pain and suffering while your teeth continue to decay. To be clear, I am not opposed to dental treatments: sometimes they are the best option for some people. But for the majority of us, there is another way to halt, prevent and even remineralise decayed teeth. In a large study of about 16,000 individuals, conducted from 1999 to 2002 in the United States by a government agency. In fact, the statistics for people over the age of 40 in the USA are dismal. On average, 45.89 per cent of all teeth in this age group have been affected by decay. That average is nearly half the teeth in each person's mouth having been affected by decay. This gets worse: by the time you reach the age of 60 and over, on average 62.36 per cent of all teeth have been affected by decay.4 If dental drilling, root canal fillings, tooth-pulling, mass water fluoridation, tooth-brushing and toothpastes were the proper treatment for cavities, then we would not see this increase of tooth decay over time. We would see a decrease over time, or at least the level holding steady, because the older people get, in general the more they are flossing, brushing and having their teeth drilled. So, it follows that their tooth decay should n o t get worse, since they are following the prescribed protocol. Are we to assume that over 90 per cent of the population is not following the prescribed protocol? Or is something fundamentally wrong with this "modern" approach to halting cavities?
"They have neither physician nor dentist because they have so little need for them; they have neither policeman nor jail, because they have no need for them."5 This harmony is also evident in the production of food: "While the cows spend the warm summer on the verdant knolls and wooded slopes near the glaciers and fields of perpetual snow, they have a period of high and rich productivity of milk… This cheese contains the natural butter fat and minerals of the splendid milk and is a virtual storehouse of life for the coming winter."6 (Emphasis added in italics.) Reverend John Siegen, the pastor of the one church in the valley, told Dr Price about the butter and cheese made with a high degree of harmony from the milk of the grazing cows: "He told me that they recognize the presence of Divinity in the life-giving qualities of the butter made in June when cows have arrived for pasturage near the glaciers. He gathers the people together to thank the kind F a t h e r for evidence of his B e i n g in the life-giving qualities of butter and cheese when the cows eat the grass near the snow line... The natives of the valley are able to recognize the superior quality of their June butter, and, without knowing exactly why, pay it due homage. "7 ( E m p h a s i s added.) This "due homage" paid to butter is a far cry from today's dietary dictators, who say that butter is bad for our health because of its high levels of saturated fat and cholesterol. In reflecting on his time in Loetschental Valley, Dr Price stated: "One immediately wonders if there is not something in the life-giving vitamins and minerals of the food that builds not only great physical structures within which their souls reside, but builds minds and hearts capable of a higher type of manhood in which the material values of life are made We can see, feel and hear a high degree of harmony with Nature in the description of the people and environment of the Loetschental Valley. Not only are the animals and the land honoured in a sacred manner, so is the food. The people see and know the divine quality within their butter. And to see this quality in the butter, they must also see and know this divine quality within themselves. This knowing, I hypothesise, is a result of a way of living in accordance with Nature's fundamental laws. And the people see evidence and are reminded of their own divinity by seeing the "Father" and His "Being", His presence, in the gift which He gave them: the gift of health, aliveness and vitality through His butter and cheese. The diet of the Loetschental Valley people in the early 1930s consisted of whole rye bread, summer butter and cheese (about as large a portion as the slice of bread), eaten with the fresh, raw milk of goats or cows. They ate meat once a week. In Dr Price's study of 4,280 teeth of children living in the high alpine valleys, he found that 3.4 per cent had been attacked by decay. But in the Loetschental Valley, he found only 0.3 per cent of all teeth affected by decay.9 So, the Loetschental people were highly immune to cavities and yet a significant part of their diet was a sourdough rye bread. Bread is something that many dental associations believe to be a primary cause of cavities when it is left stuck on the teeth. The people of Loetschental Valley did not floss and did not brush their teeth. They even had typical deposits in their mouths but did not suffer from tooth decay. Dr Price wrote: "[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."10 Meanwhile, during the same time period, tooth decay was a major problem for schoolchildren in modern parts of Switzerland, with 85–100 per cent of the population affected. Modern Swiss children of a similar genetic lineage, living in modern towns with access to the most advanced dental techniques of the time, suffered from tooth decay. The people did not seem to know why, and even tried regular exercise and suntanning of the children—with no relief from cavities. The cause of cavities in these modern children was not that they did not brush, and not that they lacked access to modern dental care: it had to do with the lack of vitamins in the industrialised, commercialised foods they were now eating. The modernised Swiss no longer ate their native diets of whole rye bread, summer butter and cheese, and fresh, raw goat's and cow's milk. They replaced their carefully prepared whole rye sourdough bread with white-flour products. They substituted their summer butters and cheeses with margarines, marmalades, jams, canned vegetables, confections and fruits, all of which had to be transported to the area. They grew only a limited supply of their vegetables locally. But even in these modernized areas, some children d i d have a high immunity to tooth decay—the ones who still ate their native diet. Dr Price noted: "We studied some children here whose parents retained their primitive methods of food selection, and without exception those who were immune to dental caries were eating a distinctly different food from those with high susceptibility to dental caries."1 1 On average, the modernised Swiss had a rate of tooth decay eight times higher than those who still followed their native diet. Of 2,065 teeth that Dr Price analysed in another study, 25.5 per cent had been attacked by dental caries and many teeth had become abscessed (infected).1 2 The difference between the two diets of the people of Switzerland in the 1930s indicates an important key to unlocking your body's ability to remineralise cavities. The modern Swiss who had a high degree of tooth decay still ate many similar foods to those on the indigenous diet. They ate bread and butter and drank milk. But they also added new foods to their diet that were largely uncommon in the area: sweets. Often the problem is not that the general food we are eating is wrong, but that there's an enormous difference in how the food is prepared and where it comes from, e.g., whether the milk is pasteurised or raw, whether the cows graze on green grass or are fed grains and hay and crammed into stalls, and whether the grains come from nutrient-rich soils or not and how they are prepared. The difference between the modern Swiss and the isolated Swiss who were highly immune to cavities is not an enigma. Dr Price repeated his observations across the world.
In this group, approximately half of all teeth had been affected by decay prior to the nutritional program. After completion of the program, only two new cavities formed within a three-year time period, which is a recurrence rate of 0.4 per cent.17
Knowing what n o t to eat is almost as important as knowing what to eat. It is important not to cheat on this advice, which also relates to beverages and other products. So, avoid these items: • Sugar: white sugar, brown sugar, organic sugar, evaporated cane juice, corn syrup, commercial jams (exceptions: totally unheated honey, organic untreated maple syrup, rapadura, stevia). Many sweeteners still encourage tooth decay; if you have a severe or difficult case, only use stevia and avoid all other sweets.
You can minimise your tooth decay, prevent it entirely and even heal tooth decay once a cavity has formed, provided that you make good choices for yourself based on knowledge of decay-free indigenous peoples. Learn these lessons and take the wise approach to healing and preventing tooth decay using unprocessed foods as nature intended. You can learn how to live without tooth decay. You can heal Permission obtained from Author to reprint portion of article
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