Healthy 4 Life: Dietary Guidelines from the Weston A. Price Foundation

Move over, Pyramid. Slide aside, Food Plate. The Weston A. Price Foundation is bringing dietary guidelines back to the basics, as in the basic four food groups. Only these aren’t your mom’s basic four. They’re a whole new group—well, actually a whole old group—based on the brilliant insights of Dr. Weston A. Price.

In the 1930s, Price crisscrossed the globe to study non-industrialized populations in which ailments such as cancer, heart attacks, and other “diseases of civilization” were virtually unknown. The reason for their remarkable health, he discovered, was the foods they ate—as well as the ones they didn’t eat. From the Eskimos of Alaska to the tribes of the African plains, Price found that humans who stuck to the traditional diets of their culture remained in good health, while those who switched to modern processed foods such as refined sugar, flour, and vegetable oils fell prey to the same diseases that plague us today.

While the diets of the hundreds of cultures Price studied varied considerably, he found they generally included four types of foods:

1. Animal foods, especially raw milk, fish, and the organs of land animals
2. Fermented grains, legumes, and nuts
3. Fresh vegetables and fruits, often raw or fermented
4. Natural fats and oils—especially the saturated fats of animals (processed seed oils such as grape seed and canola were unknown to these heart-attack-free cultures)

While modern nutrition misguidedly blames saturated fat for our ill health and sells poisons such as processed sugar and flour as health food, Healthy 4 Life presents the true super foods of the human race. Includes ninety foundational recipes!