Our Modern Processed Diet Still Causes Birth Defects!

The reason the word still is in the title is because we’ve known about this phenomenon for a long time now, the connection between our processed diet and common and “nowadays seen as the norm” birth defects, which makes it very mind-boggling to me that it still so widely persists!

It was in 1939 where the Canadian dentist Weston A. Price published his famous yet today somewhat forgotten book “Nutrition and Physical Degeneration” (recommended reading for the health-conscious!) where he very convincingly detailed his research findings on the connection between the modern processed diet and birth defects as well as lots of other troubling symptoms of ill dental and overall physical health, probably due to a mix between nutritional deficiencies and direct toxic effects of the processed foods (especially the seed and vegetable oils).

“Our modern processed diet, due to nutritional deficiencies and toxicity, causes birth defects that often aren’t even recognized as such anymore due to how commonplace they’ve become.”

Our modern diet is causing birth defects

Dr. Price's Travels, Research And Discoveries
Modern Research
Avoiding These Common Modern Birth Defects
Recap
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Dr. Price’s Travels, Research And Discoveries

Dr. Price travelled globally studying diets and nutrition of various isolated indigenous cultures in comparison to their modernized counterparts (including Americans) that had adopted a more processed diet filled with white flour and rice, sugar and vegetable fats, and concluded with little doubt that this diet of ours was (and still is) causing birth defects in the form of crowded and crooked teeth, facial deformities with thinner and narrower faces (as opposed of more round as they’re supposed to be), overbites, underdevelopment of the nose, lack of well-defined cheekbones, pinched nostrils and narrower airways (all of which today have gotten even worse and even more of the actual norm, since processed food consumption has increased since then and we’re all thus more or less eating even more in this way than we did back then!).

Lot’s of evens at the end of that sentence, but I guess that makes us even :).

He also discovered a lot of other health issues commonly accompanying such a largely processed diet, such as arthritis, osteoporosis, chronic fatigue, diabetes and intestinal complaints, as well as rampant tooth decay and cavities, something that was rarely if ever present in the people who still ate their natural and whole food based diets, despite often never even brushing their teeth!

Children born to parents on a modern diet and fed one during their developing years also often suffered from things such as allergies, asthma, frequent infections, lack of coordination, poor vision, fatigue and behavioral problems (also stuff that has become a lot more common and nearly the norm today and that again basically wasn’t present at all among those on their indigenous and unprocessed diets!).

These latter health ailments should come as no surprise to you though if you’re a reader of this website, since they’re basically mostly just more types of chronic disease which we have already established to most likely be the result of our processed diet and the seed and vegetable oils of our time, and simply was so then as well.

“Aside from the common birth defects due to diet such as crowded teeth and narrower faces and airways, a lot of chronic disease such as allergies, asthma and behavioral problems comes with it too.”

But let’s focus on the birth defects and Dr. Weston A. Price in this specific article, shall we?

Perfect teeth and rounded face is how we should look

Food Nutrient Level Findings

Dr. Price found through his laboratory food testing that nutrient levels were much, much higher in the whole food and natural human diets than in the processed ones, with up to at least four times the minerals and water soluble vitamins such as vitamin C and the B complex vitamins, and the results would be even worse if he did those same tests today, since again, the amount of processed foods our diets are made up of have only increased since then, along with most of our soils having less and less nutrients by the year, so..

Many foods such as grains and tubers were also traditionally prepared differently by methods such as fermenting, soaking, sprouting and sour leavening to make the most of the food’s nutritional value, something that we barely do anymore today.

Even more surprising to him though was that when he tested the foods for essential fat soluble vitamins, such as vitamin A, D and what’s today known as vitamin K2, he found that the proper unprocessed diets contained at least 10 times more of these!

And these are the ones that are only found in healthy animal foods such as egg yolks, fish eggs, shellfish, organ meats and liver and in their fats; butter, cream, lard, tallow, ghee, fish oils (especially fish liver oil), duck fat etc, and especially high in grass-fed animal products as opposed to grain-fed.

He also found that these fat soluble vitamins were the most important ones and that all aspects of nutrition seemed to greatly suffer without them, and that the particular foods richest in these often were the highest valued and sometimes referred to as sacred foods by the traditional populations – Hunter-gatherers would always eat all the organ meats of their prey, and often directly and raw, like Liver King :).

(These fat-soluble vitamins (D, A and K2) are all among the supplements I recommend most everyone take a good version of today, even on a very healthy diet, mind you, and you can find the recommended versions of those here (A), here (D) and here (K2), although vitamin A can also be supplemented with from a good beef liver supplement or cod liver oil!)

Animal foods: eggs, cheese, sausages, meat, offal

“Food nutrient levels are often many times higher in whole foods compared to ultraprocessed ones, and the very important fat-soluble vitamins A, D and K2 are basically only present in meaningful amounts in certain traditionally highly valued animal foods (or in the right supplements).”

But since we’re on the topic of healthy traditions:

Healthy Traditions For Pregnancies

Aside from eating the whole animal and especially valuing organ meats and certain seafoods such as oysters and kelp, many indigenous cultures also served and gave more of these specific sacred foods to parents before conception and to their pregnant women and developing children, knowing full well through their intuition and ancient generationally passed down knowledge that these were especially important for these people and during these stages of life to ensure the health of the child.

Another common nutrition-focused tradition was deliberately spacing children, with at least 3 years between pregnancies to ensure the proper recovery of the nutritional stores of the mother, with less than that having the potential to bring shame on the parents.

Foods Rich In These Nutrients As A Treatment

Dr. Price started treating patients with small yet therapeutic doses of foods such as high vitamin spring and fall butter (where the cows that produce it have grazed on a lot of fresh green grass and plants) and cod liver oil with very good results in treating arthritis, osteoporosis, rickets, tooth decay and failure to thrive in children.

Others started successfully using them to treat respiratory diseases such as asthma, allergies, tuberculosis, emphysema and for general convalescence and recovery from disease.

Dr. Price found that, aside from having perfect teeth, faces and bone structure, these “primitives” on a healthy diet also had a generally much more cheerful and positive outlook on life when compared to those with the deformities in these areas.

Modern Research

Nowadays there’s also a lot more modern research published on the healthy effects of getting more of these particular foods and vitamins in your diet, although I still think that the very best way of getting more vitamin D in particular is simply through more sun exposure (ideally while cutting down on omega-6 oils which I’ve mentioned before as a very likely underlying reason to the sun giving us more skin cancer in the first place).

With many of these traditional and healthy animal foods and fats with their saturated fat content and dietary cholesterol being or having until recently been vilified by the mainstream media and many authorities on the subject, a lot has indeed gone wrong with the modern diet and food recommendations as a whole, and will probably continue in that direction for quite some time when considering all the money that’s in the processed food industry, and all this despite, again, having known since the 1940’s what it’s doing to our health and how we’re born and will develop.

And to somewhat cite the Weston A. Price Foundation article that much of this is information is taken from:

“All children deserve the kind of good health that allows them a carefree childhood; and then the energy and intelligence they need to put their adult years to best and highest use.”

There are also more modern studies showing a correlation between intake of ultraprocessed foods during pregnancy and birth defects as well as studies on many individual nutrients where deficiencies can cause birth defects and that are important for early development overall (both in and outside the tummy), such as folic acid (neural tube defects), iodine and vitamin B12 to name a few.

The good news is that these are all covered by a healthy mostly unprocessed diet combined with some often needed specific supplements to fill some nutritional gaps.

So:

Avoiding These Common Modern Birth Defects

To avoid the unwanted yet now common birth defects (and a lot of chronic disease at large), head over to our article on improving/optimizing your health for a healthier life and lifestyle and hone in on the 3 first points having to do with your diet (eating healthy, avoiding vegetable oils and supplementing correctly [the rest are important too but these are the biggest ones concerning birth defects and chronic disease at large!]), and follow those accordingly for a healthier pregnancy and a healthier and more carefree developing child.

The health of you and your child is in your hands, so take care of it wisely :)!

Recap

Our processed diet is causing lots of birth defects that can be avoided.

Optimize your health, but especially diet, with a focus on healthy foods, cutting out these seed and vegetable oils and the foods they are in, and taking the right supplements to do so.

All children deserve good health.