The Weston A. Price Foundation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Weston A. Price Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, US-tax-exempt charity[1] founded in 1999 to disseminate the research of nutrition pioneer Dr. Weston A. Price, by publicising health-promoting approaches to nutrition and the scientific validation of traditional diets.
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[edit] Dr Weston Price
- Main article: Weston Price
Dr Price (1870-1948) was a Cleveland dentist and nutrition research pioneer whose work Nutritional and Physical Degeneration chronicles his fact-finding journeys around the world in the 1920s and 1930s. His purpose in this endeavour was originally to study the dental hygiene and development in native populations (including tribal Africans, Pacific Islanders, Eskimos, North and South American Indians, and Austrialian Aborigines). Later, however, Price shifted his focus to recording and studying the generational developmental effects of dietary differences and deficiencies between traditional native diets and what was at that time a newly imported "western" diet of refined, processed foods. Price's long-term study was very in-depth for its time.[citation needed]
Price found that straight teeth with little decay, strong bodies, resistance to disease and positive personalities were typical of indigenous people eating their traditional diets. He also discovered examples of people from the cultures he visited who had adopted more modern foods, such as sugar, white flour, pasteurised milk and convenience foods filled with extenders and additives, noting and photographing the dental and health differences in these people and their offspring.[2]
[edit] The Weston A. Price Foundation
WAPF was co-founded in 1999 by Sally Fallon, MA (a journalist, chef, nutrition researcher, homemaker, and community activist), and Dr. Mary Enig (a biochemist and nutritionist). It has some 50 board and honorary board members, and is comprised of more tham 200 chapters throughout the United States and other countries.[3][4]
The Foundation does not receive funding from any government agency or private corporation; its income is mainly derived from the contributions of its members. While many of its members are family farmers, the Foundation affirms that it "has no ties with the meat or dairy industry, nor with any organisation promoting these industries." The Foundation promotes the production of food by independent farmers and producers, and not by industry.[5]
The Foundation is dedicated to
- restoring nutrient-dense foods to the human diet through education, research and activism
- supporting particular movements that contribute to this objective including
- accurate nutrition instruction,
- organic and biodynamic farming,
- pasture-feeding of livestock,
- community-supported farms,
- honest and informative labelling,
- prepared parenting and nurturing therapies.
Specific goals include establishment of universal access to clean, certified raw milk and a ban on the use of soy in infant formulas. The organisation is an active lobby in Washington, DC on issues such as government food triangle definition and composition of school lunch programmes.
The Foundation is also known for its positive stance towards the traditional consumption of saturated fats, as well as its efforts to provide scientifically founded clarification about fats to the public. Its Vice-President, Dr. Enig, is a lipid biochemist of international repute,[citation needed] and one of the early voices that spoke out against the health concerns connected with the consumption of trans fat.
Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon, head of the Weston A. Price Foundation, is a cook book and nutritional education resource following the principles of Dr. Price. It focuses on probiotics in the form of lactic acid fermented vegetables or milk, sprouting grains, and grass-fed meats (high in omega-3 fatty acids) as well as reducing sugar intake and avoiding "new-fangled" and processed foods.
[edit] Criticisms
In 2002, Stephen Barrett of the website Quackwatch published an internet essay containing three-paragraphs that discounted the dental research findings of Weston A. Price in the 1930s as "quackery".[6] The Weston A. Price Foundation published an 8-point response in the Fall 2005 journal Wise Traditions,[7] which claimed that Barrett contradicted himself, and glossed over Price's 10 years of research and data collection (which appeared in peer-reviewed journals of his day).
The anti-vegetarian and anti-soy views of the Weston A. Price Foundation have attracted counter-views in several vegetarian and vegan magazines and communities.[8][9] The views expressed in "The Myths of Vegetarianism" by Dr. Stephen Byrnes has a counter-view expressed in "A Response to Stephen Byrnes' "The Myths of Vegetarianism"" by Andrew Paterson.
[edit] Books
- Dr Weston A Price, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, (Keats Publihing; 15th edition, June 2003). ISBN 0-87983-816-7, ISBN-13 978-0879838164.
[edit] Notes
- ^ WAPF website. The Weston A. Price Foundation - Funding. Retrieved on January 21, 2007..
- ^ WAPF website. The Weston A. Price Foundation - Funding. Retrieved on January 21, 2007..
- ^ Dr Mary Enig & Sally Fallon, Eat Fat, Lose Fat, (Hudson Street Press, January 2005), p. 4 and rear fly-leaf. ISBN 1-59463-005-4.
- ^ WAPF website. The Weston A. Price Foundation - Board of Directors. Retrieved on January 21, 2007..
- ^ WAPF website. The Weston A. Price Foundation - Funding. Retrieved on January 21, 2007..
- ^ Stephen Barrett, M.D. Stay Away from 'Holistic Dentistry'. Quackwatch. Retrieved on February 11, 2007.
- ^ Sally Fallon, "The Right Price", Weston Price Journal, Volume 6, Number 3, p.17. available online, Back issues of the journal appear online once printed issues are sold out. A fair use copy is available online here (image) and here (text).
- ^ http://www.foodrevolution.org/what_about_soy.htm
- ^ http://www.vegsource.com/talk/soy/messages/126.html
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- The Weston A. Price Foundation's Web Site
- The Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation
- A Campaign for Real Milk
- Recommendations to the US Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee 2005 (PDF).
- WAP recommendations to the 2005 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. Provides an overview of WAPF's dietary recommendations as made to the US Government.
