Diet and Recovery from Chronic Disease

[Guest guest]

By Ron Schmid, ND

 

Weston Price showed us that the fundamental cause of disease is

inadequate nutrition. In virtually every indigenous culture he visited

and studied, from tropical regions to the extreme north, people who were

eating entirely according to the traditional wisdom of their ancestors

were immune to chronic diseases. His interviews of medical practitioners

who served in these areas confirmed the fact that diseases such as

rheumatoid arthritis, cancer, tuberculosis and gastrointestinal problems

requiring surgical intervention did not occur until the people began

eating “the white man’s foods”—sugar, flour, vegetable oils, canned

goods and other refined foods.1

 

Price was not alone in his discoveries. In the first three decades of

the twentieth century, many explorers, anthropologists and physicians

who traveled in remote areas and lived amongst traditional people

described the splendid health and absence of chronic disease these

people enjoyed.2,3

 

I first read Price’s classic work, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration,

in the 1970s when I was studying to be a naturopathic physician. I began

incorporating the dietary principles I learned into my own diet, and

this step was instrumental in healing my chronic intestinal problems.

Then, as I began my work as a physician, I used the principles I learned

from Dr. Price with my patients. In 1987, I published my first book,

Traditional Foods Are Your Best Medicine, in which I wrote extensively

about Dr. Price’s work and its application.

 

And yet, many of the people who have consulted with me over the years

have had the same problem that I had: despite having some understanding

of the nutritional principles that Dr. Price discovered and elucidated,

they often have great difficulty in finding and implementing a diet that

will prevent or reverse chronic diseases.

 

WRONG ASSUMPTIONS

 

One mistake made by nearly anyone seeking healing through food is the

assumption that one diet is right for everyone. A corollary of this

premise is the notion that a diet that worked well for you for a while

will continue to be right for you indefinitely. On the contrary, each of

us has different needs and idiosyncrasies. What works beautifully for me

may not work well for you, and vice-versa. Furthermore, one’s needs

change over time, so that your “best diet” today may well need to evolve

dramatically over the weeks, months and years.

 

An example: if you go from a diet of mostly steak, pasta, Scotch and

cheesecake, to raw fruits, vegetables and juices, you might well feel

better, lose unwanted weight, and think you’ve discovered the fountain

of youth—for a while. But at some point—a point that will vary markedly

for different people—you’ll run into trouble. And many people will then

think, “Gee, I did great on that diet. Why won’t it work now? Something

else must be wrong since my diet is fine.”

 

But this is probably the wrong conclusion. The physical part of the

explanation for health problems can almost always be found in the diet.

My objective in this article is to explain some ideas about how each

individual may use the nutritional principles Dr. Price discovered in

order to move toward his or her health goals. I’m a believer in the

ancient credo “Physician, heal thyself,” so I will start out with my own

case and go on from there to details about my work with patients and

then generalizations I think apply to most of us.

 

THE CHOLESTEROL TRAP

 

I initially fell into the trap of being overly influenced by the

conventional wisdom about animal fats and cholesterol. Like most of us,

I’d been thoroughly indoctrinated about the alleged dangers, and in the

1970s and 1980s I read a lot of literature about “primitive” and

“Paleolithic” diets, which maintained that such diets, while high in

protein, were low in fat. I bought into this idea, and advocated the use

of moderate amounts of meat and raw dairy foods along with large amounts

of vegetables, fish, and some fruit and whole grains (a diet not unlike

that which many Price Foundation members report that they eat).

 

Now that is a diet that many people do very well with for some time, and

this was true for me. But as I described above, the belief that the same

diet that you may have thrived on for a number of years will always be

right for you is often fallacious. It’s quite natural to make this

error; we all become attached to the things we like, to our routines.

Change is difficult.

 

AN ATTACK OF LYME

 

In the summer of 2002, I came down with a severe and debilitating case

of Lyme disease. I’d had unexplained joint and muscle pain for several

weeks, which I’d attributed to the normal strains of being an aging

athlete. On a hot July evening after a long run in extreme heat, I

experienced severe shooting pains throughout my upper body, with fever

and chills, headache and a variety of other extremely uncomfortable

symptoms. Only my training as a naturopathic physician kept me from

going to the emergency room—I knew there was nothing conventional

medicine could do for me that I would want done. These symptoms raged on

for several days, and I sent a sample of my blood to a laboratory that

confirmed what I suspected—I was having an acute attack of chronic Lyme

disease.

 

In the late 1990s, I had finally figured out, with the help of the

Weston A. Price Foundation, that optimal native diets were invariably

high in the fat-soluble activators available in animal fats. I’d begun

using more raw dairy foods and fatty meats to complement the huge amount

of raw vegetables and moderate amounts of fresh fish and fruit that I’d

eaten for decades. When I came down with Lyme, I’d just begun working on

my next book, The Untold Story of Milk, which was published a year later.

 

I thought my diet was great. But why did I get sick? I’ve always

maintained that if health is optimal, one should be resistant to all

disease, acute or chronic. Yet here I was with a debilitating case of

Lyme disease. What was going on?

 

My lab tests made it clear that my Lyme was chronic, that I had had it

for some time. The unexplained symptoms I’d been experiencing before the

acute attack confirmed that the problem had existed for many months. I’d

continued to function at an intense physical level —two or three hours

of tennis many days and runs of five to fifteen miles a couple of times

a week. In fact, I was overdoing it, and eventually the Lyme overwhelmed

my system and I became acutely ill. But the question remained, why had I

been susceptible to Lyme?

 

Because of my basic assumption that the fundamental cause of all disease

is faulty diet, I went back to the drawing board. I decided to question

all my assumptions and make any changes that seemed reasonable.

 

Understanding what Weston Price taught— as complicated as that is—is

really just the beginning of understanding how to use food to prevent

and heal chronic disease. Think of it this way: Price studied cultures

all over the world, all of which ate wildly different diets. From the

vast amount of information he gathered, he extracted certain principles

about what foods were most important and the nutrients those foods

contained. Based upon these principles, we must try to choose, from the

foods available to us today, those that will best supply the essential

nutrients common to these varied traditional diets. In so doing, it’s

essential to decide what the optimal proportions of different foods are,

how much of each to eat. Then there is the question of which foods, and

how much of them, are best eaten raw or undercooked. These are among the

issues I looked at in tackling my Lyme problem.

 

I resolved that I would not take antibiotics. When the disease is

diagnosed early, when it initially appears, antibiotics are not

unreasonable, and often eradicate the organism that is involved in Lyme.

Many people go this route and never have a further problem. However,

once Lyme is established for several months, as mine was, conventional

treatment calls for months of intravenous antibiotics. Results are at

best mixed; I’ve interviewed many patients who continued to suffer

severe symptoms in spite of such treatment.

 

The symptoms of chronic Lyme tend to exacerbate into acute attacks

lasting a few days about every four weeks, and that was my experience. A

month after my first acute attack, I again had several days of marked

symptoms, but this time only about half as severe as the initial attack.

I’d been applying what I’d learned, and was eating much more animal food

and much more raw food (more on this later). It took me three or four

months to get to the point where I felt 95 percent well, to where I was

playing tennis and running again (although less than before, having

decided that there is wisdom in moderation and that discretion is the

better part of valor). During my recovery, I was writing The Untold

Story of Milk, and in the spring we bought the small farm where we now live.

 

RECOVERY

 

My recovery from Lyme is complete; I do the usual farm chores, milk

cows, build fences, carry heavy stuff, play some tennis and go for an

occasional run. I feel “100 percent.” And yet, the Lyme is there, and I

think perhaps it may remain with me for several years. We’ve learned to

live together. This requires some explanation.

 

I’ve often seen individuals recover from a chronic disease only to have

the problem recur within a few months or years. Related to this is the

fact that we all have health problems that go back to our younger years,

which tend to come back periodically. It appears that with concerted

effort in the areas of diet and lifestyle, chronic issues can usually be

controlled to one degree or another, but they continue to lurk beneath

the surface, only to emerge again when one lets one’s guard down, so to

speak. I believe that the key to healing more completely, at a deeper

level, and eliminating the recurrence of chronic problems, is the same

as the key to establishing a path of recovery initially in dealing with

a chronic disease. And that is to be very thorough in one’s approach to

diet. Special food extracts, supplemental nutrients, and natural and

herbal medicines should be used to complement the diet. But the details

of the diet and the supplements taken should be highly individualized

according to one’s tastes, medical history, resources and health goals.

 

COMMON MISTAKES

 

The observations of Price and other anthropologists studying native

people in their indigenous state and in the early stages of

modernization made it clear that even small amounts of “the white man’s

foods” resulted in sickness. We tend to think in black and white terms:

that native people were eating their native diets and were immune to

disease, and then they started eating lots of white flour and sugar and

got sick. What really happened was in many cases much more subtle.

Physicians on Arctic expeditions in the 1920s and 1930s, referred to

above, found that the introduction of relatively small amounts of

refined flour products into otherwise pristine native diets resulted in

some natives developing high blood pressure and heart disease. Northern

Indians and Eskimos Price studied in trading villages commonly ate a

combination of native foods and refined foods, and many developed the

diseases of civilization. Meanwhile, Josef Romeg, a surgeon who spent 35

years amongst native Eskimos and Indians and who was interviewed by

Price in 1933, found that native Alaskans with tuberculosis usually

recovered when returned to their remote native villages—where none of

the white man’s foods was available.

 

This calls to mind the work of Max Gerson, a medical doctor who

developed a dietary treatment for cancer and other chronic diseases in

the 1930s. Gerson’s regime involved large amounts of raw vegetable

juices and raw liver juice (extracted in a special way by pressure, not

by pulverization); fermented raw milk; a variety of natural medications;

and strict avoidance of everything not specifically included in his

program. Very thorough documentation exists showing that many of

Gerson’s patients recovered from advanced cancer (virtually all had not

had chemotherapy, a highly toxic therapy that severely impairs chances

of recovery by natural means). Gerson was adamant that the use of even

the smallest amounts of what he called forbidden foods would prevent

recovery.

 

It’s important to realize that we’re considering here the optimal diet

for people with very serious medical problems. What may work well for

the vast majority of basically healthy people is very different from the

far more stringent routine that seriously ill people may require.

 

The observations of Price, the early anthropologists and Dr. Gerson are

entirely consistent with my own observations over the past twenty-five

years. While most patients feel better and make at least a partial

recovery from medical problems by adopting a diet that includes more of

the foods Price showed us are critical to good health, at the same time

many limit the extent of their recovery by their inability to go further

in eliminating the refined foods that cause problems, while failing to

include adequate amounts of superior foods.

 

With this background, here are what I believe to be the two most common

mistaken thoughts my patients have in attempting to recover from serious

medical problems.

 

1. A little bit of refined foods won’t hurt.

2. A modest amount of high-quality animal foods is enough.

 

I’ve described some of the evidence that shows why number one is a

mistaken thought. From hundreds of case histories from my own practice,

let me give three examples as further evidence.

 

* A 45 year-old man with chronic herpes for years remains completely

symptom-free for several months but when he eats one or two commercial

walnuts or a small cup of soup at a health food store, he breaks out

with herpes sores the next day.

* A 60-year-old woman with painful arthritis in her hips is pain-free

for weeks until eating three or four cookies at a birthday party for her

grandson. The next day, her pain is so severe she has difficulty walking.

* A 22 year-old man with a ten-year history of epileptic seizures at

least every two weeks has no seizures for three months. One afternoon,

he has several handfuls of dried fruit and commercial cashews as a

“treat.” Three hours later, his roommate finds him in the midst of a

grand mal seizure, and he is hospitalized for several days.

 

These are not coincidences. Through careful observation of my patients

and my own body, I’ve concluded that every food eaten has subtle (or

sometimes obvious) effects.

 

The second common mistake in thinking— that a modest amount of

high-quality animal foods is enough—requires first at least a brief

explanation of what high-quality animal foods are. Put simply, these are

foods that come from animals fed their natural diets—grass-fed farm

animals, wild game and wild seafood. This would include raw milk and the

foods made from it (cheese, yoghurt, kefir and especially butter and

cream); red meats, especially organ meats; fish and shellfish; and eggs

from free-range chickens. How much should be eaten raw and how much

cooked, and how cooked, is an important but highly individual matter;

however, the dairy products should always be raw. (Some individuals have

problems with even the best raw milk and raw milk cheeses.)

 

Many of these are the farm-fresh foods we’ve been taught to be afraid of

because they contain cholesterol and saturated fat. And even when one

has some understanding of Price’s work, there’s a tendency to think that

one shouldn’t eat too much of these foods, perhaps just to be safe, to

hedge one’s bets a bit. And the mixed diet we’ve all been taught is

essential—lots of fruits and vegetables and whole grains—only leaves so

much room for animal foods.

But on the contrary, to put it succinctly: for most people with chronic

disease, when it comes to fresh raw or lightly cooked food from

grass-fed animals, you can’t eat too much. And the more the better.

 

THE FAT-SOLUBLE ACTIVATORS

 

This principle is easy to understand in light of Dr. Price’s discoveries

about the importance of fat-soluble activators found in significant

quantity only in seafood and certain fats of grass-fed animals. The

natural forms of vitamins A and D are crucial for mineral metabolism and

immune function. The nutrient Price called “Activator X,” most richly

concentrated in milk fat from cows grazing on rapidly growing pasture,

may be the most important activator of all. Price was able to reverse

tooth decay and cure many diseases using “X-Factor” butter oil

concentrate in conjunction with high-vitamin cod liver oil.

 

The dosage of X-factor oil Price used to treat a four-year old boy

suffering with rampant tooth decay and an unhealed fracture is

instructive—a “large spoonful” five times a day! When I became ill with

Lyme disease, I had for many years used cod liver oil daily, but not the

high-vitamin type, and X-factor oil was not available. (Also, intense

exercise depletes vitamin A and I was doing that on a daily basis.) I

switched to high-vitamin cod liver oil, and when it became available

about a year and a half ago, I added X-factor oil to my supplements.

I’ve since used 2 large tablespoonfuls a day of high-vitamin cod liver

oil, providing about 70,000 IU of vitamin A and 7,000 IU of vitamin D,

and two or three teaspoons of X-factor oil.

 

“High vitamin” cod liver oil is something of a misnomer, for it actually

is “normal-vitamin” cod liver oil. Most popular brands of cod liver oil

today have been molecularly distilled to remove up to ninety percent of

the vitamin A and D. This is in response to the general fear of

overdosing on these vitamins, a fear which has been magnified to the

point that many doctors now tell their pregnant patients not to eat

liver. This fear is based on misinformation, for it is the synthetic

forms of vitamins A and D that are toxic in even moderate doses. The

natural forms of these vitamins, as found in cod liver oil, liver and

butterfat from cows grazing on green grass, are not toxic even in

amounts far greater than the substantial amounts that I and many of my

patients take. The “high vitamin” cod liver oil we use is actually cod

liver oil that contains the normal content of vitamins A and D that

naturally occur in this oil, a superfood that has been used for

centuries as an elixir.

Cod liver oil also provides the fatty acids eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA)

and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), unknown in Dr. Price’s day but now

recognized as important factors to human health.

 

RAW VERSUS FERMENTED

 

Prior to getting Lyme disease, I had for decades habitually consumed a

large raw vegetable salad nearly every day. But about two years ago, I

switched to fermented vegetables almost exclusively, primarily

unpasteurized kimchee, which is loaded with live enzymes. Fermented

vegetables are wonderful for digestion, and provide far more enzymes

than fresh salad vegetables. I believe that the healthiest diets are

built around grassfed animals (meat, organs and bones) and raw milk

products, and fermented vegetables. Traditionally prepared vegetables,

grains, nuts and seeds, fruits and other foods play complementary roles.

 

CAN’T EAT TOO MUCH

 

These facts provide a basis for understanding the principle that most

people with chronic disease simply can’t eat too much top quality animal

food. It’s my belief that this simple but little understood principle is

a key to recovering from chronic disease. It certainly has been central

in my recovery from Lyme disease; I have lived on little but raw milk,

raw or very undercooked grassfed beef, and fermented vegetables, along

with my cod liver oil and X-factor butter oil supplements, for over a

year now.

 

Think too of the “milk cure” described in the Summer, 2002 issue of Wise

Traditions. The milk cure is nothing less than a diet of 100 percent raw

animal food—and it works best when the cows are strictly grass-fed.

 

I mentioned above the fact that chronic diseases often linger and recur.

What appears to happen is that we go far enough with our diets to

alleviate symptoms, but not far enough for long enough to completely

change the body in a way that eliminates all traces of the disease.

Gerson found that eighteen months of intense therapy (and the therapy

was incredibly intense, calling for twelve glasses daily of raw

vegetable juice, three glasses of raw liver juice, fermented raw milk,

coffee enemas, a host of supplements and various other special foods)

were required to have a reasonable chance of eliminating cancer or other

serious chronic diseases. Even then recurrences would strike if one

strayed too far from a very careful diet.

 

My own belief is that human beings are designed to function optimally on

a diet made up exclusively of perfect food. When after a lifetime—be it

20, 40, 60 or 80 years—of eating way too much of the wrong stuff, we

begin eating the right stuff, it just takes time for the body to really

come around. One might feel better quite rapidly indeed, even after just

a few days; I see this often in my patients. But a deep and thorough

healing appears to be a very long process.

 

And the kicker is that even small amounts of poorly chosen or even

less-than-optimal foods appear to slow down or derail the healing

process. An example: early in dealing with my Lyme disease, I adopted an

all raw-foods approach for a time, including raw meat and fish and raw

milk. I also included unprocessed, unheated honey. Over the course of a

few months, it became clear to me that honey was one factor in my diet

that was clearly responsible for the continued low-level symptoms of

Lyme I experienced. Honey was something I simply could not eat if I

wanted full recovery. Similarly, there was no place for any but the

smallest amount of fruit in my diet if I wanted a complete recovery.

This need to eliminate nearly everything sweet in order to get well has

been the case for many of my patients, patients with a wide variety of

medical problems.

 

The highly addictive nature of not only sweets and other highly

processed modern foods, but also carbohydrates in general, including

whole grain foods, makes the extreme regime of the milk cure or any

similar program based on animal foods a difficult proposition for many

people to accept. The heart of the matter lies in the relative

importance one assigns food in the overall scope of one’s life.

 

To put it in terms of extremes: some people see food as entertainment,

as an end in itself, and some see food as fuel, as a means to an end. Of

course we all fall somewhere in between these extremes, but most of us

fall closer to one pole than the other. The more food becomes a means to

an end, the easier it is to gravitate to foods that promote health.

 

This does not mean that eating simple foods cannot be a great pleasure.

In fact, the tastes of plain foods—fresh raw milk, unadorned meat or

fish, perhaps raw or lightly cooked with butter and perhaps spices,

fermented vegetables—become more pronounced and satisfying as one

consistently avoids sweets, breads and other prepared foods. The

satisfying and satiating taste of animal fat far surpasses the instant

and temporary allure of sweets and starches.

 

While it is clear to me that carbohydrates that are either refined or

are not prepared in traditional ways are to one degree or another a

problem for people seeking recovery from chronic disease, the role of

traditionally prepared sprouted and fermented grains is much less clear

to me. I simply don’t have much experience with the latter (I’m a

food-for-fuel type). It seems to me that these foods may often play a

role in healing diets, for Price found healthy traditional cultures that

included traditionally prepared grains. And too, I know of numerous

reliable reports of people recovering from chronic problems using mixed

diets that included traditionally prepared grains as well as bone broths.

 

At the same time, I believe it pays to be aware of how different each of

us is when it comes to nutrition and healing. The principles Dr. Price

discovered apply to each and every one of us, yet it appears that many

of us have idiosyncrasies that profoundly affect our ability to heal and

obtain optimal health. The reward of a willingness to experiment and

make changes can be profound; the confidence that one’s body will

function smoothly and effortlessly into advanced age may provide a

unique satisfaction. And when and if it doesn’t—well, then back to the

drawing board; life is change, and every symptom has a lesson.

 

REFERENCES

 

1. Weston A. Price, DDS. Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, The

Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation, San Diego, CA, 1945, 1970.

2. Ron Schmid, ND. The Untold Story of Milk. New Trends Publishing,

Washington, DC, 2003

3. Edward Howell, MD. Enzyme Nutrition, Avery Publishing, Wayne, NJ, 1985.

 

Sidebar Article

 

HOW I PREPARE MY MEAT

 

Braising: Melt raw butter and coconut oil over steam in a double boiler,

or alternatively in a skillet over low heat. Cut meat into bite-sized

strips and place in melted butter and oil. A minute or so is enough to

braise the surface of the meat and warm the inside. Remove skillet from

heat and turn each piece of meat, return to flame and braise until meat

is cooked to your taste. Add Celtic sea salt, pepper, seasonings,

perhaps a little raw cream. Using minimal heat, meat braised in this

manner can be prepared more or less raw if desired, but is warm and tasty.

 

Searing: I like to use a George Foreman electric grill to sear my meat.

Smear butter over both sides of a steak, chop or burger. Preheat the

grill for a couple of minutes, then grill the meat for 60 seconds or so

if you want it mostly raw but with a great grilled flavor, longer if

your inclination is for more cooking.

 

Slow Cooking: I use an old-fashioned Dutch oven with the heat set to

about 140 to 150 degrees F. to slow-cook roasts of beef, lamb or pork,

and also chicken and turkey. Coat the meat with butter and cook for

several hours. Check the central temperature of the meat with a meat

thermometer periodically. I like my beef and lamb just barely warm, but

cook our home-raised pork and fowl to 150 degrees or so (certainly

undercooked by conventional standards, but a far cry from raw).

 

Eskimo Style: This is my favorite way to prepare fish but it also is

great for beef or lamb. Cut fish or meat into 1-inch chunks. Boil a pot

of water. Immerse chunks in boiling water, leave flame on high, and cook

for 45 to 90 seconds. Pour off water, place chunks in a bowl with lots

of butter, Celtic salt and pepper, and lemon if desired. Enjoy!

 

Raw Meat and Fish: There are many recipes in Nourishing Traditions.for

raw and marinated fish and meat. An easy one is Steak Tartare, made by

simply mixing raw ground beef with raw egg yolk, raw chopped onion and

seasonings.

 

This article appeared in Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the

Healing Arts, the quarterly magazine of the Weston A. Price Foundation,

WINTER 2005.

 

http://www.westonaprice.org/healthissues/chronicdisease.html