In this article, written in the year 2000, Dr. Lowrey responds to a claim that a “vegan” diet destroyed the teeth of this Mormon woman’s unfortunate children, Mormon scripture being incidental to her claim (God says!) and all that (!), citing as evidence the writings of two 1940’s era Doctors regarding their claims for the essential nature of an animal-fat diet and the evils of a vegan diet which she then parlayed into an pro-meat, anti-vegan perspective regarding the Mormon scripture D&C 89 which describes what the Mormons call the “Word of Wisdom” from God directly, regarding diet.
This “Diet Scripture” has been a matter of minor controversy amongst Mormons for almost 200 years. (mostly because it does say just exactly the opposite of what all the Mormons want it to say – which is “exactly” that, according to “their” God, all people should be vegans, except “to save your lives”, where cannibalizing the plentiful dead [animals only hopefully] would be apparently permissible since as Church President, Hiram Smith explained, the only time appropriate to eat animals would be in the severest famine; that the animals would all be dying then anyway, and it would be no crime before God or man to eat the already dead animals in order to save your own life.)
Aside from a brief aside in paragraph 2, Dr. Lowrey refrains from discussing religion in this paper which pertains to animal vs. vegetable fats, vitamins E, F (so called), Factor X, Activator X, acid-alkaline balance and Dr. Lowrey reveals the “True Source” of both the Mysterious X Factors/Activators which proves to undo the whole deal altogether! And also, as usual, the cows have all the answers!
Note: “Oleo” is what they used to call margarine back when Dr. Lowrey was a kid.
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Before I dispute Diane’s claims based on the writings of Dr. Price regarding the inferiority of a vegan diet and the importance of including animal fats in the diet, let me say how sorry I am for her children’s dental problems. While their bad dental health was undoubtedly caused by improper diet, I am certain that it was not due to a lack of animal fats or other animal products.
I would like to introduce a little of my personal family history which I hope will not be too tedious as it does directly relate to the subject of this misunderstanding. So please forgive my style, as the information is important to the case at hand. Since Diane’s claims include her appeal to “revelation” and personal revelatory interpretation of “revelation”, please forgive me if I include a brief encapsulation of some similar experience.
I have been vegetarian since 1977. I undertook a vegetarian diet because of a “revelation” I received during my mission [2 year Mormon "recruiting" mission (1975,6)] regarding this very sec. 89.
I didn’t become a vegetarian right away due to my unwillingness to walk away from my long held mission record for the most dinner appointments, and not wanting to be the cause of great disappointment and financial hardship for my missionary companion, who would have to buy and thaw his own meals if I became a vegetarian while I was setting all the dinner appointments. And I did set them too! I had one each day of the week, two on Saturday and always two, but sometimes three on Sunday, and I was generally booked solid a minimum of two and a half weeks in advance.
We also parlayed every single one of those dinner appointments into new member hunting exercises and became the top baptizing missionaries in Las Vegas. (cheers/jeers) My apologies to anyone who hates me for all that. It was a long time ago and I don’t do it anymore, promise.
So it was with great anticipation and some little trepidation that I waited until after completion of my missionary service to apply my interpretation of that revelatory experience.
I had never met another vegetarian at that time and at that time had done little to no actual research on diet, so for several years my version of a vegetarian diet was not the healthiest – though it was vegetarian. (mostly french toast and peanut butter sandwiches)
Over the years, my reasons for being vegetarian have changed many times, but for many, likely most of the years at this point, what I felt “God” had to say about it was a very important part of my perspective, though I was fortunate to have a “God” who jived well with modern science, and most importantly, with my personal views, which, were, to be fair, (to me, ok) based on the words (scripture to me) that I had “supposed” at the time to be actually dictated by that very “God” that knew best.
And, to me, some of the most interesting discoveries I have made about diet were the result of trying to understand “why” it would be important to my “God” to have things that way, and as I stepped forward, as with all my scientific, business or personal ventures, the path did in fact appear. Always.
STEP FORWARD – PATH APPEAR.
My wife was mostly vegetarian when we met which diet she arrived at also by revelation and became fully vegetarian when we started dating. From that point her 4 children also became full vegetarians.
My 1st daughter was vegetarian from conception. Our daughter together (my 2nd) was also vegetarian from conception. Our diet then was what is termed lacto-ovo, which means that we still used eggs, butter, cheese and milk. The adults also consumed copious amounts of refined sugar, (we were sugar addicts) while discouraging sugar use among the children.
Around September of 1986, our entire family became vegan, also completely eliminating refined sugar. We drove to the the chiropractor's office one morning stuffing down cinnamon rolls and drove home raw food sproutarians!
We were on a 100% raw diet for our first year as vegans and a 90% raw diet for a second year. We stayed on a vegan (though mostly cooked) diet for the ensuing years although it often included very unhealthy elements like diet soda, and during my occasional relapses, beer, pot and cigarettes.
Just as a side note, once I recognized and understood my emotional triggers and admitted to myself that I was truly an addict, and quit these drugs because I wanted to and not just to please God, I was finally able to leave these destructive behaviors behind for good.
I still enjoy an occasional beer as a social refreshment. (I don't think a couple beers on a Sunday afternoon are really going to damage me)
I accidentally got a fish burrito once and ate some of it before I realized what I thought was tofu wasn’t – and apparently, that minor deviation didn’t kill me either.
I believe life should serve you, not you be the servant to it.
At any rate, our vegan diet was not always as healthy as we wish it had been, and it is important to point out that when you have cleansed your body from all the old mucus and decomposed meat (30 – 50 lbs in the colon of the average American) you are much more prone to be affected by new toxins added to your system as the mucus and other dried crud is no longer present to deter absorption. I will address acid diet factors in the second part of this response.
Of my six children, my oldest was semi-vegetarian until age 5 (when his mother and I married - 1984). He had one cavity in one baby tooth and one cavity in an adult tooth which developed after he took control of his own diet at about age 17 and while still vegan, lived essentially on chips, salsa and diet coke. (a very acid diet) At 21, he has yet to develop further carries, and his diet has improved considerably also.
A daughter, also semi-vegetarian until age 2 had no cavities at all until age 18 when after several years of drug use and a chip and soda and cigarette diet she also developed one cavity. Her twin developed her one and only cavity at age 17 from braces rubbing through her enamel.
Another daughter who was vegetarian from conception but who’s mother (not my current wife) smoked and drank a pint of brandy daily during pregnancy and lactation (fortunately her milk dried up after two months) developed one cavity in a baby tooth at about age 9. Now at age 21 she has yet to develop any further carries.
The other two children, one from my wife’s first marriage and one from our marriage (vegetarian from conception and vegan from age 3 months) have at current ages of 25 and 19 had no dental carries of any type. (2005)
So what’s the point? Well, it’s a good one and very interesting data to find in such a small sample.
These children come from three different parent/genetic combinations. My wife had at least 20 cavities as a child and teen and three as an adult (two during the last 14 years as a vegan) and I had also at least 20 cavities as a child including one root canal as a young adult and probably 2 or three cavities and one more root canal as an adult after becoming vegetarian, one of the cavities after becoming vegan 19 years ago. [Note: now in 2005 I still have had only the one cavity since giving up sugar and dairy in 1986]
So I cannot attribute the lack of carries to genetics, especially as the other two parents involved had similar dental histories to mywife's and mine - typical to the standard American meat and sugar diet. I know that the difference was in diet and our cavities as vegans were probably most attributable to daily diet soda in our diet. (an addiction which we have finally and thankfully eliminated) We are now back on a mostly raw diet (about 90% raw in summer and 75-80% raw in winter) and very happy about it. Our children are also following about a 75% raw diet. We are still working to improve the quality of both the cooked and raw portions.
I also should mention that I have been using only distilled water for drinking and cooking since 1978 and we have stoutly refused to have fluoride applied to our families’ teeth, nor have we used fluoride toothpaste. Once our dentist realized we had the healthiest mouths in his practice, he decided to start admiring us and quit fighting with me about his perceived need for fluoride.
While initially I knew no other vegetarians, over the years I have been able to meet many vegetarians and vegans. One thing that seems to be common among them all is good dental health both for adults and children. I can only conclude that Diane’s case is not typical for vegans, nor does it sound typical for non-vegans either. While I can allow that her children’s dental problems might very likely be related to some dietary deficiencies, it is also quite likely that there were other genetic or food quality factors that should be considered.
I have not read Dr. Price’s book nor have I seen his video, but I have read the articles on his webpage that seemed to relate exactly to Diane’s claims against veganism and for animal fat as relates to dental health. I would like to point out that while old truth is no less true because it is old, still Dr. Price was publishing in the 1930’s and there is much more current research that repudiates some of his premises and conclusions.
In many cases, he (and others) begin with a faulty premise and then reach an erroneous conclusion based on that false premise. They also may reveal many good and true findings. I’m sure Dr. Price was sincere, but the value of animal products was one of his errors.
While visiting the Price-Pottenger webpage I read an article entitled “Butter, Vitamin E and the ‘X‘ Factor of Dr. Price” by Royal Lee.
About Royal Lee, the article states:
Dr. Royal Lee - scientist, inventor and nutrition researcher - is probably best known as the founder of Standard Process Laboratories, which specializes in the formulation of natural vitamins derived from food sources.
This article, from the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research, comes from the collection of Joseph Connolly, late husband of Patricia Connolly and one of the founders of the Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation.
Since one of Diane’s claims for the necessity for animal fat in the human diet is the presence of the mysterious X Factor (!!) and this article addressed the X Factor, I am assuming that the conclusions reached in this article will represent to a fair degree the contention that animal fat is desirable and essential.
The author certainly makes that case, as he presents butter as the cure for many ills and suggests that his case for butter over oleo (this paper is essentially an attack on oleo) in addition to the dangers of additives, rests primarily on the value of vitamin E. Lee goes on to report on what he considers the failings of tocopherol (common vitamin E) since it is he claims only the protective factor (preventing rancidity) and not the active factor in wheat germ oil (the primary source for vitamin E then and probably still today). He touts what he calls vitamin F, which is the entire oxidizing agent from wheat germ oil and also containing vitamin E (the tocopherol).
Lee says in part:
The fact that an unsaturated fatty acid as vitamin F is a part of the E complex, probably in molecular combination, explains the close relationship between the two vitamins in their synergistic support of cell division in reproduction, in maintenance of epithelium (where cell division is also predominant), and in kidney and liver metabolism, both epithelial activities. It explains the fact that both are factors in calcium metabolism, vitamin E deficiency resulting in bone resorption, just as vitamin F deficiency results in less calcium available to bone.
The crime of using oleo (margarine) as a butter substitute Lee claims is:
The penalties for using a synthetic, imitation, chemically embalmed substitute for butter seem to be quite drastic. Some appear to be:
1.Sexual castration for the growing child, in more or less degree, with oversized females fatter and taller than the boys. (Remember, meat animals are castrated for the purpose of making them fat.)
2.Loss of ability to maintain calcified structure such as teeth and bones. Dental caries, pyorrhea, arthritis, etc., would be logical end results that would inevitably follow, especially in view of the added influence of other refined and devitalized foods. Dr. Price’s experience in curing arthritis, dental diseases and lowered resistance with good butter directly bears out this conclusion.
3.Evidence is accumulating to show that multiple sclerosis is a result of deficiencies in which vitamin E complex (as found in butter) is vitally involved. Further, vitamin E is now found to be a remedy for the disorders of menopause, showing how these deficiency diseases follow their victim through life.
Now, I have to at this point agree that margarine is simply not good food and probably if one had to make a choice between “pure” butter and margarine he should choose butter.
I say this after having rejected butter as a vegetarian and using margarine for many years. I am very glad to be free from both butter and margarine now.
The fact that margarine is bad for your health does not automatically mean that butter is good for you.
As Lee (quoting Dr. Price) lays into margarine for being hydrogenated, he fails to recognize (or acknowledge) that butter is also formed by a process of hydrogenation. That is what all that churning is about and is the only thing that causes oils to solidify.
He also fails to point out the pharmacology of modern dairy farming and butter production. There is so much unnatural life-threatening chemistry in butter that it would make his list of oleo additives look fairly tame by comparison.
So obtaining “pure” butter would be quite a feat.
You would have to get your milk from a cow that fed from the wild and had no human pharmacological intervention whatever. Where do you find that???
I have found since I quit using margarine (and I was quite embarrassed the last few years that I used it) that anything I eat that I feel needs the flavor and texture enhancing characteristics of butter or margarine can be equally obtained and actually improved on by the use of pure cold pressed (unhydrogenated) olive or flax oil. A little salt may be added for taste, but I never feel the need to do so. [and an occasional taste of the “bad stuff” won’t kill you either!] Note: Do not cook with flax oil.
But, we haven’t said much about the notorious X Factor that Diane made reference to that you supposedly can only get from animal fats and will die and/or lose your teeth without.
Again from Dr. Lee:
...A factor in young grass is apparently the same one as described by Dr. Weston A. Price, in the second edition of his book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, which he called “Activator X” and was found only in butter from cows fed spring grass.
“Activator X” seemed very susceptible to oxidation, being lost in the butter within a few months after its production. “Activator X” was shown to promote calcification and health of bones and teeth in human patients. It inhibited the growth of the caries bacillus (facto-bacillus acidophilus) completely, one test showing 680,000 salivary bacterial count before the use of “Activator X” and none after.
Dr. Lee seems to be trying to say that the vitamin E in butter (or vitamin F) is equal to this X Factor (or Activator X) taught by Dr. Price.
It seems to serve the same functions and the way that this X Factor gets into butter, but not into oleo, is through the grass that the cows eat.
The fabulous X Factor is not truly an animal product found only in animal fat, but is in reality a plant product, only found in animal fat because the animal ingested the plant containing it.
Of course the grass the cow was eating was wheat grass. (all our grains are grass seeds)
I would say that the same benefit to teeth et.al. would be obtained by eating wheat germ, wheat germ oil, wheat grass juice, and likely many other grasses and their products and some algaes.
Passing our X Factor through the cow before we eat it only degrades the quality of the nutrition and does nothing to enhance it. Animal fats are extremely toxic and are reservoirs of accumulated poisons and pharmaceuticals.
While I am sure Dr. Lee was quite sincere in his fear of oleo, I suspect he had no access to research into butter and its constitution or perhaps he would have made the logical conclusion that we should simply get our vitamin E (F)/Factor X from the same place the cow gets it – GRASS.
His analysis of bacterial counts fails to mention the fact that those bacteria thrive in an acid environment and are less present in a more alkaline mouth.
Since butter is typically acid, I have to admit it is a mystery to me at this point how the butter in and of itself could reduce the bacterial count, and since we really are, in America a butter laden society, I wonder just how many pounds of butter a day would one have to eat, since millions of American butterballs are making dentists rich every day.
In his article he gives 14 textual references all from papers delivered between 1914 and 1949. While there is no problem with old truth, the research into vitamins and the dangers of meat and associated animal products had hardly begun by 1950.
There were practical researchers, like Dr. Ehret who’s observational conclusions have been proven over and over by modern science but the actual laboratory analysis of the dangers in production animal chemistry had simply not been done.
Many of Lee’s conclusions are highly speculative and simply not scientific, speculation being an important but a first step only in the scientific process.
Another article on the Price-Pottenger Website is:
Acid-Base Balance of Diets Which Produce Immunity to Dental Caries Among the South Sea Islanders and Other Primite Races by Weston A. Price, DDS, MS, FACD (Read before the New York Dental Centennial Meeting, New York, N.Y., December 4, 1934; reprinted from the Dental Cosmos for September 1935.)
In this article, Dr. Price visits many primitive cultures and compares carries from the indigenous diet and the modernized diet and he finds that the modern diet produces much more carries. He also compares the acid/alkaline construction of the food sources and finds no relationship supporting less carries due to alkalinity in diet.
Not only has modern research completely confirmed the acid – carries connection, but also here is another case of wrong conclusions arrived at because of a faulty premise. Dr. Price simply did not have sufficient understanding of the acid/alkaline balance within the food products themselves, nor did he apparently understand the changes that take place during digestion that allow some semi-acid foods to become alkaline in the body.
But his major faulty premise, to me, is the one where he sees a lower carries rate on the indigenous diet, which happened to include some animal products as proof that animal products enhance carries immunities of some sort.
Certainly, the modernized diet also contained animal fats, surely much more of them. Why was the immunity not improved even more as more cooked and animal food was added and raw plants were eliminated?
To me it is the only logical consideration that it was the elimination of raw alkaline plant food that increased carries.
Still the major flaw in Dr. Price’s proof against alkalinity and for animal products is that he failed to consider (faulty premise) that it could be possible to have NO CARRIES AT ALL and that the lower incidence of carries was NOT animal fats improving the immunity to carries, but rather was the cause of it.
Modern research would conclude that in the total absence of animal products in the diet, the bulk of the plant diet being eaten raw, there would be no carries.
I am a little surprised to see this paper even included on the website, but I suppose that Dr. Price’s research among the natives was a major part of his work.
I may also point out that world travel and observational study of distant cultures was kind of a hobby for many doctors of Dr. Price’s time. There really was no hard science being done from the back of the camel or canoe.
I actually found the evidence Dr. Price presented here to be a bit embarrassing, as it really did not support any legitimate conclusions. His report about the Eskimo is completely contrary to current understanding of the effects of an all meat diet on that culture.
I am sorry that Diane allowed these reports to move her away from a better diet, or the beginnings of one. I am sure that there is a much better explanation for her children’s problems than the supposed deficiency in veganism.
If one does not understand the science behind food, even a vegan diet can fail to promote health. Unfortunately, a meat diet is guaranteed to prevent health. And contrary to Dr. Price’s preference, acid/alkaline balance is an essential part of understanding diet and creating healthy bodies.
Best wishes,
Dr. Gregor Lowrey
