This is Killjoy Week at Hunter-Gatherer. I’ve railed on the evils of gourmet cupcakes and candy’s powerful sway on children. I’d love nothing more than to villify raindrops on roses or whiskers on kittens based on health grounds. (Hmmm…both are too sweet?) Okay, so you aren’t splurging on cupcakes everyday, you might not have kids, and if you do, Halloween only comes once a year — why does this matter?
Let’s take a look at cavities. There is clear evidence — archaelogical and anthropological — showing that hunter-gatherers have dramatically fewer cavities than agriculturalists who came after. Here is data based on skeletons in North America around the transition to agriculture. Before agriculture, fewer than 5% showed signs of a cavity at death. That jumps to over 20% with agriculture (around 500-1,000 A.D. in this case). Remember that these people aren’t eating hard candy and Twizzlers, they’re primarily adding more grains and grain-products to their diet.
Full paper here, via Nat Geo’s Spencer Wells and his new book, Pandora’s Seed: The Unforeseen Cost of Civilization.
Of course, this is old hat to people in the paleo community, primarily due to the research of Dr. Weston A. Price, a dentist from Cleveland who traveled the world in the 1930s looking for isolated peoples living their traditional diet. His mangum opus, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, documented case after case of healthy teeth among people eating their indigenous diet, and those same people ravaged by dental problems as soon as they started eating the White Man’s food. Dental problems were one of the worst ongoing health epidemics in the world leading up to regular tooth brushing and fluoride in our water supply not so long ago.
Looking at the pictures below reminds me of those frightening before and after photos of meth addicts. At left, healthy people who eat traditionally. At right, people from the same tribe who eat the White Man’s food.
Don’t forget to brush your teeth. And beware the White Man’s food.
Since starting to eat paleo, I stopped using toothpaste, brushing my teeth only with water and occasionally with baking soda, and my teeth appear to be fine, though I haven’t been to the dentist since going paleo. Does anyone have any input on brushing with just water and/or baking soda? I floss as well, and I have definitely noticed that my teeth "feel" stronger, I don’t get that "loose" feeling that I sometimes felt when eating even what I thought was a relatively healthy, predominantly vegetarian diet.
Ingredients:
4 tablespoons baking soda
2 tablespoons coconut oil (warmed to liquid state)
3 teaspoons xylitol – sweetener (optional)
15 drops peppermint oil – flavor (optional)
Allison says: “Mix everything in a small bowl until it forms a uniform paste. Add more peppermint oil five drops at a time, tasting as you go, if you like it stronger. Transfer to a small glass jar or storage container with a tight-fitting lid. The toothpaste will keep unrefrigerated for months.”
@John says ‘don’t forget to brush your teeth’. Why would you need to brush your teeth if you eat paleo? Can you be killing the good bacteria as well as the bad by doing so? I guess my question is: is there any evidence to support your statement?
B
I believe there are cat studies out there show that it can take generations to have the same strength teeth (and other health markers) after health defects. And healthy childhood development may play a role, which not everyone had.
John
Thanks, John. How timely since I’ve my quarterly cleaning set up for July 8th. This could not be more spot-on. Wasn’t corn one of the main reasons why the Maya and Aztecs gott so much shorter and started seeing signs of heart disease and tooth decay!?!? I would also argue that it probably contributes heavily to the rampant diabetes amongst the Pueblos.
Anyway, thank goodness for meat. I have pretty decent teeth. Dan of Grazin’ Angus Farm (you may know him from local greenmarkets) swear it’s because eat so much darn liver while so many other customers pass it right by.
On a serious note, can we also remind people to floss, given that we are living in an era of rampant tooth decay and screwed up teeth due to poor diet? …and on a sillier note, I have never consumed whiskers on (or off of?) kittens, but I must say that raindrops on roses sounds delicious. Have you ever had tea made from roses? Lovely stuff. If you combine roses with lemongrass and chamomile, it’s very pleasant.
The funny thing is that most modern dentists don’t recognize the deleterious affects of a high-carb diet on teeth. I went to my parents’ dentist once because I had chipped my tooth. As he was doing a quick cleaning he noticed a lot of plaque. He blamed my plaque (and what he noted as an increase in plaques and tooth decay) on diet. The diet to blame? The fad diet of Dr. Robert Atkins. He told me the recent popularity of low-carb/high meat and protein diets like Dr. Atkins was cause an increase in plaque and tooth decay and that I should stick with whole grains and other complex carbohydrates. What I didn’t tell him was that I was nearly a vegetarian at the time and all I ate was whole grains, lentils, beans, green veggies, fruits, and only a sprinkle of meat.
So true John. Price’s book is amazing. Dental health can be a first indication of overall health. So if its bad for your teeth, its definitely bad for the rest of the body. Grains and sugar aren’t much different from a drug. Highs and Lows, withdrawl, negative side effects.Great Post.