Unfortunately, cavities and braces are now so common, many have accepted them as an inevitable part of the modern human experience. Many of us don’t expect to get through an entire lifetime without a single cavity, right?! As I’ll illustrate below, only 8% of us do. Yet, our teeth are not designed to decay. Let us not confuse what is common with what is natural. Natural is defined as being in accordance with or determined by nature. When we look at animals in their natural habitat, eating their natural diets, they don’t have cavities or crooked teeth. That is true of a lion, and true of a human being as well.
Cavities
On the topic of cavities, or dental caries, the Centers for Disease Control reports that 42% of children ages 2 to 11 have had cavities in baby teeth; 21% of those ages 6 to 11 have had cavities in permanent teeth. According to the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, dental disease is the number 1 chronic childhood illness in America. I just wanted add that 92% of adults ages 20 to 64 have had dental caries in their permanent teeth.
Keep in mind that Dr. Weston A. Price, DDS, describes in his book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration how he lined up groups of children and adults around the world eating various traditional diets who had never seen a tooth brush, let alone a dentist, and had less than 1% tooth decay.
While we aren’t suggesting people refrain from brushing their teeth or seeing a dentist, we do recommend that everyone avoid fluoride in their water and toothpaste. To avoid cavities, we recommend you follow our dietary recommendations, based on the findings of Dr. Weston A. Price. If you or your children already have cavities, we recommend you follow the healing protocol outlined by Rami Nagel in his best selling book Cure Tooth Decay.
Orthodontics
In regard to orthodonture, from what I can gather, the consensus is that 70% to 75% of all kids and teens have some type of problem when their adult teeth grown in, typically between the ages of 10 to 13. Some teeth may be crooked, or too crowded, or have too much space between them. Or, they may have an overbite or underbite, as well as other types of malocclusion, which means a bad bite, ranging from minor to severe. More than 3.5 million children and teens begin orthodontic treatment, usually braces, each year in America.
Folks, we were designed for all 32 adult teeth to come in perfectly straight. That is natural. Dr. Price discovered that wherever he traveled, when people ate a traditional diet replete with nutrient dense animal foods and devoid of any industrially produced processed food, they had all 32 teeth come in as “white and straight as piano keys”. As Dr. Suzan Hahn, a San Francisco dentist, explains: “When the jaw bone has enough nutrient density during development, it forms as a wide flat plane and all 32 teeth can come in unobstructed. When nutrients are lacking during the formative period, the bone bows and then the teeth come in crowded, crooked, with under bites, over bites or spaces.” Please read our article, How The Teeth Tell The Tale, which is at the heart of our educational initiative. Please know that even if you have had crocked teeth, your children aren’t necesarily destined to! To nourish a wide smile in the next generation, again, we recommend you follow our dietary recommendations, and our recommendations for pregnant and nursing mothers, which can be started during preconception.
I received permission to share the testimonial that Jenny McGruther posted a couple of days ago on Facebook. Jenny is the author of Nourished Kitchen and Broth and Stock from the Nourished Kitchen.
Many of you know that we adhere to a traditional foods diet (informed largely by the work of Dr. Weston A. Price who found that people adhering to a traditional diet not only have well-formed teeth and palates with little need for orthodontics, but that they also suffer from far fewer cavities than people who eat processed, modern foods, despite their lack of dental care, cleanings and even toothbrushing). It’s things like grass-fed meats, raw dairy, wild-caught fish, sourdoughs and sprouted grains, with minimal sweeteners. We don’t adhere to that diet 100%, but it’s mostly how we eat.
We went to the dentist today and not only is my 11-year-old son still cavity-free, but he will have no need for orthodontics because his palate is wide, his teeth are straight and once his final molars come in, they’ll seal up any gaps. This is in stark contrast to both Kevin’s and my history.
It’s nice to see directly how Dr. Price’s research and studies have benefited my family. It works.
Nourishing Our Children is a good resource, for what its worth! Sandrine Perez, you do good work.
I asked other community members if they have had similar experiences to report! Leah responded: “Cavities are what led us to a more nourishing diet. Since we started almost two years ago, there have been no more cavities.” Here is another testimonial from Meg Dickey, a former Weston A. Price Foundation chapter leader and active community member in our Facebook groups. Both Meg and her husband had braces, and have also had cavities:
I think the best part of our story isn’t that my children are ‘free from cavities’, but that my oldest had cavities, and extreme tooth decay, and we reversed it by following a traditional foods diet – even including grains (soaked/sprouted/soured). He was nearly 3 when we found the Weston A. Price Foundation, while searching for answers to my then 1-year-old’s severe eczema. A friend handed me Nourishing Traditions, and said, “Here, there’s a recipe for formula in here.” It turned into a complete paradigm shift for us. We bought raw milk from Organic Pastures, and then my husband started working for them, and I became a chapter leader, all within 6 months! We saw amazing results with just adding raw milk, bone broth, and Fermented Cod Liver Oil – within a month! I was sold. I followed the Weston A. Price Foundation’s recommendations for pregnancy and nursing with my 3 youngest, and they have perfectly straight teeth, with plenty of room to grow in their palates. I’m so thankful for finding real answers in traditional food!
Monica Corrado of Simply Being Well, who is also a Weston A. Price Foundation chapter leader, writes:
I have been eating according to the dietary recommendations made by the Weston A. Price Foundation style since 1998, ever since I met Sally Fallon Morell and read Nourishing Traditions. During my pregnancy with Bodhi, I ate lots of delicious raw cream and drank raw milk … ate pastured butter and grass-fed meat and pastured poultry and lots of eggs. I loved homemade egg nog. I had a very easy pregnancy, no medical problems, no worries. Bodhi was born 10 pounds, 4 ounces. He nursed for 2 years and 10 months, while I ate a nutrient-dense diet. He has been drinking raw milk ever since then, as well as eating homemade yogurt and kefir, soaked oats and grains, and lots of meat stock and bone broth. Body is now 11, and he has a beautiful wide smile, gorgeous white teeth, and has never had a single cavity. He is also strong and sturdy, and the tallest boy in his fifth grade class. I am sure his good health has much to do with the way we eat and prepare our foods.
Monica also noted that while she didn’t have braces, they were recommend to her because her teeth aren’t perfectly straight, and her husband doesn’t have a wide palette, but a relatively narrow one, unlike their son. Amanda Blakenship of Lazy B Ranch shared:
I had lots of cavities early in life, age 5 to 14. Luckily, I switched my diet in my early 20s, due to autoimmune reactions, and I have had no cavities since. My kids, ages 6 and 7, have no cavities and I hope to keep it that way. We eat all of our pastured animals and fats, avoid sugars, GMOs and processed foods.
Melissa Ann reports: “My son is 6 and has never had a cavity. I think me taking Fermented Cod Liver Oil and Concentrated Butter Oil along with drinking raw milk while pregnant helped. He drinks raw milk, I think that helps too. We eat mostly organic and avoid fluoride. I had cavities as a kid so I hope he continues to be cavity free.” I could continue with more testimonials than many of you may be interest in, so I’ll end with this one provided by James Smith:
My children, now 5 and 8, have not had any cavities, although there was one spot a dentist wanted to keep an eye on. That dentist gave my youngest a flouride treatment without my knowledge or consent and is consequently no longer our dentist. While we have not been exclusively following the recommendations made by the Weston A. Price Foundation since their birth, we’ve been very intentional about getting nutrition according to the guidelines since discovering it. While others around us are having to have dental work done, we’ve still not had any and continue to feed our children good quality food and fats and teach them accordingly so that they understand why we do it. I’m guessing we starting following these dietary recommendations when they were about 2 and 4, although our diet was already fairly good. It was the change in knowledge and attitude of saturated fats that required the most change in diet.
I also recommend our articles The Tale of Two Brothers and Reverse the Trend.
16 Responses to Cavities and orthodontics are not inevitable.
Interesting article, since I have just been to the dentist today with my 14 year old daughter. My testimony is not quite so positive unfortunately… In rural France, our family has closely followed Dr Price’s work and our children are raised on a fairly traditional and quite healty diet (with exceptions like everyone else). Especially my daughter, as even as a young child was a very good eater (her first raw oyster at 2 years old). We make out own yogurt and always have homemade meat & bone stocks on the go. Grow some of our veg but the rest comes from local organic farmers. We are on a first name basis with the person making our raw dairy products (sheep, cow and goat), all different meat farmers, honey from the village, raw milk butter, raw milk creme fraiche, organic sourdough bread with locally stone milled flour and the list goes on ! They even made a television show about us years ago as we were the family that didn’t buy any food at the supermarket. So back to my visit to the dentist this morning. My daughters teeth are a bit of a train wreck ! At 14 she still has quite a few of her first teeth, a canine that has grown in between her front bottom teeth that have yet to fall out and on and on ! So suggesting orthodontic work, pulling teeth, moving teeth, implants …. OMG ! How much better could I have done with her diet ? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame her diet and will carry on eating this incredible food but I guess there are always exceptions…. :( PS She has no cavities though :)
A few thoughts come to mind. None of these questions are intended to cast any blame, just questions to explore!
1. What did you eat during preconception and while pregnant, and while nursing if your nursed?
2. Do you have other children?
3. If so, what was the spacing between your children?
4. Did you breastfeed? If so, how long?
5. How are your teeth and that of her father? Grandparents? Siblings?
6. Sometimes it can take more than one generation to reverse the trend.
Thanks for your reply Sandrine (not feeling any cast blame ;) )
1. Whilst pregnant, I wasn’t eating as good ingredients as I am now but still very little processed food and lots of home cooked. Shopped at least for meat or Veg in markets. Probably getting better whilst nursing as moved to where I am now and starting to build my network of suppliers.
2. 1 other
3. 4 years younger
4. exclusively breastfed for 6 months and then added solids but continued to breastfeed until 14 months (never forumla or premade baby food)
5. Other that quite a few child hood fillings, I have incredible straight and strong teeth (never had braces) but my husband has always had teeth problems. Its obviously his side of the families fault :)
She is an incredibly healthy and strong girl with an impressive immune system, she just has crappy teeth !
How are the teeth of her sibling?
Better but he is only 10. He’s losing his baby teeth as a more normal rate, but has had a few cavities. She actually has teeth that are missing and and baby teeth that haven’t fallen out.
That is unexpected. Missing teeth, as shown via x-ray? Huh? I’ll ask Sally Fallon Morell her thoughts on this one!
Thats right. No sign of at least 4 or 5 teeth on x-ray. Ohhhh thank you for asking Sally, appreciate your interest ;)
My wife and I started incorporating the Weston A. Price Foundation’s dietary principles before conception. Our daughter is now 6 and has never had any cavities or orthodontics issues. My wife nursed up to about the age of 5, but because of a low milk supply (due to underlying health issues), our daughter was supplemented with the raw milk based formula published in Nourishing Traditions, from birth until about 1 year. Our daughter’s diet consists of a lot of raw grass-fed milk, plenty of fat (i.e. ghee, tallow, cream, butter), raw egg yolk (about 2 daily, mixed in raw milk), raw milk Kefir, organ meats (desiccated in capsule form), grass-fed beef, some cooked veggies, the occasional raw veggies, sea veggies (desiccated in capsule form), A few berries/sprouts- mostly freeze dried and mixed into milk, a small amount of soaked nuts/seeds, Soup from stock of bones and/or bone/marrow/cartilage (desiccated in capsule form). Supplemented with cod liver oil, krill oil, emu oil, and 1000 IU of Vitamin D3 daily. Very small amounts of fruit and sprouted grains.
My toddler had cavities and eczema from fifteen months to three years. When he was two we did the GAPS diet for three months then a Nourishing Traditions diet to this day that child has never had another cavity. The past two years the eczema pops up after the holidays and goes away when the sugary treats are gone. Big healthy eleven year old, rosy cheeks, great outlook on life.
My 13 year old daughter’s teeth all have space between them and I keep getting told that her molars won’t push them together. Any thoughts?
I found out about WAP diet when my daughter was about 1 1/2. I started sourcing grass -fed meats, only organic produce, making bone broth, cod liver oil etc. She is now six and although her face doesn’t look wide, she has plenty of space between her teeth and hasn’t had a cavity yet. Very pretty looking girl! Also with my second child, I followed the pregnancy diet and his health and strength and teeth are amazing. When he was weighed at the hospital, they brought out the weigh scale three times to make sure as he looked small, but weighed a lot (8.8 pounds). Obviously his bones were really dense! He is a very handsome looking boy, with a nice round face. His teeth are wide and spread apart. I nursed and used WAP formula for 15 months with meats and broths as first foods. I’ve continued with both children on the WAP diet sourcing fruits and veg organic or from farmers, raw dairy, sourdough bread, broths, cod liver oil, grass fed butter etc. My son’s teeth are nicely spaced with no cavities. My in-laws watch the kids once a week and give them non-WAP foods, which I’m not happy about but I try to be somewhat flexible with them as they don’t understand WAP. My son has fallen from things and not broken bones on things that other children his age have broken bones on! Absolutely amazing and so so happy to have come across WAP. I wish everyone could have their eyes opened to it! Most people just give me funny looks when I try to talk to them about it.
[…] teeth that are much less likely to develop cavities and other dental/orthodontic issues. Check out this article, along with articles I will link below, and the work of Dr. Weston A. Price for more information […]
When I last went to a dentist (to look at the cost of having mercury fillings removed), he couldn’t believe that I hadn’t been to a dentist in over 10 years. No cavities, no plaque build-up, strong teeth…I told him that I didn’t eat sugar, processed foods, etc., and he was incredulous! For my son, I have found the effects of the diet to be incredible and well worth the effort of keeping certain foods at bay. Its hard sometimes in our modern society, but it can be done.
Our family overhauled our diet in 2012 and 2013. Our youngest child was born in August 2012 and has had zero trouble with anything with her teeth. Our older children by contrast have had a few significant problems (big cavities, quite a bit of dental work). Also, I healed tooth decay that I had with diet. It definitely can be done.
Animals do get cavities and occasionally have misaligned teeth. Justa farmer.
Our family has been following a real food diet for the past 7 years. I am an advocate of Dr Price’s work and have adhered to it as much as possible. My son now nine has a perfectly formed wide palate and my daughter now 8 has some not very attractive teeth protruding (overjet). After much searching, researching and visiting various dentists I think I can add an additional hypothesis to Dr Price’s observation. Yes the nutrients are important but the other thing that I don’t think that he considered was the fact that the children eating traditional foods weren’t bottle-fed, breastfed for longer, did not get fed pureed food from a spoon and chewed well, i.e. these children had well-developed facial muscles and a correct swallow pattern.
My extensive and exhausting search to find a dentist who didn’t believe that there was nothing I could do for my daughter’s teeth until she was sixteen and needing fixed braces led me down an interesting path (thanks to Rami Nagel’s book, the chapter Your Bite: …see links to websites there). Your child can develop wide dental arches and a beautiful smile naturally and without fixed braces. You need to make sure that the facial muscles, the tongue and cheeks all work together properly and maintain a good posture. Think about it, these muscles all surround the teeth and keep them in the right space. If a child does not swallow correctly or used to suck fingers or hair etc or has their mouth open, the muscles are not allowing the fast growing bones to form in the correct way which pushes the teeth around incorrectly. Simple exercises and or (myo)functional appliances can correct a child’s teeth and palate probably without the need for any fixed braces in the teenage years. Your average dentist either won’t know or tell you about it because if they did they they would put the whole orthodontic profession out of business!
The functional appliances and exercises are more work for the parents and child (certainly at the beginning) but the result is wide arches, well-aligned teeth and are permanent. That compared to braces which usually aren’t permanent unless you wear a retainer for the rest of your life and also damage enamel, cause root resorption and actually don’t necessarily correct the underlying problem of muscle function (leading to tinnitus, teeth grinding or sleep apnoea amongst other things). Fixed braces are also a lot less work for the parents (and dentists) so seem to be an easy win but with long term damage. Did I mention that fixed braces keep a lot of orthodontists in good business?
I don’t visit doctors who don’t treat me as a whole being and who think that an expensive pill will make the problem go away. Well now I choose my dentists carefully too, there are some out there. Find one (hopefully) in your area who understands myofunctional appliances or light-force appliances and understands why it’s better to guide a young growing jaw easily and simply rather than waiting for the growth phase to end in the teenage years. Or speak to a myofunctional therapist.
I am fuming that we have been led to believe that the only option is braces after the growth phase has ended and I believe it time to put an end to lining orthodontists’ pockets for this reason. We should also be advocating baby-led weaning to encourage proper swallowing and stimulate the facial muscles.