Keys vs. Price, Part 2: Who Got It Right (And What We Do Now)
In Part 1, we met two men who never crossed paths, yet shaped the way entire generations would eat, fear, and feed their families.
Ancel Keys: Confident, data-driven, determined to solve the mystery of heart disease.
Weston A. Price: Observant, reverent, documenting vitality where industrial food had not yet reached.
They asked different questions, worked with different tools, and left behind legacies that couldn’t be more opposed.
Now we ask: Who got it right?
1. What Keys Got Right (and Where It Went Off the Rails)
It’s easy to paint Ancel Keys as the villain — and in many ways, his arrogance and data cherry-picking did real harm. But it’s worth saying:
He wasn’t wrong to be asking why heart disease was rising so rapidly in the post-war industrial world.
He was onto something about lifestyle and modernity. But he zeroed in on the wrong scapegoat — saturated fat — and ignored the messy context that didn’t fit his theory.
He missed:
The rising refined carbohydrate intake
The explosion of vegetable oils like corn and soy
The stress, inflammation, and nutrient depletion of ultra-processed diets
He also ignored data that contradicted his hypothesis — including data from France, where saturated fat intake was high and heart disease was low.
What he captured in graphs, he lost in biological nuance.
2. What Price Got Right (and Why It Still Matters Today)
Price never claimed to have a cure. He didn’t run double-blind trials. He observed, photographed, and honoured the patterns of health in traditional cultures across the world.
He identified:
The importance of fat-soluble vitamins A, D, and K2
The link between food and facial development, fertility, and behaviour
The degeneration that occurred within a single generation of consuming white flour, sugar, and canned goods
The cultural wisdom embedded in fermented foods, slow cooking, and nose-to-tail eating
His biggest insight? Health wasn’t the absence of disease — it was the presence of vibrancy. And that was directly shaped by food quality, preparation methods, and cultural cohesion.
Modern research is now validating what he saw:
Vitamin K2 is essential for calcium regulation and arterial health
Fermented foods improve microbiome diversity and reduce inflammation
Organ meats are powerhouses of nutrients we can’t get elsewhere
Jaw development and narrow dental arches are linked to poor nutrition in early life
Price wasn’t quaint. He was right on time — just not ours.
3. What They Both Missed
Neither man fully grasped the metabolic damage caused by seed oils — especially how they oxidise easily, disrupt mitochondrial function, and incorporate into cell membranes.
Price died before the rise of corn oil and soy.
Keys promoted them as "heart healthy" alternatives to saturated fat.
Neither saw the slow-motion metabolic collapse caused by cheap, rancid oils in nearly every processed product.
(We’ll go deeper on this in another post)
4. So What Do We Do Now?
This isn’t about picking a team. It’s about reclaiming the bits of wisdom that still hold true — and using them in a modern world.
A. Eat like Price would’ve advised
Prioritise animal-based nutrition: liver, eggs, oily fish, bone broth
Choose traditional fats: butter, ghee, tallow, olive oil
Seek out fermented and slow-prepared foods
Honour the value of seasonal, local, culturally-rooted eating
B. Learn from Keys' original concern
Recognise that lifestyle diseases are real — and modern life is a mismatch for our evolutionary biology
Move daily, walk after meals, manage stress, and stop snacking all day long
Ditch ultra-processed food, not just for your heart, but for your mitochondria, brain, and gut
C. Respect bio-individuality
Some thrive on higher-fat. Some need a little more carb. But everyone benefits from:
Nutrient density
Minimising ultra-processed food
Eating in rhythm with real life, not marketing slogans or food charts
5. This Isn’t Just History — It’s Personal
You can trace a straight line from Ancel Keys to your grandmother’s margarine tub. From Weston Price to the kimchi kick you started last winter.
Nutrition doesn’t live in ivory towers. It lives in school lunchboxes, family recipes... and your bloodstream.
When we forget that, we lose our bearings.
When we remember, we reclaim agency — and flavour — and vitality.
The Truth Is in the Pattern, Not the Prescription
Ancel Keys wanted to save lives.
Weston Price wanted to understand what gave life.
One chased death statistics.
The other followed vitality.
You can feel that difference. And you can choose which path you want to follow — not perfectly, but intentionally.
At Whole Life Health, we’re here to help you tune in to that pattern. To strip away the noise. To ask better questions. To live — not just longer, but more vibrantly.
👉 Ready to eat like it matters again?
Book a call and we’ll build your personal template — grounded in wisdom, flexible in application, and shaped for your modern life.
