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Posts Tagged ‘pottenger’

First of all, I am NOT a fan of Dr. Pottenger, who apparently had no qualms about using cats in experimentation and watching them die. However, his studies on cat nutrition are quite valuable.

Back in the 1930’s, there were no chemical procedures to measure the strength of adrenal extract. So, scientists used cats. Cats die without their adrenal glands. So, the amount of extract the cats needed to keep them alive allowed the manufacturers to calibrate the strength of their product. 

Dr. Pottenger noticed that the laboratory cats showed a decrease in their reproductive capacity and many of the kittens born in the laboratory had skeletal deformities and organ malfunctions, despite the fact that he was feeding them a relatively nutritious diet of raw milk, cod liver oil and cooked meat scraps, which included liver, tripe, sweetbreads, brains, heart and muscle.

He received so many donated cats that he was having a hard time keeping up with the food supply, so he ordered raw meat scraps from a local meat packing plant, including the viscera, muscle and bone.  Being a scientist, he separated the cats so that the ones being fed the all raw diet could be studied.

Within a few months, the cats fed the raw meat appeared healthier, their kittens more vigorous, and they had a higher survival rate after their operations.   The contrast between the two sets of cats was so startling,  Dr. Pottenger decided to perform a controlled experiment to  scientifically prove his new hypothesis that cats fed a raw diet are healthier than cats fed a processed cooked meat diet.

The experiment included 900 cats over four generations and was well documented by Dr. Pottenger.

All four generations of the raw meat and raw milk groups remained healthy throughout their normal lifespans!

This is important to note: cats eating their true diet of raw meats not only had no illness, they thrived generation after generation!  On the other hand:

The first generation of all three processed food groups developed diseases and illnesses near the end of their lives.

The second generation of all three processed food groups developed diseases and illnesses in the middle of their lives.

The third generation of all three processed food groups developed diseases and illnesses in the beginning of their lives and many died before six months of age.

There was no fourth generation in any of the three processed food groups.

You might want to read that again!  Either the third generation parents were sterile or the fourth generation cats died before birth.

Remember, all four generations of the raw food groups were healthy throughout their normal lifespans.

It’s something to think about.  Perhaps we would be healthier also if we ate our optimal diet of mostly raw, unprocessed, chemical-free foods too!